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Full-Text Articles in Law

Illegal Agreements And The Lesser Evil Principle, Chunlin Leonhard Sep 2014

Illegal Agreements And The Lesser Evil Principle, Chunlin Leonhard

Chunlin Leonhard

Illegal agreement disputes force U.S. courts to wrestle with multiple competing interests. The courts’ approach has been generally explained and understood in terms of the general rule of non-enforcement of illegal agreements with numerous exceptions. The case law on this topic has been described as “a vast, confusing and rather mysterious area of the law.” This article offers the insight that, contrary to common belief, courts’ approach to illegal agreements shows a consistent pattern. A review of randomly selected cases shows that the courts have by and large consistently (albeit implicitly) applied the lesser evil principle in resolving the disputes. …


Negative Externalities And Subprime Auto Financing: Time To Let The Hanging Paragraph Go(2), Chunlin Leonhard Apr 2013

Negative Externalities And Subprime Auto Financing: Time To Let The Hanging Paragraph Go(2), Chunlin Leonhard

Chunlin Leonhard

Economists generally agree that when private transactions generate negative externalities (i.e. unintended harmful byproduct), government intervention is potentially necessary. Negative externalities are considered socially inefficient because they destroy market supply and demand equilibrium. The existence of negative externalities is therefore one of those rare occasions when government intervention in private transactions is justified. It follows that when the government does choose to intervene, its goal should be to remedy, not to encourage, negative externalities. This article identifies one bankruptcy rule, commonly known as the Hanging Paragraph in the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. § 1325(a)(9), that violates the basic principle of …


Identifying Fungible Goods Under The Ucc Through A Contextual Lens, Chunlin Leonhard, John M. Wunderlich Mar 2009

Identifying Fungible Goods Under The Ucc Through A Contextual Lens, Chunlin Leonhard, John M. Wunderlich

Chunlin Leonhard

Economic downturn causes warehouses to fill up with goods. Many of these goods are fungible products. Some have been purchased, some not. But how these fungible goods are identified in these warehouses – separated and segregated out – for particular customers is of vital importance in certain circumstances. This article seeks to clarify one of those elusive legal concepts under the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) as it pertains to sales contracts: the identification of fungible goods. Under UCC Article 2, parties’ rights and obligations sometimes depend on whether the goods have been identified to the contract. A survey of the …


Beyond The Four Corners Of A Written Contract: A Global Challenge To U.S. Contract Law, Chunlin Leonhard Feb 2008

Beyond The Four Corners Of A Written Contract: A Global Challenge To U.S. Contract Law, Chunlin Leonhard

Chunlin Leonhard

U.S. contract law has developed on the basis of certain essential assumptions such as freedom of contract, autonomy and liberal individualism. Because of those basic assumptions, U.S. contract law primarily concerns itself with only protecting the resulting bargain reached by the parties. Relying on a set of well entrenched contract interpretation and construction principles, U.S. courts will generally refuse to look beyond the four corners of the written contract. Hence, in a U.S. court, a party is entitled to enforce terms of a written contact to the letter. U.S. contract law’s underlying assumptions, however, reflect the core values of the …