Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

A Primer On Minnesota No-Fault Automobile Insurance, Michael K. Steenson

Faculty Scholarship

The Minnesota No-Fault Act has undergone substantial change since its enactment in 1974. Recent legislative modifications and judicial constructions of the Act's provisions have served to correct earlier deficiencies, but have raised new and complex problems of interpretation. In light of these developments, Professor Steenson provides an overview that explains how the Act functions. After tracing the history of automobile insurance regulation in Minnesota, Professor Steenson examines in detail the various compulsory and optional insurance coverages under the Act, the proper sources of payment under those coverages, and the limitations imposed by the Act on the right to recover damages …

Paradoxes, Gedanken Experiments And The Burden Of Proof: A Response To Dr. Cohen's Reply, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

This article responds to L. Jonathan Cohen's critique of the author's position regarding the problem of naked statistical evidence. Cohen argues that the kind of probability at work in litigation does not conform to the axioms of mathematical probability. The author responds by suggesting that the familiar theory of probability needs no revision to account for the reluctance of a few courts to permit plaintiffs to prevail on the strength of background statistics alone. One need not adopt Dr. Cohen's esoteric mathematical structure to explain the burden of proof in civil cases. The article shows that whether or not one …

From Tort To Crime: Some Reflections On The Criminalization Of Fiduciary Breaches And The Problematic Line Between Law And Ethics, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Within the context of mail and wire fraud prosecutions, criminal liability for breach of fiduciary duties is being imposed with increasing frequency. Professor Coffee discusses the disturbing failure of the courts to require that the fiduciary's conduct have caused legally cognizable harm to the beneficiary. He concludes that an affirmative defense should be available to fiduciaries to show the lack of proximate cause between a breach and the injury. In addition, federal enforcement should occur only after state and private remedies have proven inadequate.

Regulatory Reform In A Time Of Transition, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

As Americans have become both disheartened at the performance of their governments and conscious of their penetration into what were once private lives, regulatory reform has been urged with increasing fervor at both federal and state levels. Some of the reform talk is lawyer's talk, some of it is directed to the most fundamental aspects of the government order, and there is a good bit in between. My purpose here is to examine a number of the directions being suggested at the federal level for regulatory reform during the coming decade. While it would be helpful also to consider state …

Justice Douglas And His Brethren: A Personal Recollection, William A. Reppy Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Social Science Data In A Change Of Venue Application: A Case Study, Neil Vidmar, John W. T. Judson

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes how social science data and professional testimony were used to assist judicial decision-making in an application to have a criminal fraud trial moved from Middlesex County, Ontario, because of prejudicial attitudes extant in the community. Typically, in such applications, tenuous documentation of pre-trial publicity and perhaps some unsubstantiated "opinion" testimony by persons purportedly in touch with the pulse of the community are the only evidence introduced . The presiding judge is required to consider this circumstantial, indirect, evidence and draw a conclusion about the level and extent of public prejudice as the merits of the application are …

Amniocentesis And The Apotheosis Of Human Quality Control, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Plain English Movement, The Plain English Movement: Panel Discussion, Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

One of the dominant events between 1975 and today in United States consumer law was the birth of what has become known as the "plain English movement". For centuries lawyers have been derided for the nature of their prose. A word will not suffice where two or even three can take its place; long sentences are preferable to short ones; Latin, or perhaps medieval French, are preferable to English. The plain English movement is the name given to the first effective effort to change this and to write legal documents, particularly those used by consumers, in a manner that can …

Court Appointment Of Attorneys In Civil Cases: The Constitutionality Of Uncompensated Legal Assistance Note, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

Whether an individual becomes a party to judicial proceeding involuntarily, as a criminal or civil defendant, or voluntarily, as a civil plaintiff seeking redress of an injury, the assistance of counsel will increase his chances for a favorable disposition. When an impecunious litigant is unable to retain counsel, the question arises of who must bear the burden created by the complexity of adjudication. Although the Supreme Court has been sympathetic to the need for counsel in criminal cases, an indigent litigant in civil cases often will be denied legal assistance, and therefore will bear the burden himself In other instances, …

