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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Travelers, Reasoned Textualism, And The New Jurisprudence Of Erisa Preemption, Edward A. Zelinsky Dec 1999

Travelers, Reasoned Textualism, And The New Jurisprudence Of Erisa Preemption, Edward A. Zelinsky

Faculty Articles

Upon the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), few would have predicted that, a generation later, ERISA's provisions preempting state law would be front page news, a central topic of national debate about health care and its regulation. Similarly, few foresaw at the time ERISA was adopted that the United States Supreme Court would have great difficulty construing ERISA's preemption provisions. By the same token, in 1974 the contemporary revival of interest in statutory textualism lay well into the future.


Franchisor Liability For The Torts Of Its Franchisees: The Case For Substituting Liability As A Guarantor For The Current Vicarious Liability, John L. Hanks Apr 1999

Franchisor Liability For The Torts Of Its Franchisees: The Case For Substituting Liability As A Guarantor For The Current Vicarious Liability, John L. Hanks

Faculty Articles

The author reviews the justifications for applying the law of vicarious liability in the franchising context and concludes that its application is often inefficient and arbitrary. He argues that the employee-independent contractor dichotomy used by courts to determine franchisor liability is not well-suited to franchising, where the relationship encompasses both concepts. He proposes that vicarious liability not be applied in the franchising context. Instead, the courts by case law or state legislatures by statute should impose a guarantor status on franchisors that would expose them to liability for the torts of the franchisees only if the franchisee was unavailable to …