Law Commons^™

Tort Reform And The Tax Code: An Opportunity To Narrow The Personal Injuries Exemption, Robert C. Illig

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Internal Revenue Code (the "Code") defines income broadly to include wealth from almost every source, while at the same time exempting a number of items for various tax and public policy reasons. One such policy-based exemption is section 104(a)(2)-the Personal Injuries Exemption-which exempts from tax "any damages ... received on account of personal injuries or sickness." The Personal Injuries Exemption, however, exists in a state of disarray and needs amending. Since its inception, this exemption has lacked both clear definitions of its key terms and a sound theoretical foundation. Moreover, although courts traditionally read exemptions narrowly, they have interpreted …

Exclusion Of Personal Injury Damages: Have The Courts Gone Too Far?, Susan K. Matlow

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Internal Revenue Code (Code) sweeps into gross income "all income from whatever source derived," including, but not limited to, compensation for services, interest, dividends, rents, and alimony payments.' Specific statutory exclusions may exempt from gross income certain items that Congress has determined deserve favorable tax treatment. One such exclusion, section 104(a)(2), provides that gross income shall not include "the amount of any damages received (whether by suit or agreement and whether as lump-sums or as periodic payments) on account of personal injuries or sickness."' Congress enacted section 104(a)(2)'s predecessor in 1918," and in spite of subsequent revolutionary tax reform, …

Litigant Access Doctrine And The Burger Court, Tinsley E. Yarbrough

Vanderbilt Law Review

The decisions of potentially most far-reaching significance, however, are the Burger Court's pronouncements concerning the nature and application of the personal injury standard in the field of standing, the status of public action lawsuits, and the propriety of federal district court intervention in state judicial proceedings. This Article critically analyzes the Court's developing position in each of these areas and suggests that in each its doctrinal stance is conceptually weak, rarely serves the functions that it ostensibly was designed to perform, and is extremely vulnerable to capricious application.

Misrepresentation And Third Persons, William L. Prosser

Vanderbilt Law Review

"The assault upon the citadel of privity is proceeding in these days apace." So said Cardozo in 1931, and he has been much quoted since. But the case' in which he said it was one of misrepresentation causing pecuniary loss to a third person who acted in reliance upon it, but to whom it was not made. It is in this area that the assault upon the citadel has made, during the intervening thirty-five years, the least headway, and has broken down into a tangle of more or less unconnected struggles which are apparently making no great progress in any …

Book Reviews, Winthrop R. Munyan, John W. Fager, Walter P. Armstrong Jr., Jerry L. Moore

Vanderbilt Law Review

Taxation of Foreign Income By Boris I. Bittker and Lawrence F. Ebb. Stanford: Stanford University, 1960. Pp. xii, 580.

reviewer: Winthrop R. Munyan

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The Planning and Administration of Estates Edited by Rene A. Wormser. New York: Practising Law Institute, 1961. Pp. 324.

reviewer: John W. Fager

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How to Evaluate and Settle Personal Injury Cases By Allen Bush Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1959. Pp. x,148.

reviewer: Walter P. Armstrong, Jr.

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The Tax Practice Deskbook By Harrop A. Freeman and Norman D. Freeman Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1960. Pp. vii, 581. $17.50.

reviewer: Jerry L. …

Professional Negligence Of Architects And Engineers, George M. Bell

Vanderbilt Law Review

Our courts have erected a protective legal structure around architects and engineers which has been sufficient, at least in the past, to shelter members of those two professions from any extensive liability for their misconduct. However, it would seem that this legal structure was erected on an unfirm foundation and cracks are appearing in the walls so that occasionally architects and engineers have been held legally responsible for their errors. Such responsibility has in general been confined to a liability to the person hiring the professional service. As yet there has been no case which has ruled the architect or …

Book Notes And Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Notes

Labor Relations and Federal Law

By Donald H. Wollett

Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1949. Pp. xxv, 148, 30. $3.00

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Tennessee Personal Injury Fact Digest

Compiled by Eugene McSweeney

Nashville: The Fact Digest Co., 1949. Pp. 124. $5.50

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Cases on Federal Taxation

By Roswell Magill

Brooklyn: The Foundation Press, Inc., 1950. Pp. i, 546. $7.00

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Cases on Trusts

By George Gleason Bogert

Brooklyn: The Foundation Press, Inc., 1950. Pp. i, 1041. $7.50

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Differences in Income for Accounting and Federal Income Tax

By Clarence F. Reimer

Chicago: Commerce Clearing House, 1949. Pp. iii,184. …