Law Commons^™

Catastrophic Oil Spills And The Problem Of Insurance, Kenneth S. Abraham

Vanderbilt Law Review

The BP oil spill of 2010 focused considerable attention on the operating conduct of BP, on the potential liability of BP and other entities associated with the spill, and on the fund that BP established to provide compensation to victims of the spill. Much less attention has been paid, however, to the nature and scope of insurance covering losses caused by catastrophic environmental disasters such as oil spills. BP's establishment of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, and the compensation that will be paid by that facility, will likely dampen awareness of the mismatches between the resulting losses and the insurance …

Paying For Advice: The Role Of The Remuneration Consultant In U.K. Listed Companies, Ruth Bender

Vanderbilt Law Review

Compensation consultants are an integral part of the process of determining executive pay in large listed companies. This study reports interview-based research with protagonists in setting executive compensation in twelve FTSE 350 companies and addresses why the consultants are used, what they do, and how they are perceived.

Consultants have several important roles. Firstly, they act as experts, providing market data and advising on plan design and implementation. Because of this role, they not only guide their clients as to the requirements of the market, they also help create those selfsame market practices and norms. They also have a role …

Optimizing Private Antitrust Enforcement, Daniel A. Crane

Vanderbilt Law Review

Private litigation is the predominant means of antitrust enforcement in the United States. Other jurisdictions around the world are increasingly implementing private enforcement models. Private enforcement is usually justified on either compensation or deterrence grounds. While the choice between these two goals matters, private litigation is not very effective at advancing either one. Compensation fails because the true economic victims of most antitrust violations are usually downstream consumers who are too numerous and remote to locate and compensate. Deterrence is ineffective because the time lag between the planning of the violation and the legal judgment day is usually so long …

Large Law Firm Misery: It's The Tournament, Not The Money, Marc S. Galanter, Thomas M. Palay

Vanderbilt Law Review

Will young lawyers truly be happier and more fulfiled if they can restrain their appetite for money? Professor Schiltz's wonderful sermon certainly provides a stirring argument in the affirmative. In his eyes, it is greed (or materialism) that has led to the decline of the profession and makes lawyers unhappy. Lawyers' lust for money is at the root of their unhappiness with the profession.' This is broken down into two steps: "[m]oney is at the root of virtually everything that lawyers don't like about their profession: the long hours, the commercialization," etc., etc. And their obsession with money leads lawyers …

"Just Compensation" For Lessor And Less, John D. Johnston, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The increase in large-scale federal and state programs utilizing the power of eminent domain have made evident the lack of eminent domain concepts and procedures which will facilitate the completion of these programs without undue delay, while concurrently providing adequate compensation for the damage inflicted upon individual property owners. In focusing upon the measure of compensation payable when the interests of lessors and lessees are taken, Professor Johnston questions the validity of two generally accepted concepts of existing doctrine, the market value approach to compensation and the unit valuation approach to apportionment. He points out that, although a judicial reassessment …

Federal And State Condemnation Proceedings--Procedure And Statutory Background, William E. Miller

Vanderbilt Law Review

The development of our modern and complex society has necessitated a widespread appropriation of private property for public use. The vital importance of present-day eminent domain is emphasized by the staggering proportions of recent and proposed takings in terms of the amount of land appropriated, its monetary value, and the number of individual citizens whose property is affected. In the Middle District of Tennessee alone--of course a small part of the national total-in excess of 700 tracts or parcels of land have been condemned during the past seven and one-half years for various projects, including the Old Hickory Dam and …

Equity -- 1960 Tennessee Survey, T. A. Smedley

Vanderbilt Law Review

While no decisions involving momentous developments in equity jurisprudence have been handed down during the past year, the Tennessee Chancery Courts have on several occasions demonstrated a tendency to free themselves from artificial restrictions on the operation of traditional equitable remedies. Illustrating this inclination are cases which resulted in decrees removing a cloud on title, granting partial specific performance of a land sale contract, awarding punitive damages, and granting injunctive relief against a county's perpetration of a nuisance. Another series of cases contributed some clarifying rulings regarding the scope of the right to jury trial in chancery proceedings.

Personal Torts Within The Family, Val Sanford

Vanderbilt Law Review

If a person, while under the influence of intoxicants, drives his automobile at excessive speed, loses control of it, jumps the curb and strikes a pedestrian, injuring him severely, there would be little question, nothing else appearing, that he would be liable to the injured pedestrian in an action for damages. The premises underlying a conclusion of liability in such cases are obvious. It is in the interest of society that injured persons be compensated and rehabilitated; and our conceptions of justice are such that ordinarily it seems fair that the party who was at fault, whose action caused the …

Eligibility For Benefits, Lee G. Williams

Vanderbilt Law Review

The various state unemployment compensation statutes measure eligibility for unemployment "benefits" or "insurance" or "compensation" by means of a variety of yardsticks. "In the Federal-State system of unemployment insurance established in this country under the Social Security Act, the individual states have been free to develop the particular program that seems best adapted to conditions prevailing within the State. Consequently no two state laws are alike; and the differences are increased by amendments from year to year."

The term "eligibility," as used in the unemployment compensation field, includes many statutorily prescribed factors which themselves differ from state to state. These …

Particularizing Standards Of Conduct In Negligence Trials, James Fleming Jr., David K. Sigerson

Vanderbilt Law Review

The general principles to be applied by court or jury in deciding whether conduct is reasonable have been examined elsewhere.' The problem to be dealt with here concerns the specific application of the law's standard of conduct to concrete cases. How, that is, may it be shown what a party or his opponent should have done, in the way of taking precautions or the like, in the situation presented by the evidence? What kinds of proof or argument are available to make this showing? When must such a showing be made by proof? Is the jury or court to determine …