Law Commons^™

Leverage, Linkage, And Leakage: Problems With The Private Pension System And How They Should Inform The Social Security Reform Debate, Norman P. Stein, Patricia E. Dilley

UF Law Faculty Publications

The argument for Social Security privatization is, at bottom, simple: we need more, and better, advance funding of the public retirement system. In particular, we need to commit a portion of FICA tax to privately managed investment accounts, which will purchase investment instruments that promise higher rates of return than the government debt instruments in which the Social Security surplus is currently invested. The privatization debate has centered on the extent to which Social Security faces an impending demographic crisis during the coming decades, whether privatization is fundamentally inconsistent with the idea of social insurance, whether privatization financial projections are …

Erisa Preemption And The Case For A Federal Common Law Of Agency Governing Employer-Administrators, Joshua Fairfield

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Settlements And Waivers Affecting Pension Benefits Under Erisa, Eric D. Chason

Faculty Publications

Waivers affecting pension benefits may be entered into as part of a controversy (for example, a settlement agreement) or in isolation (for example, a disclaimer). Under current law, however, it is unclear how these waivers fit within the protections of ERISA, particularly the antialienation rule. Courts have generally honored settlement agreements so long as they are procedurally fair to participants. However, the antialienation rule looms in the background. The IRS and Treasury, in contrast, have focused on waivers outside the settlement context, prohibiting participants from making them but allowing beneficiaries to do so if the waiver satisfies gift-tax rules for …

Doctors, Hmos, Erisa, And The Public Interest After Pegram V. Herdrich, Jeffrey W. Stempel, Nadia Von Magdenko

Scholarly Works

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 was enacted in the wake of highly publicized pension disasters in order to protect employee pension rights. Born as a piece of pro-worker legislation, it initially was criticized by business groups as a cause of bureaucratic arteriosclerosis that was worse than the disease of pension failures. Even worse, it prompted many employers to consider dispensing with pension plans altogether rather than struggle with the administrative and financial obligations of ERISA. Business, labor, and the public all complained about the law's complexity. It even became something of a national joke as regulators took …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 2000 and 2001.

Predicting The Future Of Employment Law: Reflecting Or Refracting Market Forces?, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In this Article I predict how employment law will change in the future. My task is positive rather than normative. I will not argue that the developments I foresee are good ones to be applauded. Rather, they arise "inevitably" from the way the law will react to changes in labor markets.

Of course, as Professor Ronald Dworkin emphasizes, in developing a theory of law one cannot sharply distinguish between the positive and normative. Dworkin points out that even in describing the current legal framework, one must choose what to highlight and what to ignore, a process based on values. When …