Law Commons^™

Tax Transitions, Opportunistic Retroactivity, And The Benefits Of Government Precommitment, Kyle D. Logue

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What if the current federal income tax laws were repealed and replaced with a simple flat tax? What if the entire Internal Revenue Code (with its graduated rates and countless deductions, exclusions, and credits) were scuttled in favor of a broad-based consumption tax? Only a few years ago, such proposals would have seemed radical and extremely unlikely to be adopted. But times are changing. Calls for a drastic overhaul of the Internal Revenue Code have become commonplace, even at the highest levels in the tax-policy community. In addition, proposals that would replace the income tax with a flat-rate broad-based consumption …

External Sovereignty And International Law, Ronald A. Brand

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This essay addresses the need to redefine current notions of sovereignty. It returns to earlier concepts of subjects joining to receive the benefits of peace and security provided by the sovereign. It diverges from most contemporary commentary by avoiding what has become traditional second-tier social contract analysis. In place of a social contract of states, this redefinition of sovereignty recognizes that international law in the twentieth century has developed direct links between the individual and international law. The trend toward democracy as an international law norm further supports discarding notions of a two-tiered social contract relationship between the individual and …

The Influence Of International Practice On The Revision Of Article 5 Of The Ucc, James J. White

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The topic of this symposium is the influence that international law has had on domestic law of the United States. I believe that the story of the revision of Article 5 of the Uniform Commercial Code fits here, but some might dispute that. Although it is certainly fair to say that international practice-in a sense international law-was a powerful influence on the revision of Article 5 of the Uniform Commercial Code, that practice, and the way in which that influence was exerted were almost entirely sui generis to the letter of credit law, practice and history.

How To Negotiate A Sales Contract, James J. White

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A. Introduction 1. In my experience, lawyers begin negotiating only after the business people have decided upon the description and quality of the product, the time of delivery, and the mode and amount of payment. The lawyers are left with the pathological problems - who gets what in case of trouble. 2. Most of those pathological problems relate to the seller's responsibility if the product does not conform to the contract or otherwise fails to please the buyer. These failures can cause economic loss to the buyer, economic loss to a remote purchaser, or personal injury or property damage to …

International Trade Law And The Arbitration Of Administrative Law Matters: Farrel V. U.S. International Trade Commission, Ronald A. Brand

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With support from the executive branch, Congress, and the courts, arbitration has become an increasingly popular method of international dispute resolution. While agreements to arbitrate traditionally were frowned upon, particularly when the dispute involved certain “public law” or “statutory” matters, the situation has changed dramatically in the past few decades. United States courts now routinely order arbitration of disputes implicating important policy issues in securities, antitrust, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (“RICO”), and employment law matters. By the end of the 1980’s, the presence of a public or “statutory” issue seemed no longer to be a distinguishing factor; arbitration, when …

Coordinating Sanctions For Corporate Misconduct: Civil Or Criminal Punishment, David Yellen, Carl J. Mayer

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No abstract provided.

Exchange Loss Damages And The Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act: The Emperor Hasn't All His Clothes, Ronald A. Brand

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In 1989, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved a new Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act. This Act is designed to change and clarify the law regarding judgments on obligations denominated in a foreign currency. It does so by recognizing that old rules preventing judgment in a foreign currency - developed in times of a strong dollar - are inappropriate. Unfortunately, in seeking fairness for plaintiffs when the U.S. dollar is weak, the Act replaces rigid old rules with stiff new rules that fail to address the basic issue of appropriate damages for exchange rate losses. While the …

Hiring Ruled Contractual, Bill Gore, Douglas A. Kahn, Stan Shields

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On December 29, 1988, the California Supreme Court decided Foley vs. Interactive Data Corp., perhaps the most eagerly awaited state supreme court decision in years. The Foley ruling, which immediately was hailed as a tremendous victory for California employers, eliminated punitive damage awards for many wrongfully terminated employees. That was good news for the employers. The decision, however, also provided employers with sobering news. Most significantly, the court ruled that employment relationships essentially are contracts, with terms created by the reasonable expectation of the parties. Thus, the majority of California employees now have a right to sue for breach …

Promise Fulfilled And Principle Betrayed, James J. White

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My responsibility in this paper is to address three questions. (1) How has the legal realist body of thought affected contract law and its application? (2) How will contract law and its application be affected in the future by realist thinking? (3) If the realist viewpoint were fully accepted, what kind of system would result and how would contract law be affected? Because my focus is upon a principal legislative monument to realism, Article Two of the Uniform Commercial Code (the "U.C.C."), and upon its drafter, Karl Llewellyn, I will not answer any of the three questions explicitly. By focusing …

The Decline Of The Contract Market Damage Model, James J. White

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In law school every American lawyer learns that the conventional measure of damages for breach of a sales contract is the difference between the contract price and the market price. Even before these rules were embodied in the Uniform Sales Act and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), they were a staple of Anglo-American common law. They remain the rules with which a court would determine damage liability not only for the sale of goods, but also for the sale of real estate and securities.