The Perils Of Writing An Intellectual History Of Torts, George C. Christie

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Professional Responsibility Issues In International Law Practice , Roger J. Goebel

Faculty Scholarship

The present Code of Professional Responsibility (CPR) is essentially geared to guide the conduct of the lawyer as advocate or litigator. It is certainly of assistance to the American international lawyer in establishing guidelines for his conduct, but only of limited assistance since the international lawyer usually serves more as an advisor to, or negotiator for, his clients. In contrast, the recent ABA draft Model Rules of Professional Conduct (MRPC) provide a more useful basis for examination of the international lawyer's ethical responsibilities, as they do in many respects for the corporate or commercial lawyer who assists domestic clients in …

Conjugal Violence: The Law Of Force And The Force Of Law , Maria Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

The Article concludes that neither the impartial mission of the rule of law nor the neatly tooled goal of individual justice has been served by the governmental response to conjugal violence, and suggests the elements from which a valid approach may be constructed.

Competency To Stand Trial Under The Senate And House Proposed Revisions Of The Federal Criminal Code, Leo M. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

In 1980 the judiciary committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives reported bills revising the federal criminal code. Although neither of these bills was enacted by the Ninety-Sixth Congress, they represent the culmination of efforts, over a period of a decade, to revise and reform the federal criminal laws in a comprehensive code.

Punishment And Compensation, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

When novelists and philosophers turn to the work of lawyers, they tend to gravitate toward certain issues and ignore others. Two processes-punishment and compensation-lie at the heart of our legal system, but only the former has drawn the attention of literary and philosophical minds.

The issues of wrongdoing, guilt, and expiation are of endless fascination not only for Dostoevsky and Dürrenmatt, but for any writer who seeks to fathom the foundations of our moral life. For philosophers, the concept of punishment has become a proving ground of the even broader conflict between deontological and utilitarian moral theories. Deontologists hold that …

Foreign Ownership And The Theory Of Trade And Welfare, Richard A. Brecher, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

Some standard topics in the theory of international trade are reconsidered in this paper by distinguishing between national and aggregate income when fixed supplies of foreign inputs are present within the home country. Under conditions that would ensure a national welfare gain if' foreign ownership were absent, international transfer, economic growth, or tariff policy might cause a national welfare loss in the presence of foreign ownership. The techniques developed could be applied to other domestic distinctions (such as those based on race, sex, age, or ethnicity) and to the theory of' customs unions in a three-country world.

Conflicts Of Law And Morality – Institutions Of Amelioration, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

In his rich, intricate, and wise examination of themes from the Crito, A. D. Woozley explores Socrates' proposal, put in the mouth of the personified laws of Athens, that the duty of a citizen is to obey a law or to persuade society that the law is wrong. If this position is understood to permit disobedience and attempted persuasion after a law is adopted, one of its implications is that on some occasions when people intentionally break the law, those who administer the law may properly decline to impose the stipulated punishment, because they believe that disobedience was justified. Suggesting …

Communicating With Juries: Problems And Remedies, William W. Schwarzer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Structural Approach To Corporations: The Case Against Defensive Tactics In Tender Offers, Ronald J. Gilson

Faculty Scholarship

Tender offers present an obvious and inherent conflict of interest between management and shareholders. On the one hand, an offer provides shareholders with the opportunity to sell their shares for a substantial premium over market price. On the other hand, the tender offer is the principal mechanism by which management can be forcibly unseated from control. It should thus come as no surprise that management often resists outsiders' efforts to direct tender offers at its shareholders. The form of that resistance, however, is somewhat surprising. Because the tender offer is the only form of corporate acquisition addressed directly to the …

The Survival Of The Derivative Suit: An Evaluation And A Proposal For Legislative Reform, John C. Coffee Jr., Donald E. Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

