Digital Commons Network^™

Legal And Ethical Duties Of Lawyers After Sarbanes-Oxley, Roger C. Cramton, George M. Cohen, Susan P. Koniak

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the legal and ethical duties of lawyers after Sarbanes-Oxley, focusing on the application, interpretation and ambiguities of the SEC rule implementing Section 307. Although our primary frame of reference will be on the SEC's new rules as an aspect of lawyer regulation, those rules are part of federal securities laws and should be considered in that aspect, i.e., whether they advance the purposes of the federal securities laws. The rules affecting lawyers should not be assessed in a vacuum as a mere turf war between federal regulators on the one hand and the organized bar and its …

A Study Of Handling Drops That Occur When Small Packages Move Through Small Parcel Delivery Systems, Robert Meisner

Theses

A study was conducted of the drops that small packages encounter during handling operations in the small parcel ground delivery system of United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (FedEx), two of the largest small parcel carriers in the USA The purpose was to determine if the drop heights listed in the International Safe Transit Associations (ISTA) standardized 3C and 3D testing procedure for small parcels replicate or are representative of the real environment. This is important to those who use ISTA tests to validate their package designs. The results of the study showed that relying on ISTA tests may …

Process Evaluation, Claudia V. Guerrero

Theses

This thesis analyzed the existing process for preparing quotes for standard hardware and software at TECH Corporation in order to evaluate its cost effectiveness and customer satisfaction. In addition, a new process for the preparation of standard quotes is proposed with short- and long-term business outcomes.

Damages As Narrative, Melody Richardson Daily

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Let's begin with a thought experiment. Imagine that the year is 2030 and you are a successful attorney. One day you receive a call from a legal scholar who tells you that she is writing a book about legal education at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and she invites you to contribute a chapter. She explains that your chapter should be twenty to thirty pages long, but that the content is entirely up to you. Because you enjoy writing, you agree to write the chapter.

Relations Between Lawyer And Client In Damages: Model, Typical, Or Dysfunctional, Rodney J. Uphoff

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This essay begins, therefore, by briefly examining the question of what constitutes good lawyering. The essay acknowledges the difficulty of defining precisely what is good lawyering. In fact, scholar, judges, and lawyers often disagree markedly when they characterize lawyer behavior using the term. Not surprising, then, even though academic commentators routinely trumpet the importance of establishing a meaningful attorney-client relationship as an important aspect of good lawyering, not all in the legal profession embrace that view.

To Be Announced: Silence From The United States Supreme Court And Disagreement Among Lower Courts Suggest An Uncertain Future For Class-Wide Arbitration - Green Tree Fin. Corp. V. Bazzle, Jonathan R. Bunch

Journal of Dispute Resolution

With growth in the area of arbitration agreements relating to employment, credit cards, loans, and other form agreements, the issue of class-wide arbitration has become an area of significant judicial activity. However, increased judicial activity has not resulted in increased clarity; to the dismay of those parties seeking to pursue or avoid class-wide arbitration, the law on this issue has become unpredictable from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The United States Supreme Court has expressed the importance of the class-action as a valuable device for vindicating plaintiffs' rights. Additionally, the Supreme Court has recognized arbitration as a valuable form of dispute resolution. …

Securities Arbitration Awards Of Punitive Damages: Protective Or Expansive Steps For Review - Sawtelle V. Waddell & (And) Reed, Inc., Andrew Kopp

Journal of Dispute Resolution

An award of punitive damages is often the most significant and detrimental part of an award arising from a judicial or arbitral proceeding. In 1995, the United States Supreme Court resolved a circuit split upholding an arbitral panel's authority to award punitive damages under a securities arbitration agreement. This decision was monumental in establishing arbitral power. However, it left several questions unanswered. For example, which, if any, standards should be applied to such awards? This casenote addresses the reviewability of punitive damages awards arising out of a securities arbitration hearing.