Neighbors In American Land Law, Stewart E. Sterk

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No abstract provided.

Use And Non-Use Of Contract Law In Japan, Whitmore Gray

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This article first defines the scope of enquiry, then surveys some of the existing literature, and finally, presents the results of my preliminary survey interviews and questionnaire. It is my hope that it will serve as a basis form discussion leading to better definition of the problems for research in this area, and will suggest ways to proceed to gather the information necessary for more sophisticated exposition and commentary.

Capturing Fiduciary Obligation: Shepherd's Law Of Fiduciaries, Arthur J. Jacobson

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No abstract provided.

Eight Cases And Section 251, James J. White

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[A] continuing sense of reliance and security that the promised performance will be forthcoming. . . is an important feature of the bargain-so states Comment 1 to section 2-609 of the Uniform Commercial Code. At common law, one party to a contract might suffer considerable and justifiable anxiety about the other party's willingness or ability to perform and yet have no legal basis for cancelling the contract or for procuring additional assurances from the other party. Section 251 of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts is designed to provide a remedy for one party's reasonable fears that the other party to …

Contract Law In Modern Commercial Transactions, An Artifact Of Twentieth Century Business Life?, James J. White

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Diligent first year law students study contract law with a passion previously reserved for romantic objects and religious idols. Their professors lead them in extensive and difficult intellectual explorations of the wilds of contract law. There are careful analyses of why damage recovery X will stimulate performance Y, why recovery A is appropriate to encourage the aggrieved party to return to the market, and so on and so forth. Lurking behind this year long analysis are several inarticulate hypotheses: that they make rational evaluations of the threat of legal sanctions; that they respond in other varied and subtle ways to …

Does The Constitution Mean What It Always Meant?, James W. Nickel, Stephen R. Munzer

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No abstract provided.

Enforcement Of A Promise In Modern American Law (Gendai Amerikaho Ni Okeru Yakusoku No Kyosei), Whitmore Gray

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A series of seminar lectures given by Whitmore Gray in Tokyo, Japan during October 1968. Six articles were subsequently published in “Kaigai Shojihomu” (The International Business Law Bulletin) between July 1969 and May 1970.

The sixth and final installment describes the history of contractual enforcement in the U.S. and highlights changes introduced through adoption of the UCC.

Remedies For Breach Under The Uniform Commercial Code (Ucc Ni Okeru Keiyaku Furiko Ni Taisuru Kyusai), Whitmore Gray

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A series of seminar lectures given by Whitmore Gray in Tokyo, Japan during October 1968. Six articles were subsequently published in “Kaigai Shojihomu” (The International Business Law Bulletin) between July 1969 and May 1970. The fifth installment discusses the difficulty of remedies and various methods of enforcement.

Contract Interpretation And The Uniform Commercial Code (Ucc Ni Okeru Keiyaku No Kaishaku), Whitmore Gray

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A series of seminar lectures given by Whitmore Gray in Tokyo, Japan during October 1968. Six articles were subsequently published in “Kaigai Shojihomu” (The International Business Law Bulletin) between July 1969 and May 1970. The third installment introduces the basic principles of contract interpretation.

Contract Formation Under The Uniform Commercial Code (Ucc Ni Okeru Keiyaku No Seiritsu), Whitmore Gray

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A series of seminar lectures given by Whitmore Gray in Tokyo, Japan during October 1968. Six articles were subsequently published in “Kaigai Shojihomu” (The International Business Law Bulletin) between July 1969 and May 1970.

The second installment discusses issues related to requirements compelling completion of a contract or pushing the issue to court.

Contract Interpretation Under The Uniform Commercial Code (Ucc Ni Okeru Keiyaku No Kaishaku), Whitmore Gray

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A series of seminar lectures given by Whitmore Gray in Tokyo, Japan during October 1968. Six articles were subsequently published in “Kaigai Shojihomu” (The International Business Law Bulletin) between July 1969 and May 1970.

