Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Judgment-Sharing Agreements, Christopher R. Leslie Feb 2009

Judgment-Sharing Agreements, Christopher R. Leslie

Duke Law Journal

Antitrust law condemns price-fixing cartels and seeks to encourage private suits against the conspirators by automatically trebling antitrust damages and by providing for joint and several liability. Because the Supreme Court has held that there is no right to contribution among antitrust violators, this creates the risk of a single defendant being saddled with damages significantly greater than three times the amount of the harm associated with that firm's own market share. Firms engaged in-or accused of-price fixing often try to ameliorate this risk by entering into judgment-sharing agreements, which essentially create a right to contribution through contract. Despite their …


Dispute Systems Design: The United Nations Compensation Commission, Francis Mcgovern Jan 2009

Dispute Systems Design: The United Nations Compensation Commission, Francis Mcgovern

Faculty Scholarship

The Security Council of the United Nations established the United Nations Compensation Commission (“UNCC”) with its Resolution 687 on April 3, 1991.1 It was the first compensation system established under the authority of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter and was designed to process and pay claims arising from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The purpose of this paper is to examine the design of the UNCC from a variety of perspectives: its historical setting, the alternative design approaches that have been taken in other compensation contexts, the details of its design, and its role in the design …


Juries And Medical Malpractice Claims: Empirical Facts Versus Myths, Neil Vidmar Jan 2009

Juries And Medical Malpractice Claims: Empirical Facts Versus Myths, Neil Vidmar

Faculty Scholarship

Juries in medical malpractice trials are viewed as incompetent, anti-doctor, irresponsible in awarding damages to patients, and casting a threatening shadow over the settlement process. Several decades of systematic empirical research yields little support for these claims. This article summarizes those findings. Doctors win about three cases of four that go to trial. Juries are skeptical about inflated claims. Jury verdicts on negligence are roughly similar to assessments made by medical experts and judges. Damage awards tend to correlate positively with the severity of injury. There are defensible reasons for large damage awards. Moreover, the largest awards are typically settled …