Law Commons^™

Thoughts On Religious Discrimination From The Cairo Geniza, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

The Story Of A Forgotten Battle, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Theory Of Private Law, Nathan B. Oman, Jason M. Solomon

Nathan B. Oman

In this Article, we revisit the clash between private law and the First Amendment in the Supreme Court’s recent case, Snyder v. Phelps, using a private-law lens. We are scholars who write about private law as individual justice, a perspective that has been lost in recent years but is currently enjoying something of a revival.

Our argument is that the Supreme Court’s theory of private law has led it down a path that has distorted its doctrine in several areas, including the First Amendment–tort clash in Snyder. In areas that range from punitive damages to preemption, the Supreme Court has …

The Honor Of Private Law, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

While combativeness is central to how our culture both experiences and conceptualizes litigation, we generally notice it only as a regrettable cost. This Article offers a less squeamish vision, one that sees in the struggle of people suing one another a morally valuable activity: the vindication of insulted honor. This claim is offered as a normative defense of a civil recourse approach to private law. According to civil recourse theorists, tort and contract law should be seen as empowering plaintiffs to act against defendants, rather than as economically optimal incentives or as a means of enforcing duties of corrective justice. …

The Need For A Law Of Church And Market, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

This Essay uses Helfand and Richman’s fine article to raise the question of the law of church and market. In Part I, I argue that the question of religion’s proper relationship to the market is more than simply another aspect of the church-state debates. Rather, it is a topic deserving explicit reflection in its own right. In Part II, I argue that Helfand and Richman demonstrate the danger of creating the law of church and market by accident. Courts and legislators do this when they resolve questions religious commerce poses by applying legal theories developed without any thought for the …

The Hidden Cost Of Auto Bailouts, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

The Failure Of Economic Interpretations Of The Law Of Contact Damages, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

The law of contracts is complex but remarkably stable. What we lack is a widely accepted interpretation of that law as embodying a coherent set of normative choices. Some scholars have suggested that either economic efficiency or personal autonomy provide unifying principles of contract law. These two approaches, however, seem incommensurable, which suggests that we must reject at least one of them in order to have a coherent theory. This Article dissents from this view and has a simple thesis: Economic accounts of the current doctrine governing contract damages have failed, but efficiency arguments remain key to any adequate theory …

The (Hoped For) Shallowness Of Progressive Skepticism Towards Religious Freedom, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

The Empirical Irony Of The Conflict Between Antidiscrimination And Religious Freedom, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Non-Compete Legislation Is Getting Worse With Latest Revisions, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Nineteenth Century Corporate Law: A New Lens For Religious Freedom Scholars, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Note To Trump: Know What You Call Muslims Who Reject Radical Islam? Refugees, Angela M. Banks, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Natural Law And The Rhetoric Of Empire: Reynolds V. United States, Polygamy, And Imperialism, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

In 1879, the U.S. Supreme Court construed the Free Exercise Clause for the first time, holding in Reynolds v. United States that Congress could punish Mormon polygamy. Historians have interpreted Reynolds, and the anti-polygamy legislation and litigation that it midwifed, as an extension of Reconstruction into the American West. This Article offers a new historical interpretation, one that places the birth of Free Exercise jurisprudence in Reynolds within an international context of Great Power imperialism and American international expansion at the end of the nineteenth century. It does this by recovering the lost theory of religious freedom that the Mormons …

Jurisprudence And The Problem Of Church Doctrine, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Markets, Religion, And The Limits Of Privacy, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Markets As A Moral Foundation For Contract Law, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Law, Religious Change, And Samesex Marriage Posted On, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Introductory Remarks: Contract Law And Morality, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Indiana And Doux Commerce, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Hobby Lobby, Corporate Law, And The Theory Of The Firm: Why For-Profit Corporations Are Rfra Persons, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

International Legal Experience And The Mormon Theology Of The State, 1945-2012, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

How To Judge Shari'a Contracts: A Guide To Islamic Marriage Agreements In American Courts, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

This Article thus has two goals. The first is to show how the Muslim conception of marriage diverges from the Christian-influenced norms that dominate American law and society. Understanding this divergence provides a necessary background to Islamic mahr contracts. The second goal is to provide lawyers and judges with a doctrinal framework within our current law for analyzing these contracts and reaching sensible results in concrete cases.

Glenn Beck Bad News For Religious Conservatism, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Doux Commerce, Religion, And The Limits Of Antidiscrimination Law, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

Recent cases involving religious businesses owners who object to providing services for same-sex weddings and resulting lawsuits have generated a vigorous academic and popular debate. That debate centers in part on the proper role of religion in the market. This article develops three theories of the proper relationship between commerce and religion and applies them to these conflicts. The first approach would apply the norms of liberal democratic governments to market actors. The second approach posits that any market outcome is legitimate so long as it results from voluntary contracts. These approaches yield contradictory and indeterminate advice on the conflicts …

Good Guys, Ban Guys And Gun Control, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

From The Fuggers To Justice Ginsburg, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law Leading Cases: Judicial Elections, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Consent To Retaliation: A Civil Recourse Theory Of Contractual Liability, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

In the ancient Near East, contracts were often solemnized by hacking up a goat. The ritual was an enacted penalty clause: “If I breach this contract, let it be done to me as we are doing to the goat.” This Article argues that we are not so far removed from our goat-hacking forbearers. Legal scholars have argued that contractual liability is best explained by the morality of promise making, or by the need to create optimal incentives in contractual performance. In contrast, this Article argues for the simpler, rawer claim that contractual liability consists of consent to retaliation in the …

Corporations And Autonomy Theories Of Contract: A Critique Of The New Lex Mercatoria, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

One of the central problems of contracts jurisprudence is the conflict between autonomy theories of contract and efficiency theories of contract. One approach to solving this conflict is to argue that in the realm of contracts between corporations, autonomy theories have nothing to say because corporations are not real people with whose autonomy we need to be concerned. While apparently powerful, this argument ultimately fails because it implicitly assumes theories of the corporation at odds with economic theories of law. Economics, in turn, offers a vision of the firm that is quite hospitable to autonomy theories of contract. The failure …

Burke Triumphs Over Jefferson In New York Same-Sex Marriage Decision, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.