Business Organizations Law Commons^™

Brief For Professor Kent Greenfield As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Respondents, State Of Washington Vs. Arlene's Flowers And Ingersoll Vs. Arlene's Flowers, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

This amicus curiae brief addresses a fundamental state-law premise of Appellants’ constitutional claims that has gone largely unexplored in the prior briefing: whether Arlene’s Flowers, a Washington for-profit corporation, may obtain an exemption from generally applicable laws based on the religious beliefs of a shareholder, Mrs. Stutzman. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Appellants assert that “Arlene’s free-exercise rights are synonymous with Mrs. Stutzman’s.” Those two cases, however, had nothing to do with Washington corporate law and took no stance on the authority of …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Corporate Law Professors In Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. V. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Harold Kent Greenfield, Daniel A. Rubens

Kent Greenfield

Professor Greenfield was the principal author of an amicus brief on behalf of 33 corporate law professors in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, argued in December 2017. The brief argues that shareholders’ religious and political beliefs should not be projected onto a corporation for purposes of First Amendment accommodation.

Disaggregating Corpus Christi: The Illiberal Implications Of Hobby Lobby's Right To Free Exercise, Katharine Jackson

Katharine Jackson

This paper first examines and critiques the group rights to religious exercise derived from the three ontologies of the corporation suggested by different legal conceptions of corporate personhood often invoked by Courts. Finding the implicated groups rights inimical to individual religious freedom, the paper then presents an argument as to why a discourse of intra-corporate toleration and voluntariness does a better job at protecting religious liberty.

Indian National Bar Association (Inba) Celebrates 66th National Law Day, Amit Kumar

Amit Kumar

26th Nov 2015, New Delhi: A groundbreaking International conference on Law & Policy issues of more than 400 prominent thought Members of Parliament from India and United Kingdom, leaders, CEO's, heads of legal department, researchers, advocates, practitioners and policymakers from at least 08 countries gathered in New Delhi on 26th November 2015, energizing a global movement working to advance policy issues around the globe. Held November 26, the “International Conference on Law and Policy Issues” to commemorate the 66th National Law Day marked its hosting in India as the biggest conference of the year hosted by Indian National Bar Association. …

In Defense Of Corporate Persons, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

This essay is a critique of this attack on corporate personhood. It explains that the corporate separateness - corporate “personhood” - is an important legal principle as a matter of corporate law. What’s more, as a matter of constitutional law, corporate “personhood” deserves a more nuanced analysis than has been typically offered in arguing in favor of an amendment to overturn Citizens United. Indeed, the concept of corporate “personhood” can in fact be marshaled in arguments against corporations being able to assert constitutional rights. In the nascent category of cases brought by corporations asserting rights of religious freedom, for example, …

The Meaning Of Hobby Lobby: Bedrooms, Boardrooms & Burdens, Anne Tucker

Anne Tucker

No abstract provided.

Hoja De Vida, Marta Luisa Ramirez Mejia Ms

MARTA LUISA RAMIREZ MEJIA MS

No abstract provided.

After Citizens United: Extending The Liberal Revolution To The Multinational Corporation, Daniel J.H. Greenwood

Daniel J.H. Greenwood

This Article proposes several routes to reverse Citizens United, the Supreme Court case holding that corporate campaign spending is “speech” protected by the First Amendment.

The core problem of Citizens United is that corporations are illegitimate participants in our politics. Corporate law requires corporate officers to pursue the corporate interest. They are thus disqualified from considering the central political questions of a democratic capitalist country: defining the rules of the market (which define corporate interests) and balancing profit against other, more important, values.

The high road to fixing Citizens United is a constitutional amendment to extend the fundamental insights …

The Associational Hoax: Corporate Personhood & Shareholder Rights After Hobby Lobby And Citizens United, Jaimie K. Mcfarlin

Jaimie K. McFarlin

No abstract provided.

Law, Fugitive Capital, And Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation, Walter J. Kendall Lll

Walter J. Kendall lll

No abstract provided.

Nothing To Do With Personhood: Corporate Constitutional Rights And The Principle Of Confiscation, Paul Kens Dr.

Paul Kens Dr.

