Law Commons^™

Commerce Games And The Individual Mandate, Leslie Henry, Maxwell Stearns

Maxwell L. Stearns

While the Supreme Court declined an early invitation to resolve challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), a recent split between the United States Courts of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (sustaining the PPACA’s “individual mandate”) and the Eleventh Circuit (striking it down) virtually ensures that the Court will decide the fate of this centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s regulatory agenda. Whatever the Court’s decision, it will likely affect Commerce Clause doctrine- and related doctrines - for years or even decades to come.

Litigants, judges, and academic commentators have focused on whether the Court’s “economic activity” tests, …

Emergency Care And Managed Care - A Dangerous Combination, Diane E. Hoffmann

Diane Hoffmann

No abstract provided.

Commerce Games And The Individual Mandate, Leslie Meltzer Henry, Maxwell L. Stearns

Leslie Meltzer Henry

While the Supreme Court declined an early invitation to resolve challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), a recent split between the United States Courts of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (sustaining the PPACA’s “individual mandate”) and the Eleventh Circuit (striking it down) virtually ensures that the Court will decide the fate of this centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s regulatory agenda. Whatever the Court’s decision, it will likely affect Commerce Clause doctrine- and related doctrines - for years or even decades to come. Litigants, judges, and academic commentators have focused on whether the Court’s “economic activity” tests, …

The Heroic Enterprise Of The Asbestos Cases, Gregory C. Keating

Gregory C. Keating

The asbestos crisis pushed our adjudicative institutions to the brink of failure, and exposed the extraordinary difficulty of managing mass tort litigation on a scale so vast. Even so, there is much to praise in the efforts of courts to come to grips with this, the greatest of all mass accidents. The asbestos cases are an heroic judicial effort to construct a form of enterprise liability, one tailored to the distinctive features of a mass disaster of unprecedented scope and duration. Asbestos is the greatest of modern mass accidents. It is the expression of a nightmarishly well-organized world of systematically …

International Law And Transnational Corporations: Towards A Final Summation, Varun Vaish

Varun Vaish

The regulation of transnational corporations (TNCs) by an international legal order fundamentally centred on states proves to be difficult when they exercise political influence and have the ability to generate revenue which can eclipse the economies of many countries in comparison. According to the World Investment Report 2007, as of 2006 there were 78,411 parent corporations and 777,647 affiliates worldwide.4 The scale of the concentration of economic power is illustrated by the statistics: of the world’s hundred largest economic entities, 51 are multinational companies and 49 are nation states. The Texaco Corporation functioned for years in Ecuador with annual global …

The First Liability Insurance Cartel In America, 1896-1906, Sachin S. Pandya

Sachin S. Pandya

This article studies the rise and fall of the first liability insurance cartel in the United States. In 1886, insurance companies in America began selling liability insurance for personal injury accidents, primarily to cover business tort liability for employee accidents at work and non-employee injuries occasioned by their business operations. In 1896, the leading liability insurers agreed to fix premium rates and share information on policyholder losses. In 1906, this cartel fell apart. Although largely forgotten until now, the rise and fall of this cartel confirms the expectations of both cartel theory and past studies of insurance cartels, largely in …

Proximate Cause In Maritime Insurance, Angelo Giampietro Avv.

Angelo Giampietro Avv.

The proximate cause in marine insurance is the “dominant cause” of the loss. It was decided per Bingham L J in T M Noten BV v Harding that the dominant cause of the loss is to be determined by “applying the common sense of a business or seafaring man.” In determining the proximate cause of the loss, The Court recognized that it had to find the cause that was proximate in efficiency, and to do so they had to apply the test of the sentence expressed by Bingham LJ. Nevertheless, at the light of the recent decision of the Supreme …

Combining Forces: The Joint Defense Agreement In Civil Litigation, Stephen Messer

Stephen Messer

From day one of law school aspiring lawyers are taught that information shared in confidence between a lawyer and his client is confidential. Although all lawyers are well aware of this, surprisingly few know that conversations with a client and someone else's lawyer can also be privileged. This is what happens when a joint defense agreement is created; Joint defense agreements extend the attorney client privilege throughout the entire defense camp in cases where multiple defendants and their counsel have common interests in the litigation. This often overlooked, yet highly effective legal strategy may serve as a valuable tool for …

The Impact Of Regionally Differentiated Entitlement To Ei On Charter-Protected Canadians, Sujit Choudhry, Michael Pal

Sujit Choudhry

Under Canada’s Employment Insurance (EI) program, access to unemployment benefits varies according to the regional unemployment rate. Previous studies have shown that this regime works to the disadvantage of certain provinces and urban areas. In this paper we measure the impact of the variable regional entrance requirements on specific minority workers, including visible minorities, linguistic minorities, recent immigrants, and naturalized citizens. We find that over the period 2000-2010, the regional variation in access to EI results in certain minority workers being required to work modestly more hours to qualify for EI than the average worker. Though the findings with regard …

Ocips In The Future Of The Insurance Industry: Legal And Regulatory Considerations, Chad G. Marzen

Chad G. Marzen

Owner-Controlled Insurance Programs (OCIPs, also referred to “Wrap-Up” programs), are becoming a popular insurance program in the construction industry. Some states have placed statutory restrictions and/or prohibitions on OCIPs. However, there are only 10 states to date which have even enacted any statute concerning OCIPs.

In this article, I contend that the future availability of OCIPs in the insurance industry may largely be dictated on statutory grounds. It is a call for state legislatures to critically examine the policies and purposes of OCIPs and to enact legislation which provides guidance to the industry and courts. First, two cases, one from …

Requirements Of A Valid Islamic Marriage Vis-À-Vis Requirements Of A Valid Customary Marriage In Nigeria, Olanike Sekinat Odewale Mrs

Olanike Sekinat Adelakun

Grading The Graders And Reforming The Reform: An Analysis Of The State Of Public Education Ten Years After No Child Left Behind, Jonathan C. Augustine, Craig M. Freeman

Jonathan C. Augustine

Construction Defects: Are They “Occurrences”?, Chris French

Christopher C. French

An issue in the area of insurance law that has been litigated frequently in recent years is whether construction defects are “occurrences” under Commercial General Liability (“CGL”) insurance policies. The courts have been divided in deciding the issue and in their approaches to analyzing the issue. This article addresses how the issue should be analyzed and concludes that construction defects are “occurrences”.

The relevant rules of insurance policy interpretation dictate that construction defects are “occurrences”. Policy language should be interpreted in such a way as to fulfill the reasonable expectations of the policyholder when the policy is construed as a …

While Effusive, "Conclusory" Is Still Quite Elusive: The Story Of A Word, Iqbal, And A Perplexing Lexical Inquiry Of Supreme Importance, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The meaning of the word “conclusory” seems really, quite elusory. Conclusory is a widespread, common, and effusive word in the modern legal lexicon. Yet you would not necessarily know that by looking through many dictionaries. “Conclusory” has been a late comer to the pages of most dictionaries. Even today, not all dictionaries include the word “conclusory”, those that do have only recently adopted it, and the small number of available dictionary definitions seem to struggle to capture the word’s usage in the legal world. Yet the word “conclusory” has taken center stage in the procedural plays of civil litigation with …