Digital Commons Network^™

Enforcing Promises: An Examination Of The Basis Of Contract, Charles J. Goetz, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The obligation to keep promises is a commonly acknowledged moral duty. Yet not all promises – however solemnly vowed – are enforceable at law. Why are some promises legally binding and others not? Orthodox doctrinal categories provide only modest assistance in answering this persistent question. Conventional analysis, for example, has distinguished promises made in exchange for a return promise or performance from nonreciprocal promises. Indeed, common law "bargain theory" is classically simple: bargained-for promises are presumptively enforceable; nonreciprocal promises are presumptively unenforceable. But this disarmingly simple theory has never mirrored reality. Contract law has ventured far beyond such narrow limitations, …

Taking Supreme Court Opinions Seriously, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Taking Supreme Court opinions seriously emerged as a topic of discussion at a lunch I attended last year with several Supreme Court law clerks. Somehow we came round to a particular three-judge district court case which I confidently opined was "certain" to be reversed on the basis of principles announced in prior opinions. The clerks were models of politeness and circumspection; never once did they even intimate that the judgment would (by divided vote) be affirmed. But shortly after I had announced my views of that case, one of the clerks began to prod me, asking whether I simply took …

Professor Jones And The Constitution, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Harry Jones's elegant and stimulating Waterman lectures begin on a salutary note. Professor Jones rightly reminds us that, first and foremost, a constitution is not exclusively or primarily a limitation on the exercise of political power, but rather is a charter for its exercise. Accordingly, to view the Constitution as "all brakes and no engine" suggests a serious and fundamental myopia, albeit an understandable one given the popular preoccupation with the Supreme Court's role in vindicating guarantees of civil liberty. But that preoccupation, Professor Jones notes, does more than distort the meaning of the Constitution; it ignores an historically …

Confessions Of A Horizontalist: A Dialogue On The First Amendment, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

It is hardly surprising that the Supreme Court has never developed a satisfying theory of the first amendment. Free speech and press problems are many and varied, demanding the most delicate balance of interests in order to preserve a system of freedom of expression and at the same time afford proper respect for competing governmental objectives. Doctrine adapted to one medium of expression may not sit well when applied to others. With the passage of time, changes in technology, economic conditions, and the very nature of expression tend to outstrip the Court's ability to keep pace with doctrinal innovations. There …

An Assessment Of The Use Of Cost-Benefit Analysis In Regulatory Agency Decision Making, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

CONSIDERABLE dissatisfaction has been expressed with the process and results of regulatory agency decision making. Recommendations have been made that the Federal agencies employ rational, "balancing" approaches such as cost-benefit analysis in conducting their standard setting and adjudicatory functions.

This paper examines some current uses of cost-benefit analysis by several agencies in their decision-making processes, and identifies and discusses apparent limitations.

Families With Service Needs: The Newest Euphemism, Stanley Z. Fisher

Faculty Scholarship

Juvenile court jurisdiction over "status offenders" - juveniles engaging in noncriminal misconduct such as truancy, running away, and "incorrigibility" - has become the subject of national debate. Most participants in the many-sided discussion agree that the system needs reform. The major disagreement, however, is between those who wish merely to reform the court's jurisdiction over this conduct, and those who would substantially eliminate it. This article concerns the newest reform proposal: to revise status offense jurisdiction under a new category entitled "Families With Service Needs" (FWSN). Proposed in 1977 by a federally funded task force, 5 the FWSN concept has …

Governmental Regulation Of The Press: A Study Of Israel's Press Ordinance - Part Ii, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

In the beginning, use of the Press Ordinance (hereafter Pr. Ord.) was limited, but as British political control deteriorated it became more extensive and even ruthless. In 1937, the Peel Report complained that the Pr. Ord. was not tough enough and recommended stricter measures.³ At about the same time, the Mandatory Government itself reached the conclusion that the Pr. Ord. was insufficient and issued a series of Defence (Emergency) Regulations which suspended the entire range of civil liberties-including freedom of expression. These Defence (Emergency) Regulations which related to the press replaced in part and fortified in part the Pr. …