In its 2010 decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission the Supreme Court overruled a federal statute that limited a corporation’s ability to pay for political advertising out of its general treasury funds. Those limits, it ruled, violated the corporation’s right to freedom of speech. The case has since become notorious for the widely held belief that, in doing so, the Court declared that corporations are “persons,” possessing the same constitutional rights as flesh and blood human beings. Four years later the Court seemed to expand on this conclusion when it ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that a general …

What’S Good For General Motors: Corporate Speech And The Theory Of Free Expression, Howard M. Wasserman

Howard M Wasserman

No abstract provided.

Corporate Piety And Impropriety: Hobby Lobby's Extension Of Rfra Rights To For-Profit Corporations, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court held, for the first time, that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) applied to for-profit corporations and, on that basis, it allowed Hobby Lobby to omit otherwise mandated contraceptive coverage from its employee healthcare package. Critics argue that the Court’s novel expansion of corporate rights is fundamentally inconsistent with the basic principles of corporate law. In particular, they contend that the decision ignores the fact that the corporation, as an artificial entity, cannot exercise religion in its own right, and they decry the notion that the law might look through the corporate …

Why Personhood Matters, Tamara R. Piety

Tamara R. Piety

One of the most controversial aspect of the Supreme Court's decisions in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby is its treatment of corporate personhood. Many members of the public object to the notion that corporations should have the same rights as human beings. Yet many scholars claim that this concern is misplaced. In this article I argue that concern about corporate personhood is not misplaced because the personhood metaphor conceals the degree to which there has not been an adequate justification given for extending fundamental rights to corporations. Focusing on personhood allows us to push on the metaphor to ask whether …

Privacy And Organizational Persons, Eric W. Orts, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

This Article responds to an argument made recently by Elizabeth Pollman that corporations should not be deemed to have “constitutional privacy rights” in “most circumstances.” Setting forth an alternative conception of organizational rights and examining different meanings of “privacy,” the Article contends that courts should tread more carefully and that it may often be sensible and recommended to allow corporations and other organizations to assert some constitutional “rights of privacy.” More specifically, the Article suggests that organizations may enjoy “primary” rights, which reside with the organizations in the first instance or “secondary” rights, which are asserted by an organization to …

Conscience And Complicity: Assessing Pleas For Religious Exemptions After Hobby Lobby, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

In the paradigmatic case of conscientious objection, the objector claims that his religion forbids him from actively participating in a wrong (e.g., by fighting in a war). In the religious challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, on the other hand, employers claim that their religious convictions forbid them from merely subsidizing insurance through which their employees might commit a wrong (e.g., by using contraception). The understanding of complicity underpinning these challenges is vastly more expansive than what standard legal doctrine or moral theory contemplates. Courts routinely reject claims of conscientious objection to taxes that fund military initiatives, or …

Your Boss’S Business? Corporate Personhood And The Supreme Court, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

Hobby Lobby was a dangerous decision,but because the Court ignored corporate personhood rather than endorsing it.

Praising Corporate Personhood, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

Corporate personhood has wrongly developed a bad name; efforts to end corporate personhood by way of a constitutional amendment are either worthless or harmful.

Religious Freedom & Closely Held Corporations: The Hobby Lobby Case & Its Ethical Implications, Corey A. Ciocchetti

Corey A Ciocchetti

Hobby Lobby and its quest for religious freedom captured the attention of a nation for a few moments in late June 2014. The country homed in on the Supreme Court as the justices weighed the rights of an incorporated, profit-making entity run by devout individuals that objected to particular entitlements granted to women under the Affordable Care Act. The case raised important legal issues such as whether the law allows for-profit corporations to exercise religion (yes!) and whether protection for religious freedom trumps the rights of third parties to cost free preventive care (sort of!). The Supreme Court’s decision also …

Corporate Citizenship: Goal Or Fear?, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

Progressives should oppose a constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood.

Debate: “Be It Resolved: Corporations Should Not Be Considered People Under The U.S. Constitution.”, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

This was a debate with Jeff Clements, founder of Free Speech for People, about corporate personhood.

