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Full-Text Articles in Contracts
After Tackett: Incomplete Contracts For Post-Employment Healthcare, Maria O'Brien
After Tackett: Incomplete Contracts For Post-Employment Healthcare, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
This paper examines the recent U.S. Supreme Court retiree health care decision in Tackett v. M & G Polymers and focuses, in particular, on the ostensibly odd silence with respect to a critical contract term — whether the parties in fact agreed that these benefits were vested. Although the union in Tackett insisted these welfare benefits were clearly intended to vest and the employer now asserts they can be modified at any time, the collective bargaining agreement and supporting documents are ambiguous on this question. This paper examines how and why this “silence” persisted for so many decades and concludes …
Medical Malpractice And Contract Disclosure: An Equilibrium Model Of The Effects Of Legal Rules On Behavior In Health Care Markets, Kathryn Zeiler
Medical Malpractice And Contract Disclosure: An Equilibrium Model Of The Effects Of Legal Rules On Behavior In Health Care Markets, Kathryn Zeiler
Faculty Scholarship
This paper develops a theoretical model of how specific legal rules affect the types of contracts managed care organizations ("MCOs") use to compensate physicians. In addition, the analysis provides insights into how physician treatment decisions and the rate of medical malpractice lawsuits react to different legal rules. In particular, the model predicts that outcomes in jurisdictions forcing MCOs to disclose physician contract terms to patients differ from those that do not. Contracts vary depending on the disclosure rule and how treatment costs relate to expected damages and litigation costs. Moreover, the model predicts that jurisdictions forcing contract disclosure observe higher …