Securities Commentary, Roberta S. Karmel, John P. Ketels

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rebutting Presumptions: Order Out Of Chaos, Neil S. Hecht, William M. Pinzler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Representation Of Women Who Defend Themselves In Response To Physical Or Sexual Assault Arguedas, Elizabeth M. Schneider, Susan B. Jordan, Cristina C. Arguedas

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judges At The Bedside: The Case Of Joseph Saikewicz, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

In what may prove to be the most controversial medicolegal decision of the year, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that, in certain cases, courts are the proper forum in which life-sustaining medical decisions should be made.1 The controversy goes deep. It involves questions of who should make life-prolonging decisions, in what forum, and on what criteria. Until the last few years, these questions arose almost exclusively in the context of Jehovah's Witnesses cases - cases in which life-saving blood transfusions were being refused for religious reasons. But with society's increasing consciousness about the way people die in hospitals, …

Governmental Regulation Of The Press: A Study Of Israel's Press Ordinance - Part I, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

This article is part of a broader effort to analyse the relationship between the press and the legal system in Israel. Being only a segment of a larger project, it is devoted in its entirely to one component of Israel's press law: the Press Ordinance of 1933 (hereafter Pr. Ord.). Although antiquated and considered by certain circles as merely a "dead letter", the Pr. Ord. still forms the backbone of Israel's press law, since it regulates so many aspects of the press. Beyond its relevance as positive law, the Pr. Ord. is of interest for a number of reasons. Having …

Abortion To Aging: Problems Of Definition In The Medical Expense Tax Deduction, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

Administration of the medical expense deduction has generated its share of litigation and rulings. The major areas of dispute center on two questions. By far the more important question is how to distinguish deductible medical expenses from other expenses that should be characterized as personal, living, or family expenses. The statutory definition of medical care is a broad one, encompassing amounts paid for "diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or for the purpose of affecting any structure or function of the body."' ¹⁰ It also includes transportation to obtain medical care." Because normal expenses of a personal nature, …

Recent Decisions Of The Supreme Court In Labor Law, David S. Bogen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Court Of Appeals Of Maryland: Roles, Work And Performance - Part Ii: Craftsmanship And Decision-Making, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Non-Precedential Precedent - Limited Publication And No-Citation Rules In The United States Courts Of Appeals, William L. Reynolds, William M. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Quest For Educational Opportunity: Access To Legal And Medical Education In New Mexico, Leo M. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

ACCESS of minority group members to higher education is one of the burning social and legal issues of our time. The issue centers around two problems: first, how can the number of minority students in higher education be increased, and, second, can it be done in a way that does not abuse the constitution? As institutions of higher learning, both medical and law schools have been the focus of this issue, primarily due to the intense competition among applicants for the limited number of positions available. l In addition, medical schools and law schools have been the recent targets of …

The Liberty Interest Of Children: Due Process Rights And Their Application, James W. Ellis, Lee E. Teitelbaum

Faculty Scholarship

Few areas pose more difficult problems in the application of due process doctrine than does regulation of parent-child relationships. Determination of the procedural requirements for intervention by the state in the lives of children, at the request or with the agreement of parents, presents novel and troublesome constitutional questions. Special problems arise in the definition of the liberty interests of minors and in determining how much process is due given an infringement of those interests. These problems cannot be resolved by resort to the categorical assumptions of either traditional theory or "children's liberation." Close examination of the interests held by …

Function Of The Oath In The Ancient Near Eastern International Treaty, Donald Magnetti

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Equality For Individuals Or Equality For Groups: Implications Of The Supreme Court Decision In The Manhart Case, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This commentary breaks down the case of the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power v. Manhart and discusses what effects the Supreme Court's decision will have when Title VII is applied to university employers, particularly in their relationship with TIAA-CREF

A Preliminary Report On The Bakke Case, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This comment breaks down the variety of opinions in the Bakke case and discusses the immediate implications the decision may have on the academic community.

