Digital Commons Network^™

The Metastasis Of Mail Fraud: The Continuing Story Of The Evolution Of A White-Collar Crime, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Justice Cardozo observed that legal principles have a tendency to expand to the limits of their logic, and Judge Friendly has added the corollary that sometimes the expansionary momentum carries the principle even beyond those limits. So it has been with the recent growth in the federal mail fraud law, as courts have applied a standardized formula- known as the "intangible rights" doctrine- to a broad range of fact patterns having relatively little in common. The result has been both to extend the net of the federal criminal sanction over an extraordinarily vast terrain and to arm the federal prosecutor …

The Mitigation Principle: Toward A General Theory Of Contractual Obligation, Charles J. Goetz, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The duty to mitigate is a universally accepted principle of contract law requiring that each party exert reasonable efforts to minimize losses whenever intervening events impede contractual objectives. Although applications of the mitigation principle pervade the specific rules of contract, it is startling how many questions remain unanswered as to precisely what efforts the mitigation duty requires and what point in time the obligation arises. For example, under what circumstances does mitigation require an injured party to deal with the contract breacher? Why does the duty to minimize losses mature only after the breach, even if the injured party became …

Rescuing The Private Attorney General: Why The Model Of The Lawyer As Bounty Hunter Is Not Working, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Forty years ago, Judge Jerome Frank coined the term "private Attorney General" to recognize the role of private litigation in the enforcement of law. In the intervening years, the "private attorney general" concept has become both a cliche and a crutch, receiving polite lip service from nearly all, but critical analysis from relatively few. As most college sophomores know, the private attorney general is someone who sues "to vindicate the public interest" by representing collectively those who individually could not afford the costs of litigation; and, as every law student knows, our society places extensive reliance upon such private attorneys …

Myth And Reality In Protective Order Litigation, Richard L. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Why Lawyers Should Be Allowed To Advertise: A Market Analysis Of Legal Services, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Russell G. Pearce, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Exercise Of Executive Discretion: A Study Of A Regional Office Of The Department Of Labor, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

Writing for a recent symposium on empirical research in administrative law, Professor Paul Verkuil noted that such research "casts light on one of the dark corners of the law. The vast majority of administrative decisions are of the informal variety, meaning they take place outside the reach of generic administrative procedure acts and frequently outside the courts themselves."' We are only beginning to appreciate how vast is this dark corner and how varied the possible modes of illumination.

This essay casts some additional light into the corner by reporting on a study of the exercise of executive discretion by a …

Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Law: A Testable Model Of Strategic Behavior, Robert Cooter, Stephen G. Marks, Robert Mnookin

Faculty Scholarship

Part I describes the framework of the model. Part II discusses the domination of psychological effects by tangible variables, which is the basis for comparative statics. Part III explains the table of predictions, and Part IV applies the predictions to externalities and rules for real-locating payoffs from trial. There is little mathematics in the text. The mathematical reader can refer to the Appendix for a brief presentation of our model, or to a companion paper on file with this Journal which develops the mathematics at length.

The Free Speech Metamorphosis Of Mr. Justice Holmes, David S. Bogen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reason And Law, George C. Christie

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Graphic Review Of The Free Speech Clause, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This work acts as a spring board for the study of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. It builds useful graphical representations of complex constitutional theories from the ground up, allowing students to follow both development and the application of these theories.

Polygyny And Polydomy In Three North American Species Of The Ant Genus Leptothorax Mayr (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Thomas M. Alloway, Robin Stuart, Cynthia Thomas, Alfred Buschinger, Mary Talbot

Faculty Scholarship

This paper deals with certain behavioral and ecological factors which may be relevant to the evolution and maintenance of social parasitism in ants. We will argue that some of the same factors which might predispose one species to evolve into a social parasite might make resistance to parasitism difficult for a closely related species.

Commentary: Constitutional Law, Joel Gora

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Free Speech, Property, And The Burger Court: Old Values, New Balances, Joel Gora, Norman Dorsen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property, H. Dennis Kelly

Faculty Scholarship

Intellectual property refers to patents, trademarks, copyrights, and related matters. This subject has been absent from the symposium for two years. However, the importance of the cases in this area that were decided by the Fifth Circuit during the current survey period justifies a return of the subject to the symposium. The majority of these cases concern the validity of patents and are discussed in the first part of the Survey. The second part of the Survey is a discussion of an important case in the field of copyright law.

Overbreadth, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

The concern in constitutional law with "overbreadth" is generally understood to denote a conscious departure from conventional standing concepts in free-expression cases. Assertedly justified by the special vulnerability of protected expression to impermissible deterrence, overbreadth doctrine invites litigants to attack the facial validity of rules which burden expressive interests. A litigant whose expression is admittedly within the constitutionally valid applications of a statute is permitted to assert the statute's potentially invalid applications with respect to other persons not before the court and with whom the litigant stands in no special relationship. Judicial focus is not on the protected character, vel …

Legal Education Past And Future: A Summer Carol, A. Kenneth Pye

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The International Legal Status Of Foreign Government Deposits In Overseas Branches Of U.S. Banks, Robert B. Owen, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

Political as well as economic forces can lead governments to default on their obligations to foreign banks. For example, the demand of the revolutionary government of Iran that the United States return he former Shah and his wealth to Iran and the subsequent seizure of American embassy personnel in Tehran on November 4, 1979, were political events which quickly resulted in a default on Iranian obligations to U.S. banks.