Public Confidence Laws Gone Awry: A Modern Circuit Split Reveals That Some Federal Courts Manipulate Standing Rules To Promulgate Severe First Amendment Restrictions On The Spouses And Children Of Public Employees, Nicholas R. Farrell

Vanderbilt Law Review

Federal courts in the United States have consistently upheld the constitutional doctrine that "[t]he essential rights of the First Amendment in some instances are subject to the elemental need for order without which the guarantees of civil rights to others would be a mockery." Given the central role of government workers in maintaining that order, the First Amendment rights of public employees have been particularly susceptible to restriction. For example, in 1940, Congress enacted the Hatch Act, which declared unlawful certain political activities of federal employees. Specifically, section nine of the Act prohibited officers and employees in the executive branch …

The Misappropriation Of Trust Fund Taxes Under The Guise Of Reasonable Cause, P. Prestin Weidner

Vanderbilt Law Review

Employers are generally required to withhold income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes from their employees' paychecks. Employers hold these taxes "in trust" until they are deposited or otherwise paid over to the government. Since one of the most common problems faced by owners and managers of businesses is the lack of adequate cash to satisfy their numerous immediate obligations, this system creates a temptation for the employer to use the withheld funds to cover its costs. Short-term bank loans are often either unavailable or unaffordable, and the employer's own debtors may be unable to pay or not yet obligated to …

Multiframe Super-Resolution Of Color Image Sequences Using A Global Motion Model, Gabriel Dore

Theses

The development of efficient software tools capable of super- resolving multi-spectral image sequences on-the-fly is an important step toward the production of imaging systems capable of acquiring vital imagery of hostile environments at an affordable price. A number of image processing tools already available for use in target recognition and identification rely on the availability of high-resolution imagery which cannot be safely acquired at a reasonable price. This thesis investigates the use of multiframe super-resolution as a tool to increase the spatial resolution of image sequences acquired with sensors commonly used in consumer video cameras. Multiframe super-resolution is the branch …

American Bioethics And Human Rights: The End Of All Our Exploring, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

In his compelling novel Blindness, José Saramago tells us about victims stricken by a contagious form of blindness who were quarantined and came to see themselves as pigs, dogs, and “lame crabs.” Of course, they were all human beings - although unable to perceive themselves, or others, as members of the human community. The disciplines of bioethics, health law, and human rights are likewise all members of the broad human rights community, although at times none of them may be able to see the homologies, even when responding to a specific health challenge.

The boundaries between bioethics, health law, and …

Reparations And Equal Opportunity, David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

This paper offers a sympathetic interpretation of reparations claims made on behalf of African Americans and suggests how they could properly be honored. It reviews the federal government’s role in supporting racial subordination and its continuing failure to address the inequitable consequences, which public policy now largely ignores. It sketches a national rectification project, comprising a comprehensive set of public programs that would attack the persisting legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. The programs can be justified by the government’s duty to insure equal opportunity for our society’s children and, most urgently, by corrective justice, because the inequities are attributable …

A Framework For Reparations Claims, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

These remarks, prepared for the Boston College Third World Law Journal Reparations Symposium, compare the goals and viability of reparations claims as tort suits. I contrast two approaches observed in the claims: a "doing justice" model, which involves seeking compensation in important cases of uncorrected uncompensated injustice, and a "social welfare" model that seeks to change the distribution of wealth. Claims under the first category are far more consistent with tort doctrine and likely to meet their goals than social welfare-based claims.

Extremely Preterm Birth And Parental Authority To Refuse Treatment: The Case Of Sidney Miller, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Disputes between physicians and patients over medical care have tended toward resolution in both the courts and ethics committees, with each of these bodies ultimately deciding that the informed, competent patient must be the final decision maker. Parents, too, have the authority to make medical decisions for their children, but these decisions can be challenged if physicians do not believe they are medically reasonable. One bioethical issue, however, is as intractable today as it was 30 years ago, when it began to be publicly discussed: the extent of parental authority to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment for an extremely premature infant. …

Slavery And Tort Law, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper evaluates the claim for slavery reparations from a torts perspective. I start with an examination of the injuries inflicted on slaves, and the extent to which tort law provides a vehicle for redressing these injuries. I then take up the question of derivative claims, claims brought by someone other than the direct victim, a category which covers the reparations complaint. Lastly, I discuss the accounting demand by the reparations plaintiffs. The derivative status of reparations claims presents special obstacles for plaintiffs. However, applying today's law to slavery should be viewed as bringing law to a regime from which …

Trademarks And Consumer Search Costs On The Internet, Stacey Dogan, Mark A. Lemley

