Digital Commons Network^™

A Truce In The Takeover Wars?, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

To a casual observer, hostile corporate takeovers may seem as pointless and destructive a form of modern warfare as the Iran/Iraq conflict. "Raiders" strike with bear hugs, junk bonds, and two-tier tender offers. Incumbent managers respond with poison pills, greenmail payments, shark repellents, and golden parachutes. Congress is wearying of the strife, and may soon impose a cease-fire on the combatants -but to whose benefit?

Formal Justice And Judicial Precedent, David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the encroachment of legislation on matters that used to lie within the province of the common law, considerable scope remains for the judicial practice of following precedent, without challenging the authority of written law. For decisions must still be rendered where legislation has not yet intervened, and interpretations of written law can be accorded precedential force.

Why should courts follow precedents? When past decisions are unobjectionable on their merits, the practice is relatively unproblematic. It might, perhaps, be justified by the usual argument that it makes judicial decisions more predictable. That justification hardly seems, however, to confront the fact …

A Moderate And Restrained Federal Product Liability Bill: Targeting The Crisis Areas For Resolution, Aaron D. Twerski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regulating Heart And Liver Transplantation, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Organ transplantation has been a favorite topic of health lawyers since its inception. Organ procurement was addressed with the adoption of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act in all fifty states, and "brain death" has been recognized both judicially and legislatively across the United States. Nonetheless, it is now apparent that the major problems in organ transplantation are not legal in nature, and thus neither are the solutions. Heart and liver transplants are extreme and expensive medical interventions that few individuals can afford and few hospitals can offer. In an era of economic scarcity, how (if at all) should organ transplant …

Baby Doe Cases: Compromise And Moral Dilemma, Phoebe A. Haddon

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Tax Effects Of A Shareholder's Post-Incorporation Sale Of Stock: A Reappraisal, Robert I. Keller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Geac At The University Of Maryland Law Library: Commentary On Fishlyn, Barbara S. Gontrum

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Context-Based Theory Of Strategy Selection In Legal Negotiation, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court Rules For The Reporting Of Opinions: A Critique, William M. Richman, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Insanity Defense In Fact And Fiction: A Review Essay Of Norval Morris's Madness And The Criminal Law, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Whose Rights? What Danger?, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Executive Targeting Of Congressmen As A Violation Of The Arrest Clause, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Price Adjustment In Long-Term Contracts, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

After parties enter into a contract, changed circumstance might result in one of them being dissatisfied with the price. Anticipating this, the parties could include a price adjustment mechanism in the agreement. If the mechanism is imperfect, some dissatisfaction will remain. This dissatisfaction may result in litigation with the dissatisfied party asking the court either to excuse performance or revise the contract price. For example, large changes in fuel prices since 1973 generated considerable litigation.

In this paper, I suggest a framework for analyzing price adjustment in private contracts. Contrary to most economists and lawyers, I argue that price adjustment …

Babbitt V. Brandeis: The Decline Of The Professional Ideal, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

The vision of professionalism that entranced the liberal legal elite for a century now strikes most lawyers and law students as implausible or uninteresting or both. The papers in this symposium by Robert Nelson and by Ronald Gilson and Robert Mnookin are outstanding examples of two of the current modes of repudiation of this vision: the mode of skepticism and the mode of indifference. Nelson takes the claims of the professional vision seriously, and, using a methodology responsive to them, sets out to refute them. Gilson and Mnookin ignore the vision, and, using a methodology that assumes the vision's invalidity, …

Sharing Among The Human Capitalists: An Economic Inquiry Into The Corporate Law Firm And How Partners Split Profits, Ronald J. Gilson, Robert H. Mnookin

Faculty Scholarship

Large corporate law firms seem to be in a state of extraordinary flux. Success and failure are both on the rise. Large firms appear to supply a substantial and growing proportion of the legal services consumed by American business enterprises and to hire a significant fraction of the graduating classes of elite American law schools. Moreover, the last twenty years have witnessed a remarkable expansion in both the number of large firms and the absolute size of the biggest. But accompanying this striking success, there are also signs of serious institutional instability. During the last few years, several previously successful …

Reforms And Innovations Regarding Authors' And Performers' Rights In France: Commentary On The Law Of July 3, 1985, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Following thirteen months of parliamentary deliberations, on July 3, 1985, France enacted a law which brings major reforms and additions to its copyright act of March 11, 1957. The new law becomes effective on January 1, 1986. Among the French modernizations and innovations discussed in this Article are the new law's provisions regarding: computer software protection and ownership; royalties for home taping of audio and audiovisual works; and the recognition and regulation of "neighboring rights." These provisions extend statutory protection for the contributions of performing artists, and also accord reproduction and performance rights to the producers of phono- and videograms. …

Authors' Rights In France: The Moral Right Of The Creator Of A Commissioned Work To Compel The Commissioning Party To Complete The Work, André Françon, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The French law protecting authors' rights incorporates two distinct regimes of rights, "pecuniary" rights, and "moral" rights. As the denomination indicates, pecuniary rights pertain to the author's economic interests, and provide the author a monopoly in the reproduction and public performance of his work. Moral rights safeguard the author's "personality" interest in his work. Despite the appellation "moral" rights, the author's claims under French law to the security of his personality as expressed in his work are not precatory: moral rights entail several distinct and enforceable interests. These are: the right to make the work known to the public "droit …