Against Regulatory Displacement: An Institutional Analysis Of Financial Crises, Jonathan C. Lipson

Jonathan C. Lipson

This paper uses “institutional analysis”—the study of the relative capacities of markets, courts, and regulators—to make three claims about financial crises.

First, financial crises are increasingly a problem of “regulatory displacement.” Through the ad hoc rescues of 2008 and the Dodd-Frank reforms of 2010, regulators displace market and judicial processes that ordinarily prevent financial distress from becoming financial crises. Because regulators are vulnerable to capture by large financial services firms, however, they cannot address the pathologies that create crises: market concentration and complexity. Indeed, regulators may inadvertently aggravate these conditions through resolution tactics that consolidate firms, and the volume and …

Corporations And Religious Freedom: Hobby Lobby Stores - A Missed Opportunity To Reconcile A Flawed Law With A Flawed Health Care System, Matthew A. Melone

Matthew A. Melone

On June 30, 2014, the Supreme Court held, in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., that the requirement imposed on employer group health insurance plans to provide coverage for certain contraceptives unduly burdened the free exercise rights of three closely-held corporations in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 ( RFRA ). The contraception mandate was imposed by regulations implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, itself a very controversial piece of legislation a part of which was upheld recently by the Court in a perhaps a case more controversial than Hobby Lobby Stores. RFRA was enacted …

State “Subsidies” And Unnecessary Public Funding: The Texas Legislature’S Successful Restriction Of Constitutional Rights In Department Of Texas V. Texas Lottery Commission, Tyler A. Dever Ms.

Tyler A Dever Ms.

This Note argues that the Act’s political advocacy restrictions are unconstitutional as applied to the Plaintiffs in Texas Lottery. This Note discusses government subsidies, occupational licenses, and the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. It then analyzes the charitable organizations’ First Amendment rights in light of the challenged Act. Although this Note argues against the majority’s upholding of the Act, it will also present flaws in the plaintiffs’ argument for injunction and explain why the court may have ruled in favor of the state.

Religious Rights Of Corporations, Part 2, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

The Uneasy Relationship Of Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, The Affordable Care Act, And The Corporate Person: How A Historical Myth Continues To Bedevil The Legal System, Malcolm J. Harkins Iii

Malcolm J Harkins III

On November 26, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear two cases — Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius — challenging the validity of the Affordable Care Act’s (“ACA”) mandate that employer-sponsored health plans cover all FDA-approved contraceptives (the “Contraceptive Mandate”). In each case, closely held plaintiff corporations contend that the Contraceptive Mandate illegally infringed upon the corporations’ freedom to exercise religion.

The problem confronting the Supreme Court as it takes up the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases is that the concept of corporate personhood did not develop gradually …

The Commons, Capitalism, And The Constitution, George Skouras

George Skouras

Thesis Summary: the erosion of the Commons in the United States has contributed to the deterioration of community and uprooting of people in order to meet the dynamic demands of capitalism. This article suggests countervailing measures to help remedy the situation.

Financial Armageddon Routs Law Again, Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos

Nicholas L Georgakopoulos

This essay, after highlighting the unique aspects of financial markets, offers a mostly rational account for financial crises, centering on the 2008 crisis as an example. The thesis is that market participants overestimate the duration of high productivity growth due to new technologies and produce occasional—and likely unavoidable—bubbles. Considering potential changes in the regulation of financial markets, the conclusion is grim. Regulators appear to have exhausted the effective legal levers against overestimations of continued high growth. The legislative responses to the last few crises were likely unproductive. The sole (but still unrealistic) effective protection would be the constitutional development of …

A Corporation Has No Soul - The Business Entity Law Response To Challenges To The Contraceptive Mandate Under The Ppaca, Thomas E. Rutledge

Thomas E. Rutledge

The most contentious matter in the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “PPACA”) is not a question of health care, but rather one of the law of business organizations. The dispute has been over the requirement that group health insurance plans provide, on a no-cost sharing basis, coverage for a variety of procedures and prescription medicines involving contraception and what are described as “abortificants.”

The class of suits subject to this discussion were filed by what are not religious organizations but rather for-profit business ventures, asserting that they should be exempt from the requirements of the …