Law Commons^™

A Prophylactic Approach To Compact Constitutionality, Katherine Mims Crocker

Notre Dame Law Review

From COVID-19 to climate change, immigration to health insurance, firearms control to electoral reform: state politicians have sought to address all these hot-button issues by joining forces with other states. The U.S. Constitution, however, forbids states to “enter into any Agreement or Compact” with each other “without the Consent of Congress,” a requirement that proponents of much interstate action, especially around controversial topics, would hope to circumvent.

The Supreme Court lets them do just that. By interpreting “any Agreement or Compact” so narrowly that it is difficult to see what besides otherwise unlawful coordination qualifies, the Court has essentially read …

Specific Performance: On Freedom And Commitment In Contract Law, Hanoch Dagan, Michael Heller

Notre Dame Law Review

When should specific performance be available for breach of contract? This question—at the core of contract—divides common-law and civil-law jurisdictions and it has bedeviled generations of comparativists, along with legal economists, historians, and philosophers. Yet none of these disciplines has provided a persuasive answer. This Article provides a normatively attractive and conceptually coherent account, one grounded in respect for the autonomy of the promisor’s future self. Properly understood, autonomy explains why expectation damages should be the ordinary remedy for contract breach. This same normative commitment justifies the “uniqueness exception,” where specific performance is typically awarded, and the personal services exclusion, …

Contract's Convert Meddlers, Sarah Winsberg

Notre Dame Law Review

Scholars of contract law typically examine contracts as bargains between two parties. This approach elides an additional, key function of many contracts: to shape existing relationships to the satisfaction of a third party, often one more economically powerful than either of the two bargainers. Third-party litigants, especially creditors, have historically advocated for their own interests and interpretive paradigms so strongly that they have sometimes gained priority over the actual intentions of the two bargainers.

This Article recovers the story of how a group of frequent-flier third parties—mainly creditors of small businesses—shifted the rules of contracts between partners in early America. …

The Impending Collision Of Smart Contracts And The Automatic Stay, Carter D. Wietecha

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note begins by briefly examining the nature and function of smart contracts, including how they have changed over time. Next, it evaluates the relevant language of Code provisions dealing with the automatic stay and discusses decisions treating the interaction of early generation smart contracts with the automatic stay. It concludes with a discussion of how the Supreme Court’s recent decision in City of Chicago v. Fulton has significantly changed the legal landscape for smart contracts and how the automatic stay will likely interact with smart contracts in the near future.

Forum Selection Clauses, Non-Signatories, And Personal Jurisdiction, John F. Coyle, Robin J. Effron

Notre Dame Law Review

Who is bound by a forum selection clause? At first glance, the answer to this question may seem obvious. It is black letter law that a person cannot be bound to an agreement without her consent. In recent years, however, courts have not followed this rule with respect to forum selection clauses. Instead, they routinely enforce these clauses against individuals who never signed the contract containing the clause. Courts justify this practice on the grounds that it promotes litigation efficiency by bringing all of the litigants together in the chosen forum. There are, however, problems with enforcing forum selection clauses …

Property Rights In Children, Barry E. Adler, Alexis A. Alvarez

Notre Dame Law Review

In 1978, Dr. Elisabeth Landes and then-Professor, later-Judge Richard Posner, published The Economics of the Baby Shortage. The article openly discussed how economic analysis can address the allocation of babies available for adoption. The ideas expressed in the article were widely denounced as an inhumane commodification of children, something tolerable only in the twisted minds of academic authors. Despite the backlash, an odd thing happened in the more than four decades since Landes and Posner wrote on this topic: their ideas began to take hold. Today, almost all states in the United States permit, in some form, the contractual …

The Current Predatory Nature Of Land Contracts And How To Implement Reforms, Stacy Purcell

Notre Dame Law Review

Because land contracts are frequently inequitable, advocates and legislators have called for enhanced regulation. This Note examines the imbalance of power between sellers and buyers during the formation of land contracts, the ways the law has attempted to lessen the inequality, and how to implement potential reforms. Part II discusses the history of land contracts and their recent resurgence since the 2008 housing crash. Part III explains that while current land contracts are often predatory, land contracts could potentially be a useful way for low-income individuals to become homeowners. Part IV outlines proposed national and state reforms. Part V makes …

The Legality Of Class Action Waivers In Employment Contracts, Benjamin M. Redgrave

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note attempts to bring clarity to the questionable legality of class action waivers in employment contracts by examining the two competing statutes at issue—the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA)—the Supreme Court’s cases on the issue, and the arguments for and against such waivers advanced by the Second, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits, which have all directly addressed the question. After providing an overview of these two statutes, the agency that administers the NLRA, and the evolution of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on the topic, this Note discusses the Supreme Court’s most recent …

Incorporating Legal Claims, Maya Steinitz

Notre Dame Law Review

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in commercial litigation funding. Whereas the judicial, legislative, and scholarly treatment of litigation finance has regarded litigation finance first and foremost as a form of champerty and sought to regulate it through rules of legal professional responsibility (hereinafter, the “legal ethics paradigm”), this Article suggests that the problems created by litigation finance are all facets of the classic problems created by “the separation of ownership and control” that have been a focus of business law since the advent of the corporate form. Therefore, an “incorporation paradigm,” offered here, is more appropriate. “Incorporating …

Online Terms Of Service: A Shield For First Amendment Scrutiny Of Government Action, Jacquelyn E. Fradette

Notre Dame Law Review

Part I of this Note will canvas popular opinions and perceptions about First Amendment rights on the Internet using examples of public outcry over recent instances of speech limitation. It will also discuss the state action doctrine generally and how the presence of this doctrine most likely renders certain popular public constitutional intuitions about the First Amendment erroneous.

Part II will provide an overview of how courts have taken an expansive and protective view of private ordering between online parties. It will discuss how courts have developed a robust freedom to contract jurisprudence in the Internet context. Because courts essentially …

Weathering Wal-Mart, Joseph A. Seiner

Notre Dame Law Review

In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2531 (2011), the Supreme Court held that a proposed class of over a million women that had alleged pay and promotion discrimination against the nation’s largest retailer could not be certified. According to the Court, the plaintiffs had failed to establish a common thread in the case sufficient to tie their claims together. The academic response to Wal-Mart was immediate and harsh: the decision will serve as the death knell for mass employment litigation, undermining the workplace protections provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). …