Law Commons^™

Norms Of Pride And Resistance: Psychology, Virtue, And The Blackmail Puzzle - Draft - 12-31-1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Blackmail law can impact on the belief structures (moralisms) and behaviors of both the potential criminal and the potential victim; it also can affect the conceptual and value structures of lawyers and other societal onlookers. These issues surrounding what one might call the "symbolic" virtues of outlawing the act of blackmail may help to explain why blackmail law seems relatively unconcerned with the well-being of the victim.

Norms Of Pride And Resistance: Psychology, Virtue, And The Blackmail Puzzle - Draft 11-17-1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Blackmail law can impact on the belief structures (moralisms) and behaviors of both the potential criminal and the potential victim; it also can affect the conceptual and value structures of lawyers and other societal onlookers. These issues surrounding what one might call the "symbolic" virtues of outlawing the act of blackmail may help to explain why blackmail law seems relatively unconcerned with the well-being of victims who would prefer to pay rather than prosecute their tormenters.

The Gains From Faith In An Unfaithful Agent: Settlement Conflicts Between Defendants And Liability Insurers, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

A pervasive problem in the settlement of liability litigation arises because liability insurers bundle their promise to indemnify the insured with a promise to represent the insured in settlement and litigation [see, e.g., Beckwith Machinery Co. v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 638 F.Supp. 1179 (W.D. Pa. 1986)]. Standard policies not only require the insurer to pay for legal representation but, more importantly, give the insurer the privilege of controlling the litigation and settlement process. The problem is how to resolve the conflict of interest between the insurer and the insured that may arise during settlement negotiations. This conflict is manifest when …

Efficiency And Individualism, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

Law and economics-the systematic application of neoclassical price theory to legal problems 1 -has dominated the legal academy in recent years. One recent study found that law and economics "for several decades appears to have pervaded about one quarter of scholarship in elite law reviews,"2 and that figure may seriously understate the theory's influence.3 A number of justifiably wellregarded scholarly journals devote themselves almost exclusively to economic analysis of law, and the subject is now a regular part of law school curricula.' Perhaps most importantly, law and economics is a pervasive and influential presence in informal academic discussions. Even legal …

Aals Speech, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Marshall has also said I can speak as long as I want, so scream when you've had enough.

Letter From Professor Timothy J. Brennan, Timothy J. Brennan

Scholarship Chronologically

Dear Wendy,

Thanks for sending me the recent pair of articles. I just had a chance to read them today while I'm getting my furnace and AC replaced. I enjoyed them very much, both for the chance to think about copyright issues and to read yet again your creative and insightful approach to them.

The most intriguing thing about the Dayton piece was the asymmetric mar- ket failure idea. (I'll come back to the prisoners' dilemma in connection with the LCP paper!) Your point that justifying copyright requires the belief that intellectual property markets won't work without copyright and that …

Blackmail And Transactional Structure - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

The Coase Theorem operates in a world where mistaken allocations can be cured by trade. But blackmail involves two areas where mistaken allocations are likely to be permanent: free speech and reputation.

Blackmail And Moralisms: Victimhood And Aristotelian Pride - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Of those persons who favor laws against blackmail, many take that position because of the moral nastiness of the blackmailing act ("pay me or I'll tell ...") These commentators are sometimes blind to where the self-interest of the so-called victim lies, for the victim often prefers paying for silence to having his secrets revealed. Much of the sophisticated literature on blackmail focuses on this gap in vision. Blackmail is called paradoxical because (among other things) it is a crime that a victim would often rather suffer than have discovered and prosecuted.

Preliminary Notes On Blackmail Piece For University Of Pennsylvania - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

There are several potential insights whose interrelationship I'd like to explore. First, some allocation of rights are not likely to be transferable. Two of the major interests involved in blackmail--namely, reputation and free speech--are of this type. This may in itself help to explain some of the paradox of blackmail.

Whose Law Is It Anyway?, Susan P. Koniak

Faculty Scholarship

What can and should be the role of private groups in creating and maintaining law? What can and should be the relationship between law-giver and law-receiver? These fundamental questions haunt each of the essays that make up Corporate Lawbreaking and Interactive Compliance (hereinafter Corporate Lawbreaking).' These questions, though not the explicit focus of the book, are questions to which the essayists and editors of this book are speaking whether they realize it or not. Seen as a series of discussions on the role of non-state groups in creating and maintaining law, this book is provocative and worth reading. Some of …

Personal Narratives And Racial Distinctiveness In The Legal Academy, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

A small group of legal academicians is embroiled in yet another debate that, to the uninitiated at least, appears to have little or nothing to do with "the law." ¹ This time the issue is the ideology of legal writing style-that is, does a growing, unique body of legal scholarship that draws on the personal experiences of minority faculty and, arguably, reflects the racial oppression these scholars have suffered, produce "distinct normative insights?" ² Professor Patricia Williams of the University of Wisconsin clearly believes that it does.