Faculty Scholarship

In theory, trademarks serve as information tools, by conveying product information through convenient, identifiable symbols. In practice, however, trademarks have increasingly been used to obstruct the flow of information about competing products and services. In the online context, in particular, some courts have recently allowed trademark holders to block uses of their marks that would never have raised an eyebrow in a brick-and-mortar setting - uses that increase, rather than diminish, the flow of truthful, relevant information to consumers. These courts have stretched trademark doctrine on more than one dimension, both by expanding the concept of actionable "confusion" and by …

The Changing World Of Employee Benefits, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

When I graduated from law school in 1985, there were no courses offered in employee benefits law. Nor, as near as I can recall, was ERISA ever discussed in any of the labor and employment classes I took. There was no mention in the introductory labor law course or in other classes about employment discrimination, union organizing, and employment arbitration. Now, in contrast, many law schools include a course on employee benefits and ERISA, and students hoping to work in the labor and employment area frequently find that ERISA work is plentiful, and traditional NLRA work is not. This, of …

Negotiating Gender And (Free And Equal) Citizenship: The Place Of Associations, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This article focuses on the place of associations within John Rawls's political liberalism and in feminist liberalism. It revisits crucial components of political liberalism in light of feminist criticisms, such as those of Susan Moller Okin and Martha Nussbaum, that political liberalism's protection of associational life hinders women's free and equal citizenship. Offering a different reading of Rawls, it finds greater potential to draw on political liberalism to support such citizenship. It then brings liberal feminist ideas about the place of associations into dialogue with recent feminist work on gender, rights, and culture calling for models of rights within culture …

The Social Insurance Crisis And The Problem Of Collective Saving: A Commentary On Shaviro's Reckless Disregard, David I. Walker

Faculty Scholarship

Long-range Social Security and Medicare spending projections vastly exceed projected program revenues. If left unchecked, the resulting fiscal imbalance (estimated at $40 to $70 trillion in present value terms) would fall primarily on future generations. To avoid generational inequity, and perhaps fiscal meltdown, Professor Daniel N. Shaviro and others propose immediate fiscal austerity. This reply Commentary argues that near-term austerity is unlikely to play a significant role in overcoming the fiscal imbalance, which can be thought of as a balloon payment due mid-twenty-first century. Significant near-term fiscal austerity would eliminate the public debt and replace it with a public surplus. …

Strengthening Domestic Corporate Activity In Global Capital Markets: A Canadian Perspective On South Africa's Corporate Governance, Janis P. Sarra

All Faculty Publications

As a Canadian corporate law scholar who recently had the opportunity to visit South Africa, I was humbled by both the profound challenges and the immutable positive spirit of the South African people when it comes to thinking about their economic and social future. Hence while this paper is a reflective discussion on the kinds of challenges that exist and the strategies that could be deployed to enhance corporate governance in South Africa, it must be emphasized at the outset that it is for Sub-Saharan African nations to develop their own governance models. They are best positioned to adopt strategies …

Separation, Neutrality, And Clergy Liability For Sexual Misconduct, William P. Marshall

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Empty Promise Of Compassionate Conservatism: A Reply To Judge Wilkinson, William P. Marshall

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Aquifer Denitrification : Correlation Of ¹⁵N Isotopic Enrichment And First-Order Rate Constants, Ryan Klapperich

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

Denitrification is the process by which potentially dangerous nitrate is biogeochemically reduced into harmless nitrogen gas. This process is mediated by bacteria in the presence of suitable electron donors, such as organic carbon, sulfide, and ferrous iron. Due to its potential utility in the remediation of contaminated environments, the process of denitrification has received considerable attention. However, a relationship between the rate constant of the reaction and isotopic enrichment of 15N, which occurs as a direct result of the chemical reaction, has received little consideration. A strong correlation between these two factors could lead to a technique to estimate denitrification …

Arrive, Explore, Reflect: The Development And Evaluation Of A Web-Based Program To Introduce High School Students To Landscape Architecture, Courtney Bailey

LSU Master's Theses

The profession of landscape architecture has struggled with public perception since the mid-nineteenth century. Community programs, coloring books, and educational toolkits are just some of the methods employed in the profession's attempt to improve public perception. Very little research has been conducted to test the efficiency of these educational attempts. The goal of this thesis is to create a Web-based program to effectively educate young members of the public. The program uses five "mini lessons" to present information about landscape architecture to the student. Links to the World Wide Web are scattered throughout the program to supplement lesson material. A …