Shadow Prices For Project Selection In The Presence Of Distortions: Effective Rates Of Protection And Domestic Resource Costs, T.N. Srinivasan, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

The paper addresses the problem of deriving shadow prices for use in project evaluation when the existing allocation is characterized by ad valorem trade distortions. The analysis is used to clarify and resolve the long-standing debate among effective-rate-of-protection and domestic resource-cost proponents as to the respective merits of their measures as methods of project evaluation. The derivation of shadow factor prices is then extended to three major factor market imperfections familiar from extensive trade-theoretic analysis.

A Critique Of The Uniform Product Liability Law -- A Rush To Judgment, Aaron Twerski, A. S. Weinstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

To Herbert Wechsler With Grateful Appreciation, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Though the invitation to join this symposium came to me in my official capacity, I prefer to write in personal terms. I make that choice for two reasons. First, I cannot improve on the Faculty's own affectionate resolution of appreciation, and so I am happy to embrace it as the School's official position. (I alone on the Faculty could not vote for it: only a tie gives me the franchise and, try as I might, I could not suborn any contrary votes.) Second, my feelings for Herb Wechsler owe far more to my days as his student and my years …

The Constitution Goes To Harvard, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Doctrinal disorder haunts a generation of Supreme Court decisions construing and applying the strands of the fourteenth amendment. But in a confusion contest between the Court and academic writers on constitutional law, picking a winner would be no simple task. Those of us in the academy, despite our comparatively ample time for reflection, have long resisted discussion of fundamental issues.

Professors Tribe and Michelman, two of our ablest writers, illustrate my point in their provocative recent essays on National League of Cities v. Usery. Neither purports to erect more adequate scaffolding for the decision's federalism foundation. Rather, each attempts …

Socialist Legality And Uncensored Literature In The Soviet Union, Kazimierz Grzybowski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Enduring Significance Of Neutral Principles, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Almost twenty years have passed since Herbert Wechsler delivered his Oliver Wendell Holmes lecture, Toward Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law. Although no one piece fully conveys the richness and rigor of Professor Wechsler's conception of constitutional law and the role of the judiciary, Neutral Principles sets out starkly, eloquently, and courageously some of his fundamental beliefs about constitutional decisionmaking. Shifts in jurisprudential fashion, as well as marked changes in constitutional doctrine and the composition of the Supreme Court, would make this an apt time to review what is almost certainly the most cited and most controversial discussion of constitutional …

The Ideology Of Advocacy: Procedural Justice And Professional Ethics, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Conventional morality frowns at the ethics of advocacy. Public opinion disapproves of what it considers the lawyer's most characteristic activities. Popular culture can reconcile itself to him only by pretending that all his clients are virtuous. The lawyer's response takes the form of a dialectic of cynicism and naiveté. On one hand, he sees his more degrading activities as licensed by a fundamental amorality lying beneath conventional morality. On the other hand, he sees his more heartening ones as serving an institutional justice higher than conventional morality. The two moods divide the profession as a whole, and the division can …

The Repressed Issues Of Sentencing: Accountability, Predictability, And Equality In The Era Of The Sentencing Commission, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The existence of disparities in the sentences imposed on equally culpable offenders has long been a subject of jurisprudential concern. The author provides a critique of recent efforts to objectify the sentencing process that rely on a matrix table prescribing guideline sentence lengths on the basis of offense severity and predictions of recidivism. With particular emphasis on the Sentencing Commission authorized by pending federal legislation, he urges the need for political accountability in the body that inevitably makes value judgments in the preparation and administration of such a guideline system. Finally, the author discusses the normative issues that surround the …

Relief From Federal Judgments: A Morass Unrelieved By A Rule, Mary Kay Kane

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.