In her new book, The Alchemy of Race and Rights,³ which is …

The Law Between The Bar And The State, Susan P. Koniak

Faculty Scholarship

The traditional understanding of the relation between law and professional legal ethics is that legal ethics covers matters not covered by law; that ethics sits passively above law, starting where law leaves off. In this Article, Professor Susan Koniak argues that this understanding is wrong. She asserts that professional ethics are in competition and conflict with law as it is embodied in the pronouncements of courts and legislatures. Although "law" is usually considered to be the near exclusive preserve of the state, the Article contends that private groups also have "law," but it is usually called "ethics." The legal profession's …

The Eichmann Trial, The Jewish Question, And The American-Jewish Intelligentsia, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

The abduction, trial, and execution of Adolf Karl Eichmann by the state of Israel, fifteen years after the shutdown of the crematoria at Auschwitz, challenged the American Jewish intelligentsia to confront the Jewish question.4 What does it mean to be a Jew in America and who is an American Jew? Is the Jewish history of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust also a part of American-Jewish history? Is there a lesson in the destruction of European Jewry-the triumph of anti-Semitism, the failure of assimilation-relevant to American Jews? Is there a national component to being Jewish? Are Jews a people? If so, is …

Letter To Ms. Sheddy Murphy On Paper For Cd-Rom Symposium, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

As you know, I am revising the piece primarily by combining it with my oral remarks. Thus I am sending you the original version of the article as you sent it to me, with corrections inked in, and I am also sending several separate typed pages (adapted from the oral remarks), with indications where they fit into the piece. The new pages have several footnotes, but in most cases the footnotes refer to sources cited in the earlier version. I can also send you photocopies of any material cited, if you wish. I hope this is not too burdensome. The …

Asymmetric Market Failure And Prisoner's Dilemma In Intellectual Property, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

When competitors engage in unrestrained copying of each others' intangible products, the structure can resemble a prisoner's dilemma in which free choice leads to unnecessarily low individual payoffs and low social welfare. There are many ways to avoid these low payoffs, such as contract enforcement, direct regulation of copying behavior through IP, and direct government subsidies. All of these modes alter the payoff pattern away from prisoner's dilemma.

When should lawmakers place copyright law or other IP law among the prime options to consider?

Because copyright, patent, misappropriation and the like all work through private-property markets, one key is to …

Reality As Artifact: From Feist To Fair Use, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers more than most people should be aware that what language calls "facts" are not necessarily equivalent to things that exist in the world. After all, when in ordinary conversation someone says "it's a fact that X happened," the speaker usually means, "I believe the thing I describe has happened in the world." But when a litigator presents something as a "fact," she often means only that a good faith argument can be made on behalf of its existence. Two sets of factfinders can look at the same event and come to diametrically opposed conclusions-each of which is binding, but …

Cd-Rom Symposium Transcript Two - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

MR. METALITZ: I think the point there is that amputation of authorship is really kind of an artifact of the registration process. You wouldn't be that concerned.

Cd-Rom Symposium Transcript One - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Enclosed are the corrected pages of the transcript. The article itself will follow shortly.

'Atomistic Man' Revisited: Liberalism, Connection, And Feminist Jurisprudence, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

One of the major strains of feminist jurisprudence has criticized American law, and the liberal jurisprudence and political philosophy on which it is said to be grounded, as male or masculine.' A central theme of the critique has been that the law embodies a masculine perspective in emphasizing autonomy and the individual over interdependency and the community. Liberalism has been viewed as inextricably masculine in its model of separate, atomistic, competing individuals establishing a legal system to pursue their own interests and to protect them from others' interference with their rights to do so. Hence, it is said that liberal, …

On Owning Information: Intellectual Property And The Restitutionary Impulse, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Every day someone invests time, labor, or money in creating a valuable intangible. Someone collects information, creates an idea, designs a boat hull, writes a book, or comes up with a new way to market a product that someone else developed. Judicial treatment of these and other cognate occurrences has shifted dramatically in recent years.