The fourth installment discusses further considerations and principles that impact contract interpretation.

Washington Timber Deeds And Contracts, Ralph W. Johnson

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The law of Washington concerning the interests conveyed by timber deeds and contracts is foggy. Many vital questions are still totally unanswered, or have been left in confusion, by the cases in point. The principal area of doubt revolves around the question of whether standing timber, which has been sold separately from the land on which it stands, is realty or personalty. The answer is vital for many reasons. It determines whether a husband has power as manager of the community to convey community-owned timber without his wife's signature, which statute of frauds applies to a timber transaction, which recording …

Commercial Instruments, The Law Merchant And Negotiability, Ralph W. Aigler

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“Until recently apparently no serious attempt had been to make a comprehensive examination into the origins and history of commercial instruments or to explain the special doctrines attached to negotiability….

“The bill of exchange, it is said, developed as a bit of machinery to give effect to the medieval contract of cambium which was concerned with the special case of the exchange of money for money. With the growth of foreign trade the difficulties and dangers of payments multiplied. Naturally those whose business it was to exchange monies were resorted to in this connection. They, in turn, out of necessities …

Privity Of Contract And Tort Liability, Herbert F. Goodrich

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Two parties, A and B, make a contract whereby B undertakes to perform certain services for A. He performs his task in a negligent manner, and as a consequence C, a third party, suffers injury. Has C rights against B?

Mutuality In Specific Performance, Edgar N. Durfee

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Prior to the present century, the subject of mutuality in specific performance was an unsolved puzzle. The decisions of the courts were in the main wise, but the attempts both of courts and text writers to formulate a statement of the principle governing these decisions were far from happy. After two centuries of litigation and discussion, the current formula was that the remedy must be mutual, must be equally available to both parties. The worst fault of this formula was its plausibility. Equality is equity, and perfect equality between the parties to a contract is not attained unless remedies are …

Gratuitous Partial Assignments, Edwin D. Dickinson

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Is it possible to make an effective and irrevocable assignment by way of gift of part of a chose in action? There are no obvious reasons why it should not be possible. Gifts of a great variety of valuable rights are favored and protected by the law. Why not a gift of part of a chose in action? An answer deduced from the decided cases is not in all respects as certain and satisfactory as one might anticipate. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the answer is problematical. The problem invites interest, not only because it appears …

Is The Assignee Of A Contract Liable For The Non-Performance Of Delegated Duties?, Grover C. Grismore

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IT is an oft recurring statement that "rights arising out of a contract cannot be transferred if they are coupled with liabilities." It is such obscure statements as this which give rise to and perpetuate error, and an examination of the cases will show that this one has been responsible for no little confusion in regard to the matter of assignment in the law of Contract. Our courts, under the pressure of a well filled docket, are prone to seize upon a broad generalization of this kind without examining its true meaning or defining its proper limitations. It is high …

Contracts For The Benefit Of A Third Person In Michigan, Grover C. Grismore

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In the recent case of Preston v. Preston the supreme court of Michigan had occasion to consider the question as to whether or not one for whose benefit a contract is made has any enforcible rights. The suit was one 'in Chancery, the donee plaintiff was an invalid, and every consideration of justice and equity demanded that she be given relief. The court had, however, to face the fact that in recent cases it had indicated its opinion to be that the third party beneficiary has no rights. In Modern Maccabees v. Sharp, (1910) 163 Mich. 449, 456 the court …

Conflict Of Laws--The Law Controlling The Validity Of A Married Woman's Contract, Victor H. Lane

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The case of Poole v. Perkins (Va.), IO S. E. 240, involves that troublesome question of whether the validity of a contract is to be ruled by the law of the place where made, or by that of the place of performance.

Effect Of An Agreement By One Person To Supply Another's 'Requirements' Of A Given Commodity, Grover C. Grismore

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The cases show that the kind of agreement indicated by the heading of this note has become an established part of business usage. In normal times such an agreement is likely to be carried out to the entire satisfaction of both parties, without question, but, in a period of changing business conditions and abnormal price flctuations such as we have witnessed during the last few years, nice questions of interpretation are likely to arise, as is well illustrated by the recent case of Oscar Schlegel Mfg. Co. v. Peter Coopers Glue Factory, (1920) 179 N. Y. S. 271.