Law Commons^™

Are All Contracts Alike?, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Flawed Transparency: Shared Data Collection And Disclosure Challenges For Google Glass And Similar Technologies, Jonathan I. Ezor

Jonathan I. Ezor

Current privacy law and best practices assume that the party collecting the data is able to describe and disclose its practices to those from and about whom the data are collected. With emerging technologies such as Google Glass, the information being collected by the wearer may be automatically shared to one or more third parties whose use may be substantially different from that of the wearer. Often, the wearer may not even know what information is being uploaded, and how it may be used. This paper will analyze the current state of U.S. law and compliance regarding personal information collection …

Too Complex To Perceive?: Drafting Cash Distribution Waterfalls Directly As Code To Reduce Complexity And Legal Risk In Structured Finance, Master Limited Partnership, And Private Equity Transactions, Ralph Carter Mayrell

Ralph Carter Mayrell

The intricate procedural and data-driven decision trees that play a critical role in complex financial contracts like cash distribution waterfalls in structured finance agreement indentures (e.g., collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)), master limited partnership agreements, and private equity fund agreements are inefficiently depicted as written contracts. As Professor Henry Hu explains in Too Complex to Depict?, the difficulty of translation—or depiction—between original mathematical models, plain English prospectuses, legal contracts, and programmed execution means that often the written depictions that form the basis of disclosures do not accurately define the act of execution. To overcome this, the SEC proposed an amendment to …

Book Review: The Three And A Half Minute Transaction: What Sticky Boilerplate Reveals About Contract Law And Practice, Andrea J. Boyack

Andrea J Boyack

This review situates Gulati & Scott’s findings with respect to sovereign debt instruments and the contracting process in the context of a legal profession on the brink of change. Gulati and Scott’s book addresses the inexplicable failure of lawyers to respond to a sovereign debt litigation outcome by clarifying a boilerplate provision after an adverse judicial interpretation. Their fascinating study of boilerplate in sophisticated transactional legal practice is timely and compelling both in terms of the specific story it tells, namely the persistence of the pari passu clause in sovereign debt instruments, as well as its broader implications: Structural flaws …

How To Create American Manufacturing Jobs, John D. Gleissner Esquire

John D Gleissner Esquire

No abstract provided.

An All Of The Above Theory Of Legal Development, Larry A. Dimatteo

Larry A DiMatteo

This paper reviews different theories of legal development in order to highlight their similarities and differences. In the end, as in contract theories, no monist view of legal development possesses the explanatory power needed to understand how law has come to be and where it may take us in the future. What we do have is a foundation built on at least two millennia of legal history. The intellectual starting point for this project is Nathan Isaacs’ unfinished work on a cycle theory of legal development. His view of legal development takes issue with Henry Sumner Maine’s thesis that development …

Putting The Cisg Where It Belongs: In The Uniform Commercial Code, Kina Grbic

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Much Ado About Nothing?: What The Numbers Tell Us About How State Courts Apply The Unconscionability Doctrine, Susan D. Landrum

Susan Landrum

No abstract provided.

The Arbitration Clause As Super Contract, Richard Frankel

Richard Frankel

It is widely acknowledged that the purpose of the Federal Arbitration Act was to place arbitration clauses on equal footing with other contracts. Nonetheless, federal and state courts have turned arbitration clauses into “super contracts” by creating special interpretive rules for arbitration clauses that do not apply to other contracts. In doing so, they have relied extensively, and incorrectly, on the Supreme Court’s determination that the FAA embodies a federal policy favoring arbitration.

While many scholars have focused attention on the public policy rationales for and against arbitration, few have explored how arbitration clauses should be interpreted. This article fills …

Trust And The Triangle Expectation Model In Twenty-First Century Contract Law, Eli Bukspan

Eli Bukspan

The concept of trust best explains the true nature of contract law and is found in key contract law doctrines such as good faith and public policy. By identifying contractual expectation with the idea of trust, and by considering the actual expectations of the contracting parties as well as the ideal expectations of the public, the Article develops the triangle-of-expectations model—the most coherent account of contract law today. This model, conceptually different than classic contract theory, also contributes to stability, certainty, and the contracting parties’ ability to rely on each other as well as on the contractual institution. Most importantly, …

Contract Clauses As Public Goods: A New Way Of Understanding Inefficient Clauses, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

he aim of this work is to show how it is possible to identify market failures other than those traditionally identified by lawyers and law and economics scholars to justify the mandatory provisions of contracts between professionals and consumers and the equally mandatory provisions governing the abuse of economic dependency. This is a new approach that can be extended to other provisions and appears to rest on fairly solid microeconomic foundations. There is no doubt, however, that many criticisms can be leveled against it. Very briefly, I shall argue that the production of clauses characterized by being rather vague, indeterminate …

Rise Of The Intercontinentalexchange And Implications Of Its Merger With Nyse Euronext, Latoya C. Brown

Latoya C. Brown, Esq.

This paper examines the impending merger between the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and NYSE Euronext against the backdrop of the current structure of the global financial services industry. The paper concludes that the merger embodies what the financial services industry is becoming and captures the model that will allow exchanges to remain competitive in today’s marketplace: mega-exchanges with broader asset classes and electronic platforms. As technology and globalization threaten their vitality, exchanges will need to continue reinventing and adapting. Increasingly over the last decade they have done so by merging and by moving, at least a part of, their operations on screen. …

Crop Insurance Bad Faith: Protection For America's Farmers, Chad G. Marzen

Chad G. Marzen

This article examines issues concerning the potential liability of crop insurers for insurance bad faith, and discusses cases to date on the issue of federal preemption of insurance bad faith claims under the Federal Crop Insurance Act (FCIA) and the development of a general rule that bad faith claims under state law are not preempted by the FCIA. The article argues that the crop insurance bad faith remedy is designed as a check against egregious, intentional and reckless misconduct of a crop insurer in the handling of a claim and should be preserved by the courts.

The Merrill Doctrine And Federally Reinsured Crop Insurers, Chad G. Marzen

Chad G. Marzen

Since 1947, the Federal Crop Ins. Corp. v. Merrill decision has operated to bar claims of equitable estoppel against agents of the federal government. However, the applicability of the Merrill doctrine to insurers is unclear. There is a split of authority on this significant issue and it remains largely unresolved in numerous jurisdictions. An early trend developed where the courts applied the Merrill doctrine to alleged misrepresentations of agents of the FCIC as well as the agents of private insurers. In the early to mid 2000s, the decisions of three state courts (in Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee) declined toe extend …

Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French

Journal Articles

In his recent article, Professor Richard Squire offers a provocative theory in which he claims the underlying claimants in shareholder litigation against corporate policyholders are overcompensated due to what he describes as “cramdown” settlements, under which insurers are forced to settle due to the “duty to contribute” that arises under multi-layered directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance programs. He also offers a novel idea regarding how this problem could be fixed by what he refers to as “segmented” settlements in which each insurer and the policyholder would be allowed to settle separately and consider only its own interests in doing so. …

Redefining Offer In Contract Law, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French

Christopher C. French

In his recent article, Professor Richard Squire offers a provocative theory in which he claims the underlying claimants in shareholder litigation against corporate policyholders are overcompensated due to what he describes as “cramdown” settlements, under which insurers are forced to settle due to the “duty to contribute” that arises under multi-layered directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance programs. He also offers a novel idea regarding how this problem could be fixed by what he refers to as “segmented” settlements in which each insurer and the policyholder would be allowed to settle separately and consider only its own interests in doing so. …