Following the embassy seizure, the status of the Iranian Government's huge deposits in overseas branches of U.S. banks quickly came into question. In an effort to coerce the United States to …

Promises In Morality And Law, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

J.L. Austin thought that philosophers have much to learn from lawyers and the law. No doubt philosophers and lawyers have a lot to learn from each other wherever their interests intersect. But until now philosophical analysis has done more to elucidate important legal concepts and distinctions than viceversa. P.S. Atiyah's Promises, Morals, and Law may redress this imbalance. In this book, one of today's most accomplished students of the common law examines the nature of promises and the grounds of their binding force. Written in Atiyah's characteristically vigorous and lucid style, the book is a philosophical treatise, but one that …

Managing Flood Risk: Technical Uncertainty In The National Flood Insurance Program, Michael S. Baram, J. Raymond Miyares

Faculty Scholarship

Congress established the National Flood Insurance Program ("NFIP")² to prevent flood damage and to provide relief after such damage has occurred. The NFIP is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency ("FEMA" or "Agency") ³ and has become a major influence on state and local land use regulation and a critical factor in private land use decisions across the nation.

This innovative program seeks to control the risk of flood damage by inducing local government to take land use control and other "police power" measures. It offers, as the inducement for such measures, the availability of federal flood insurance …

Developments In Banking Law: 1980-81, Dennis S. Aronowitz, Robert Volk

Faculty Scholarship

The years 1980 and 1981 were marked by a continuation and acceleration of change in the nation's financial institutions in general and in depository institutions in particular. Until recently, the banking and thrift industries have been unique in possessing the capacity to thrive in a changing economy without changing very significantly themselves. This phenomenon was largely attributable to a regulatory environment that protected depository institutions, minimizing competition from unregulated financial entities and imposing a form of organization that permitted institutions to thrive while conducting their activities in traditional ways. The advent of stubbornly high inflation and historically high interest rates …

Mandatory Pku Screening: The Other Side Of The Looking Glass, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The challenge that PKU screening programs face is to be effective without sacrificing individual liberty. Most states have assumed that this is impossible, and have enacted mandatory PKU screening tests. It now appears that in fact voluntary screening for PKU can be effective. Accordingly, it seems appropriate to reexamine existing mandatory screening statutes to determine if we can replace government coercion with voluntary informed consent. Focus should be placed on the proper role of the government in screening, and on improving the consent process, and not on those few couples who withhold consent.

Model Rules Of Professional Conduct A Perspective, Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., Thomas Z. Hayward Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Application Of Customary International Law By U.S. Domestic Tribunals, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years there has been a significant expansion of the number and kinds of cases in U.S. courts raising issues of customary international law. U.S. courts are increasingly asked to enforce international norms of behavior against foreign governments, state and local governments, and indeed the U.S. Government itself. To a greater and greater extent the courts themselves have become actors on the international scene: in the view of one party to a lawsuit, judicial or quasi-judicial acts may threaten to violate international law, while in the view of another party those same sorts of acts can contribute affirmatively to …

The Skokie Legacy: Reflections On An "Easy Case" And Free Speech Theory, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Few legal disputes in the last decade captured public attention with such dramatic force as that involving a small band of Nazis and the village of Skokie. For well over a year, the case was seldom out of the news and often thought to merit front page coverage. It all began in the spring of 1977 when Frank Collin, the leader of the Chicago-based National Socialist Party of America, requested a permit to march in front of the Skokie village hall. The community, with a Jewish population of over 40,000, several thousand of whom had survived the Holocaust, mobilized all …

Sabotaging And Reconstructing History: A Comment On The Scope Of Copyright Protection In Works Of History After Hoehling V. Universal City Studios, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

This comment examines the Hoehling decision, and attempts a definition, in light of Hoehling and prior decisions, of historical "expression." A definition of historical expression is essential to analysis of an historian's infringement claim. Before the fact-finder determines whether a defendant's work is substantially similar to the historian's work, and if substantially similar, whether the fair use doctrine excuses the apparent infringement, the trial judge must first determine whether, as a matter of law, the portions the historian claims were infringed manifest copyrightable expression. If there is no or insufficient expression, the case closes at the summary judgment stage.

This …

A Delicate Assignment: The Regulation Of Accountants By The Sec, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Trustees Of Self-Interest?, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

Unconventional approaches to frequently addressed issues can be particularly illuminating, and John Lofton's discussion of the press and the first amendment takes a decidedly unconventional tack. Rather than focusing on the theme of governmental suppression of speech, Lofton attempts to highlight another angle: the reaction of the press to both political dissent and the official suppression of that dissent from the colonial period to the present day. His purpose, he notes, is "to examine how the American press has performed when confronted with the application of the amendment to practical events."

A Delicate Assignment: The Regulation Of Accountants By The Sec, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Teaching Physicians And Lawyers To Understand Each Other: The Development Of A Law And Medicine Clinic, Robert L. Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

The discomfort doctors and lawyers feel with one another is not a consequence of the perceived medical malpractice crisis or any other single area of substantive disagreement. Rather, it is a reflection of the different epistemologies of the professions. The truth seeking activities of the two professions are very different, and these differences are reflected in the widely divergent professional educations provided to medical and law students. Much of the animosity which has developed between doctors and lawyers could be avoided, and members of each profession could have a much better understanding of the substance and analytic methods of the …

Physicians And Lawyers: Science, Art, And Conflict, Robert L. Schwartz, Joan M. Gibson

Faculty Scholarship

The relations between physicians and lawyers have deteriorated rapidly over the past several decades, most particularly since the early 70s when the perception that a medical malpractice crisis existed in America became widespread. Some believe that the factors dividing the two professions . are linked (1) to professional jealousy, (2) to sometimes conflicting economic interests, or (3) to difficulties in communication, since both professions use many of the same words, or terms of art, but with different intended meanings. While the authors agree that these factors may have aggravated the problem, they believe that the conflict's real roots are in …