The shareholder derivative suit today faces extinction. Long considered the "chief regulator of corporate management," and a recognized form of litigation in American courts at least since 1855, it now confronts the second great challenge of its history. Thirty-odd years ago, commentators foresaw the derivative suit's demise when state legislatures began adopting security-for-expenses statutes to curb the abuses of "strike suit" litigation. These reports of its death proved exaggerated, however, as plaintiffs discovered various tactics by which to outflank these statutes. As a result, by the late 1960's, the crisis was past, and a revival in the action's popularity was …

Our Perfect Constitution, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Monaghan takes issue with "due substance" theorists, who view the Constitution as protecting rights and values generated by current conceptions of political morality. In this Article, he examines and criticizes the theories advanced to justify looking to those current conceptions as an acceptable mode of reasoning about constitutional meaning. Professor Monaghan's own view is that the proper mode of ascertaining constitutional meaning is one that looks to original intent and precedent, a view that acknowledges the Constitution does not guarantee perfect government.

"Twisting Slowly In The Wind": A Search For Constitutional Limits On Coercion Of The Criminal Defendant, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In the corridor outside Courtroom Four, Foster Clark approached the prosecutor. "I was wondering," he said, "are we really going to have to try this case?"

"Well," the prosecutor said, "that depends. He's dead on and gone to heaven, if that's what you mean. He doesn't have a prayer."

"I was wondering if we could work something out," Clark said. "I haven't really had a chance to talk with him, but I was wondering."

"So talk to him," the prosecutor said. "Find out where he stands, and call me."

* * *

"Look," the prosecutor said, "you know I can't …

"No Soul To Damn: No Body To Kick": An Unscandalized Inquiry Into The Problem Of Corporate Punishment, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?
—Edward, First Baron Thurlow 1731-1806

The Lord Chancellor of England quoted above was neither the first nor the last judge to experience frustration when faced with a convicted corporation. American sentencing judges are likely to face a similar dilemma with increasing frequency in the near future, for a number of signs indicate that corporate prosecutions will become increasingly commonplace. At first glance, the problem of corporate punishment seems perversely insoluble: moderate fines do not deter, …

A Reply To Professor Ball, Philip Chase Bobbitt

Faculty Scholarship

Although it has been observed that approaching an allegedly universalistic theory by asserting the time- and culture-bound nature of that theory is an attack of some sort, Professor Ball does not take my lectures to be a rebuke to the enterprise in which he, Professor Tushnet, and others are engaged. Instead, he complains that I do not examine the relation between constitutional argument, on the one hand, and, on the other, social, political, and economic interests. This is a mistaken reading of my work. It is nice to be told that Tushnet and Ball accept my formulation "that in our …

Union Waiver Of Employee Rights Under The Nlra: Part Ii - A Fresh Approach To Board Deferral To Arbitration, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

The author applies the non-waiverprinciple developed in Part I of this article to Board deferral to arbitration. Former Chairman Murphy's concurring opinion in General American Transportation Corp. is evaluated in light of the non- waiver princple. The author analyzes the issues not properly resolved in that opinion, while demonstrating its basic insight.

In Part 1 of this essay, I explored the implications of the Supreme Court's holding in NLRP v. Magnavox Co. that exclusive bargaining agents do not have the authority to waive certain rights protected by section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Drawing on Magnavox, …

Union Waiver Of Employee Rights Under The Nlra: Part I, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

The author formulates a principle, based on the Supreme Court decision in NLRB v. Magnavox, to distinguish which employee rights protected by section 7 may not be waived by unions in collective bargaining agreements. In this article, the non-waiver principle is applied to the right to strike. In the next issue, Professor Harper will address application of the principle to Board deferral to arbitration, drawing on former Board Chairman Murphy's swing vote opinion in General American Transportation Corp.

Introduction, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reliance In The Revised Restatement: The Proliferation Of Promissory Estoppel, Charles L. Knapp

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sleight Of Handwriting: The Holographic Will In California, Gail Boreman Bird

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The Second Restatement Of Judgments: Issue Preclusion And Related Problems, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.