Antitrust: Fear Of Fairness, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

In December 1985, a comprehensive Reagan administration plan for both substantive and procedural reform of the antitrust laws was made public. Under the plan, the Justice Department's 1984 merger guidelines would be codified in the Clayton Act; restrictions on interlocking directorates would be relaxed; industries affected by imports could seek antitrust waivers as an alternative to tariffs or quotas; plaintiffs could be assessed attorneys' fees for filing frivolous antitrust suits; treble damages would be eliminated in many cases; and the full share of damages of settling defendants (instead of just the settlement amount) would be deducted from the damages available …

Limits To Attorney-Client Confidentiality: A Philosophically Informed And Comparative Approach To Medical And Legal Ethics, Nancy J. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

The proper limits to attorney-client confidentiality are hotly debated by lawyers and legal scholars. Various drafts of the proposed Model Rules of Professional Conduct have included controversial provisions which call for the disclosure of adverse evidence and client perury, as well as more liberal disclosure of completed and intended client wrongdoing than is currently permitted under the Model Code of Professional Responsibility. This Article takes a comparative approach to the problem, utilizing a body of philosophical literature which explores the principle of confidentiality in the physician-patient context This "philosophically informed" approach sets out an analytical framework in which the controversies …

Rendering Arbitral Awards With Reasons: The Elaboration Of Common Law Of International Transactions, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Faculty Scholarship

With the growth of international trade, arbitration has emerged as the preferred remedy for resolving private international commercial disputes. In fact, among major Western legal systems such as those of England, the United States and France, statutory and decisional law developments indicate a nearly complete acceptance of international arbitral adjudication. This recognition of arbitral procedure and the enforcement of awards, which are given uniform legal recognition and enforcement by domestic legal systems, either as provisions in international conventions or as principles of national statutory or decisional law. These rules, in effect, represent an international consensus on arbitration and constitute a …

Trespass, Nuisance, And The Costs Of Determining Property Rights, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The right to exclude intrusions by others, we have it on high authority, is "one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property." Yet the right to exclude is not one right; it is itself a collection or "bundle" of rights. With respect to property in land, for example, the right to exclude depends to a large extent on whether the intrusion in question is subject to the common law of trespass or of nuisance. Generally speaking, when the intrusion is governed by trespass, then there is no exception for de minimis …

Pedagogy Without Purpose: An Essay On Professional Responsibility Courses And Casebooks, Erwin Chemerinsky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Calculating Fees Of Special Masters, David I. Levine

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mentally Retarded Criminal Defendants, James W. Ellis, Ruth A. Luckasson

Faculty Scholarship

This Article attempts to provide a preliminary overview of the issues in the Mental Health Standards as they relate to defendants with mental retardation. Part I reviews the history of the treatment of retarded defendants in the criminal justice system. Part II describes the characteristics of people with mental retardation and the consequences of those characteristics. Part III then discusses the extent to which mental retardation should be exculpatory of criminal responsibility. Part IV analyzes the critical importance of competence issues to mentally retarded defendants. Part V elaborates upon dispositional issues including civil commitment and sentencing. Parts VI and VII …

Informed Consent To Participation In Medical Research Employing Elderly Human Subjects, Robert L. Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

The primary question facing researchers who intend to employ elderly human subjects is whether their subjects' advanced age requires that the protection of their autonomy be accomplished in some manner that is different from that employed to protect other subjects. Answering this question will require an analysis of whether elderly subjects have a greater or lesser interest in autonomy than do others who might be subjects in human research, and whether it is more or less important to protect them from potential research abuse. This article will suggest that the elderly may possess several attributes that require that they be …

Kidnapping: A Modern Definition, John L. Diamond

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Literature, Life And The Law, Joel Gora

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Massachusetts And The Judges: Judicial Independence In Perspective, Barbara Aronstein Black

Faculty Scholarship

This is an essay about an incident that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during the period 1772-1774, an incident that I will call the Affair of the Royal Salary. Close relative of the Stamp Act Crisis, The Boston Tea Party, even the Boston Massacre, the Affair of the Royal Salary similarly involved a clash between the forces of popular government and those of imperial government; like its better known cousins it is part of the story of the coming of the American Revolution in Massachusetts. In addition, since the Salary around which the Affair developed was intended …

Curriculum Structure And Faculty Structure, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Whatever Happened To 1845 - The Missing Decisions Of The Texas Supreme Court, Jim Paulsen, James Hambleton

Faculty Scholarship

Have you ever noticed a gap in the publication of Texas Supreme Court decisions? Both the Harvard "Blue Book" and the University of Texas "Green Book" inform readers that opinions of the court from 1840 to 1844 (the Republic period) can be found in Dallam's Decisions, while decisions from 1846 on (statehood) are available in Texas Reports or the Southwestern Reporter. That's all very clear, but whatever happened to 1845? This article will supply half an answer to this question; perhaps some reader can provide the other half.

Three questions arise. The first, and simplest: Are there any …