Torts Commons^™

Are Literary Agents (Really) Fiduciaries?, Jacqueline Lipton

Articles

2018 was a big year for “bad agents” in the publishing world. In July, children’s literature agent Danielle Smith was exposed for lying to her clients about submissions and publication offers. In December, major literary agency Donadio & Olson, which represented a number of bestselling authors, including Chuck Palahnuik (Fight Club), filed for bankruptcy in the wake of an accounting scandal involving their bookkeeper, Darin Webb. Webb had embezzled over $3 million of client funds. Around the same time, Australian literary agent Selwa Anthony lost a battle in the New South Wales Supreme Court involving royalties she owed to her …

Veil-Piercing Unbound, Peter B. Oh

Articles

Veil-piercing is an equitable remedy. This simple insight has been lost over time. What started as a means for corporate creditors to reach into the personal assets of a shareholder has devolved into a doctrinal black hole. Courts apply an expansive list of amorphous factors, attenuated from the underlying harm, that engenders under-inclusive, unprincipled, and unpredictable results for entrepreneurs, litigants, and scholars alike.

Veil-piercing is misapplied because it is misconceived. The orthodox approach is to view veil-piercing as an exception to limited liability that is justified potentially only when the latter is not, a path that invariably leads to examining …

Veil-Piercing, Peter B. Oh

Articles

From its inception veil-piercing has been a scourge on corporate law. Exactly when the veil of limited liability can and will be circumvented to reach into a shareholder’s own assets has befuddled courts, litigants, and scholars alike. And the doctrine has been bedeviled by empirical evidence of a chasm between the theory and practice of veil-piercing; notably, veil-piercing claims inexplicably seem to prevail more often in Contract than Tort, a finding that flouts the engrained distinction between voluntary and involuntary creditors.

With a dataset of 2908 cases from 1658 to 2006 this study presents the most comprehensive portrait of veil-piercing …

How To Negotiate A Sales Contract, James J. White

Articles

A. Introduction 1. In my experience, lawyers begin negotiating only after the business people have decided upon the description and quality of the product, the time of delivery, and the mode and amount of payment. The lawyers are left with the pathological problems - who gets what in case of trouble. 2. Most of those pathological problems relate to the seller's responsibility if the product does not conform to the contract or otherwise fails to please the buyer. These failures can cause economic loss to the buyer, economic loss to a remote purchaser, or personal injury or property damage to …

Hiring Ruled Contractual, Bill Gore, Douglas A. Kahn, Stan Shields

Articles

On December 29, 1988, the California Supreme Court decided Foley vs. Interactive Data Corp., perhaps the most eagerly awaited state supreme court decision in years. The Foley ruling, which immediately was hailed as a tremendous victory for California employers, eliminated punitive damage awards for many wrongfully terminated employees. That was good news for the employers. The decision, however, also provided employers with sobering news. Most significantly, the court ruled that employment relationships essentially are contracts, with terms created by the reasonable expectation of the parties. Thus, the majority of California employees now have a right to sue for breach …

Privity Of Contract And Tort Liability, Herbert F. Goodrich

Articles

Two parties, A and B, make a contract whereby B undertakes to perform certain services for A. He performs his task in a negligent manner, and as a consequence C, a third party, suffers injury. Has C rights against B?

Of The Right To Waive A Tort And Sue In Assumpsit, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

The distinctions between an action for a tort and one upon contract are such that where the one will lie the other generally will not; but there are nevertheless some cases in which either may be brought at the election of the party injured. Thus, it is sometimes the case, that, in a business relation, the law makes it the duty of a party to observe a certain course of conduct with regard to the rights of others, where by contract he has also undertaken for the same thing; and in such a case a breach of duty is coincident …

Of The Right To Waive A Tort And Sue In Assumpsit, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

The distinctions between an action for a tort and one upon contract are such that where the one will lie the other generally will not; but there are nevertheless some cases in which either may be brought at the election of the party injured. Thus, it is sometimes the case, that, in a business relation, the law makes it the duty of a party to observe a certain course of conduct with regard to the rights of others, where by contract he has also undertaken for the same thing; and in such a case a breach of duty is coincident …