Draft Of Reality As Artifact: From Feist To Fair Use - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Lawyers more than most people should be aware that what language calls "facts" are not necessarily equivalent to things that exist in the world. After all, when in ordinary conversation someone says "It's a fact that this [ X ] happened," the speaker usually means, "I believe the thing I describe has happened in the world". But when a litigator says something is a "fact" she often means only that a good faith argument can be made on behalf of its existence. Two sets of fact finders can look at the same event and come to diametrically opposed conclusions-- each …

Letters To University Of Pennsylvania Law Review Regarding Symposium On Blackmail, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

It's a pleasure to be writing to someone of the same name. You asked that the symposium participants write you regarding the focus of our papers for the symposium, and to indicate the expected page length.

Defining The Prisoners' Dilemma, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Formally, a prisoner's dilemma is defined as follows: There are two participants symmetrically situated. For each player, her payoff if she refuses to cooperate with the other player is higher than her payoff would be if she cooperated, and this is true whether the other chooses to cooperate, or chooses to defect. If both cooperate, her payoff will be higher than if both defect.

Handwritten Notes On Of Harms And Benefits: Torts, Restitution, And Intellectual Property - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Copyright and patent take the form of ordinary property. As tangible property has physical edges, intellectual property statutes create boundaries by defining the subject matters within their zone of protection. As real property owners have rights to prevent strangers from entering their land. intellectual property statutes and case law grant owners rights to exclude strangers from using the protected work in specified ways. As tangible property can be bought and sold, bequeathed and inherited, so can copyrights and patents.

Health Warnings, Smoking, And Cancer - The Cipollone Case, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The figures have become familiar. Tobacco use has been declared "the single most important preventable cause of [premature] death in the United States, accounting for one of every six deaths, or some 390,000 deaths annually. "The health goals of the nation for the year 2000 call for reducing the prevalence of cigarette smoking to 15 percent among adults (a 48 percent decrease from the current 29 percent) and reducing the rate of beginning smoking among teenagers to 15 percent (a 50 percent decrease from the current rate of 30 percent). The goal of reducing smoking in the United States is …

Equity And Hierarchy: Reflections On The Harris Execution, Steven Calabresi, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

The legal controversy surrounding the execution of Robert Alton Harris is only one in a series of cases over the past few months testing the proper relationship between the Supreme Court and the inferior federal courts. Controversy over inferior federal court grants or denials of injunctions concerning Haitian refugees1 and the French abortion pill2 have starkly raised, as does the Harris case3, profound questions concerning Supreme Court review of inferior court rulings on issues involving equitable relief. The Harris case did not display the American legal system at its finest. None of the participants in the process distinguished themselves-not the …

Proving The Law, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

Interpretative theory has become a major growth industry over the past two decades. Legal academics in particular have invested heavily in the enterprise, producing a burgeoning literature that addresses many of the most important problems of legal interpretation.1 The discussion to date, however, has largely neglected one critical aspect of interpretative theory: the selection of appropriate standards of proof for legal propositions. That neglect will not bother or surprise interpretative skeptics who doubt the utility of searching for "true" or "better" meanings of texts, but it ought to prove troubling to any theorist who wants to make absolute or comparative …

Setting Standards For The Use Of Dna-Typing Results In The Courtroom - The State Of The Art, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

DNA typing, sometimes called DNA fingerprinting or profiling, has been the focus of heated exchanges in courtrooms, the popular press, and scientific journals. It is a powerful law-enforcement weapon, especially in cases of rape, because it has the potential to exonerate a suspect or to place him at the scene of a crime. On the other hand, it is of no use in rape cases like those in which William Kennedy Smith and Mike Tyson were accused, in which coitus is conceded to have occurred and the only real issue is consent. When should judges permit evidence from DNA typing …

The Supreme Court, Liberty, And Abortion, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Abortion has aroused intense personal and political passions for almost two decades in the United States, and demeaning sloganeering has long substituted for reasoned discourse. Just as few people have actually read the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, few people who have expressed their opinion on the Supreme Court's ruling in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, which has been condemned by activists on both sides of the debate about abortion rights, have read it. In one poll, however, more than 70 percent of Americans agreed with the restrictions upheld by the Court as they understood …

Adding Injustice To Injury - Compulsory Payment For Unwanted Treatment, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

A New York court this year issued one of the most disturbing and aberrant appellate opinions of the past two decades concerning the right to refuse treatment.1 In my view, the judges ruling in Grace Plaza v. Elbaum made a series of errors: they assumed that institutions can have ethics apart from those of their physicians; they believed that both institutions and physicians are primarily motivated by money; and they approved the use of legal threats by institutions and physicians against patients and their families. In this court's idiosyncratic view, dying and medical care seem to be not about …