Law Commons^™

Texas Bucks The Trend - No Cause Of Action For Lost Chance Of Survival In The Medical Malpractice Context: Kramer V. Lewisville Memorial Hospital, Wayne Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

Jennie Kramer visited her gynecologist in August 1985 complaining of unusual discharges and intermittent bleeding. At that time, her doctor informed her that she tested negative for cancer. Her irregular bleeding continued, but on two subsequent visits to another doctor in November and December, Ms. Kramer was again informed that she did not have cancer. During February of 1986, after continued bleeding, Ms. Kramer detected a hard spot in her vagina. She returned to the second doctor a third time, at which time she was diagnosed with cancer. In spite of subsequent exploratory surgery and chemotherapy, Ms. Kramer died on …

Preempting Justice Through Binding Arbitration Of Future Disputes: Mere Adhesion Contracts Or A Trap For The Unwary Consumer, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

When individual consumers with little or no bargaining power have not consented to particular contractual terms, the use of the courts and judicial interpretations may be the only way to promote justice and allow consumers to protect themselves. Unfortunately, the trend, as established in recent United States Supreme Court decisions, is to apply the deferential standards of enforcement from commercial transactions to situations involving adhesion contracts between an individual consumer and a business entity where equal bargaining power is clearly lacking.

Perhaps the most pervasive example of this trend has been the Supreme Court's zealous enforcement of arbitration clauses under …

Compensation For Takings: How Much Is Just, Glynn S. Lunney Jr

Faculty Scholarship

Once a court has determined that the government has "go[ne] too far" in changing or restricting existing property rights, and that a "taking" has, therefore, occurred, the Fifth Amendment requires that the government provide "just compensation" to the individual whose property it has taken. In defining the measure of compensation mandated by the Constitution, the Supreme Court has consistently explained that an individual is entitled to "a full and exact equivalent" for the taken property, and to be "put in as good [a] position pecuniarily as he would have been if his property had not been taken."

Yet, behind the …

Assisted Suicide: A Tough Pill To Swallow, Mary Margaret Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

The first part of this Comment will present the historical and theological views towards suicide. This background material will be helpful in understanding present-day society's response to the assisted suicide debate by tracing many of the condemnations back through common law development. The second portion of this Comment will focus on the current status of the assisted suicide debate. Although most courts have passed on the issue" and most legislatures do not have laws addressing assisted suicide, there is a great deal of activity shaping the legal future of this topic. This section emphasizes the importance of key nonlegal players …

Choice Of Language In Bilateral Treaties: Fifty Years Of Changing State Practice, John King Gamble, Charlotte Ku

Faculty Scholarship

The language in which treaties are written affects how widely and deeply treaty obligations are understood and, hence, followed.

Of course, many problems arise when the treaty does not have the same meaning in different languages.

The focus of this article is a different aspect of language in treaties--the choice of language or languages as official text or texts of bilateral treaties. Some research has addressed the broader issue of multiple use of languages in international organizations and multilateral treaties, but bilateral treaties have received scant attention. This inattention likely stems from the difficulty of examining the treaty practice of …

Reviewing The Law Reviews, Texas-Style, Jim Paulsen, James Hambleton

Faculty Scholarship

All is not well in the publish-or-perish world of legal academia. The number of legal periodicals is growing explosively, and is now more than 700. Established law reviews are sneaking more and more pages of text into each volume. There is a growing consensus, however, that genuine legal scholarship is not expanding at a pace sufficient to fill all these blank pages. Seminar speakers advise new law professors that somewhere there is a law review willing to print anything a professor is willing to put on paper; a little browsing will confirm that those lecturers know whereof they speak.

Who Was That Masked Court - An Introduction To Texas' New Special Court Of Review, Jim Paulsen, James Hambleton

Faculty Scholarship

Suppose, for some reason we can only dimly imagine, that an attorney set out to find a Texas legal definition of "chicken----." Since West's key number system was not set up with any particular items of profanity in mind, a savvy legal researcher would start with the computers. A nationwide LEXIS search quickly retrieves a surprisingly large number of cases mentioning "chicken----," including the US. Supreme Court's groundbreaking ruling that the phrase is "street vernacular" not warranting a contempt citation for its mere mention in court. Unfortunately, the reported case law contains no satisfactory definition of "chicken----."

But wait ... …

Ots Vs The Bar: Must Atorneys Advise Directors That The Directors Owe A Duty To The Depository Fund?, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the liability of attorneys representing depository institutions. Part I of this article introduces the controversy over the proper role of bank counsel following the bank and thrift crisis. Part II discusses the first Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) actions against attorneys. Part III considers the emerging theory of liability based on counsel’s duty to advise directors on their duties to depositors and the depository fund. In Part IV, a comparison of the experience of the securities bar to that of the banking bar demonstrates how the government’s enforcement activity has already changed attorney’s perceptions of their role …