Law Commons^™

Overlitigating Corporate Fraud: An Empirical Examination, Jessica M. Erickson

Law Faculty Publications

Corporate law leaves no stone unturned when it comes to litigating corporate fraud. The legal system has developed a remarkable array of litigation options shareholder derivative suits, securities class actions, SEC enforcement actions, even criminal prosecutions all aimed at preventing the next corporate scandal. Scholars have long assumed that these different lawsuits offer different avenues for deterring the masterminds of corporate fraud yet this assumption has gone untested in the legal literature. This Article aims to fill that gap through the first empirical examination of the broader world of corporate fraud litigation. Analyzing over 700 lawsuits, the study reveals that …

Deterring And Compensating Oil-Spill Catastrophes: The Need For Strict And Two-Tier Liability, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill highlighted the glaring weaknesses in the current liability and regulatory regime for oil spills and for environmental catastrophes more broadly. This Article proposes a new liability structure for deep-sea oil drilling and for catastrophic risks generally. It delineates a two-tier system of liability. The first tier would impose strict liability up to the firm's financial resources, including insurance coverage. The second tier would be an annual tax equal to the expected costs in the coming year beyond this damages amount. Before beginning a risky operation, the proposed liability scheme would identify a single firm-the …

Social Networking And Land Use Planning And Regulation: Practical Benefits, Pitfalls And Ethical Considerations, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This article explores how social networking sites have been used or might be used in the land use context. Part I focuses on the use of social networking for land use planning and zoning. It includes a discussion of the pros and cons of the use of social networking sites to present public information and to gather public input and invite general participation in the process, as well as to provide notice to the public of forthcoming government decision-making. This section offers concrete examples of how this technology is currently being used in the land use context. Part II focuses …

The Virtues Of Common Law Theories And Disclosure Requirements In The Market For Fine Art, Brian D. Tobin

Student Articles and Papers

For centuries common law warranties and fraud theories have regulated misattribution and mistaken provenance in the market for fine art. Scholars have in recent decades proposed theories to supplement protection for unsophisticated buyers transacting with auction houses or dealers. Academia has also proposed the imposition of securities regulations upon auction houses for the purpose of protecting sellers—an argument that can be extended to protect buyers transacting with either auction houses or dealerships. In practice, the theories put forth to protect purchasers may not have an added benefit and will likely disrupt liquidity. The extension of regulations akin to the securities …

Texas Annual Survey: Securities Regulation, George Lee Flint Jr

Faculty Articles

Securities law opinions under Texas law during this period can be divided into two groups. The first group deals with various fraudulent schemes targeted by the Board. The "free lunch" scam, aimed at senior investors, surfaced in Head v. State where the scammer lost the appeal because the evidence clearly confirmed his failure to inform investors. In Navarro v. Grant Thornton, LLP investors failed in their aiding and abetting lawsuit against the accountants because, absent contact between the accountants and investors, the accountants had no duty to whistleblow to regulators or investors.

The second group involves incompetent lawyers. In S&D …

Prescription For Fairness: New Approach To Tort Liability Of Brand-Name And Generic Drug Manufacturers, Allen K. Rostron

Faculty Works

Over the past two decades, courts have consistently ruled that the manufacturer of a brand-name prescription drug cannot be liable for injuries suffered by those taking generic imitations of its product. This meant that a patient injured by a generic drug could have no remedy at all because in many instances the generic drug manufacturer would escape liability on the ground that it did not produce any information on which the patient’s doctor relied. It was a perplexing dilemma. The generic drug manufacturer made the product that the plaintiff received, the brand-name manufacturer produced all of the information the patient’s …

Limited Partnership Status And The Imposition Of Fiduciary Duties In Texas, Colin P. Marks

Faculty Articles

To avoid liability, many investors in a partnership opt for the structure of a limited partnership. This structure insulates the limited partners from liability by creating a two-tier structure with a general partner and limited partners. The limited partners are at risk of losing only their investment so long as they are not acting as general partners.

Despite the popularity of the limited partnership structure, though, it remains unclear what duties are owed between the various partners. In a general partnership, all partners are fiduciaries to each other. The statutes governing limited partnerships make clear that general partners in a …