The Atchafalaya Basin Proposal For Nomination To The World Heritage Site List, Mitchell W. Coffman

LSU Master's Theses

The Atchafalaya Basin in the Southern United States is a cultural, environmental, historical and natural land region of such universal importance, designation as a World Heritage Site is appropriate. This thesis provides a justification for this designation through compliance with cultural and natural criteria detailed in the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972. The treaty, also known as the World Heritage Convention (WHC) promotes natural and cultural landscape preservation on an international level. This thesis lists the cultural and natural arguments for nominating the Atchafalaya Basin to the World Heritage Site list.

National, …

Numerical Simulation And Field Verification Of Inclined Piezocone Penetration Test In Cohesive Soils, Lei Wei

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A large strain finite element analysis is performed to analyze the effect of soil anisotropy on the inclined piezocone penetration test in normally consolidated cohesive soils. The piezocone penetration is numerically simulated using the commercial finite element code ABAQUS. The saturated clay is modeled as a two-phase material and the effective stress principle is used to describe its behavior. A frictional contact interface utilizing Mohr-Coulomb's theory was chosen to represent interactions between the surface of the cone and the soil. The Anisotropic Modified Cam Clay Model (AMCCM) by Dafalias (1987) was chosen and implemented into ABAQUS through user subroutine UMAT. …

Commitment To Displaying Positive Emotions At Work: An Examination Of Individual And Situational Antecedents, Meredith H. Croyle

LSU Master's Theses

Studies show that employee emotional displays impact customer behaviors and attitudes (Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, & Sideman, 2002; Pugh, 2001; Tsai, 2001). However, the factors influencing employees' emotional displays have not received much attention. More specifically, research suggests a need to more fully understand the motivational processes underlying employees' emotional displays, particularly in customer service where positive emotional displays are related to customer behaviors and sales performance (Brown & Sulzer-Azaroff, 1994; Diefendorff & Gosserand, in press; Grandey, Fisk, Matilla, & Sideman, 2002; Pugh, 2001; Tsai, 2001). To this end, this investigation examined an expectancy theory model of commitment to positive emotional …

Modulation Of Gabaergic Signaling In Retinal Amacrine Cells, Brian Kevin Hoffpauir

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The intricate circuitry formed by amacrine cells in the inner plexiform layer (IPL) of the retina suggests that these interneurons play a major role in shaping the visual message. The majority of amacrine cells in the vertebrate retina are GABAergic. Thus, elucidating how GABAergic signaling is modulated in the IPL is critical in order to understand how the visual message is processed in the retina. The results presented here suggest that GABAergic signaling between amacrine cells can be modulated by the activation of metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) or by the production of the second messenger, nitric oxide (NO). A …

Performance Assessment Of Coated Cemented Carbide Tools In Turning Aisi 1018 Steel, Mohamad Nouilati

LSU Master's Theses

In this study, the machining performance of a series of commercially available coated tungsten based cemented carbides, with 55o diamond shape, were investigated during finish turning of AISI 1018 steel under dry conditions. The inserts tested had a coating of TiN, Al2O3, TiN/Al2O3 and TiC/Al2O3/TiN respectively. For comparison, uncoated cemented tungsten carbide was also tested under the same cutting conditions. The coated tools exhibited superior wear resistance over the uncoated tool. The TiC/Al2O3/TiN coated tool had the lowest flank wear due to the high abrasive resistance of the TiC layer. The Al2O3 coated tool showed superior wear-resistance over the TiN/Al2O3 …

The Syntheses Of Novel Indicators And Materials For Chiral Separation, Rolanda Johnson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The colorimetric properties of resorcinarene solutions had not been fully investigated since von Baeyer's initial synthesis. We find that the solutions containing resorcinarene macrocycles develop color upon heating or standing. In the presence of saccharides, these solutions exhibit significant color changes which are readily observable by visual inspection. We determined that the solution color is due to macrocycle ring opening and oxidation. The optical responses to saccharides are due to complexation of the sugar with the acyclic chromophores. We have applied these mechanistic insights towards the challenging problems of the visual detection of saccharides and other important biologically analytes. In …