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Full-Text Articles in Labor and Employment Law
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 …
Central Falls Retirees V. Bondholders: Assessing Fear Of Contagion In Chapter 9 Proceedings, Maria O'Brien
Central Falls Retirees V. Bondholders: Assessing Fear Of Contagion In Chapter 9 Proceedings, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
Modern Chapter 9 litigation has been characterized by extraordinary protections for municipal bondholders, and Central Falls is no exception. Although not well understood by politicians, fear of contagion has encouraged the adoption of legal arrangements that have limited the bankruptcy courts’ ability to include bondholders in the cost of restructuring municipal debt. This preference for bondholders (and, by extension, their insurers) has meant increased misery for taxpayers and retirees. Given that all of these actors appear to have been complicit to some degree in the creation and maintenance of the fiscally imprudent conditions that triggered bankruptcy and that evidence of …