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Articles 31 - 60 of 63
Full-Text Articles in Law
Property Rules And Liability Rules: The Cathedral In Another Light, James E. Krier, Stewart J. Schwab
Property Rules And Liability Rules: The Cathedral In Another Light, James E. Krier, Stewart J. Schwab
Articles
Ronald Coase's essay on "The Problem of Social Cost" introduced the world to transaction costs, and the introduction laid the foundation for an ongoing cottage industry in law and economics. And of all the law-and-economics scholarship built on Coase's insights, perhaps the most widely known and influential contribution has been Calabresi and Melamed's discussion of what they called "property rules" and "liability rules."' Those rules and the methodology behind them are our subjects here. We have a number of objectives, the most basic of which is to provide a much needed primer for those students, scholars, and lawyers who are …
Hiring Ruled Contractual, Bill Gore, Douglas A. Kahn, Stan Shields
Hiring Ruled Contractual, Bill Gore, Douglas A. Kahn, Stan Shields
Articles
On December 29, 1988, the California Supreme Court decided Foley vs. Interactive Data Corp., perhaps the most eagerly awaited state supreme court decision in years. The Foley ruling, which immediately was hailed as a tremendous victory for California employers, eliminated punitive damage awards for many wrongfully terminated employees. That was good news for the employers. The decision, however, also provided employers with sobering news. Most significantly, the court ruled that employment relationships essentially are contracts, with terms created by the reasonable expectation of the parties. Thus, the majority of California employees now have a right to sue for breach …
The Decline Of The Contract Market Damage Model, James J. White
The Decline Of The Contract Market Damage Model, James J. White
Articles
In law school every American lawyer learns that the conventional measure of damages for breach of a sales contract is the difference between the contract price and the market price. Even before these rules were embodied in the Uniform Sales Act and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), they were a staple of Anglo-American common law. They remain the rules with which a court would determine damage liability not only for the sale of goods, but also for the sale of real estate and securities.
Government Responsibility For Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman
Government Responsibility For Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman
Articles
This essay is about the language used to decide when governments should be held responsible for constitutional torts.' Debate about what is required of government officials, and what is required of government itself, is scarcely new. What is new, at least to American jurisprudence, is litigation against government units (rather than government officials) for constitutional injuries. 2 The extension of liability to institutional defendants introduces special problems for the language of responsibility. In a suit against an individual official it is easy to describe the wrong as the consequence of individual behavior that is inconsistent with community norms; the language …
Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman
Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman
Articles
In this Article, I analyze the significance of the overlap between state tort law remedies and remedies under section 1983. I conclude that the dissatisfaction with section 1983 cannot fairly be attributed to the fact that it has been read to provide a remedy that "supplements" state law. I argue that most of the anxiety over constitutional damage actions under section 1983 can be understood - and resolved - only by focusing on two other questions. The first of these concerns the appropriate reach of the Constitution. Ambivalence about section 1983 reflects, in part, a fear that the federal Constitution …
Tort Obligations And The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich
Tort Obligations And The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich
Articles
"This article is an extract from a textbook on 'The Conflict of Laws,' by Professor Goodrich, now in course of preparation, and is here published by permission of the West Publishing Company."--Footnote
Basis Of Relief From Penalties And Forfeitures, Edgar N. Durfee
Basis Of Relief From Penalties And Forfeitures, Edgar N. Durfee
Articles
The equitable principle of relief from penalties and forfeitures is so far elementary as almost to defy analysis. Many, perhaps most, of the judicial explanations of the principle have based it upon interpretation or construction, appealing to the doctrine that equity regards intent rather than form. Yet a logical application of this doctrine would lead to results very different from those which have actually been arrived at in the decisions. Thus, a stipulation in a mortgage that the mortgagor waives his equity of redemption can hardly be interpreted as meaning that he does not waive it, yet all such stipulations …
The Rule Of Law And The Legal Right, Joseph H. Drake
The Rule Of Law And The Legal Right, Joseph H. Drake
Articles
IT IS a common experience with a teacher of law to find in every department of the subject a number of hard knots that have resisted all the efforts of the courts and jurists to split them. These usually take the form of a hopeless contrariety of decisions, or of decisions which are impeccable in their logic but offend against what we usually speak of as a sense of natural justice. It is customary for us to dismiss these with a statement that the majority of decisions or the weight of authority favors the one conclusion or the other, and …
Liability Without Fault, John B. Waite
Liability Without Fault, John B. Waite
Articles
In Ives v. South Buffalo Ry. Co., 201 N. Y. 271, appeared, as a basis for the decision, the statement that "When our Constitutions were adopted, it was the law of the land that no man who was without fault or negligence could be held liable in damages for injuries sustained by another. That is still the law." Mr. Justice McKenna has recently voiced the same idea. In his dissenting opinion in Arizona Copper Co. v. Hammer, 39 Sup. Ct. Rep. 553, he contends that the Workmen's Compensation Act of Arizona is unconstitutional, because, "It seems to me to be …
Extraterritorial Effect Of The Equitable Decree, Willard T. Barbour
Extraterritorial Effect Of The Equitable Decree, Willard T. Barbour
Articles
ANYONE whom the study of equity has led into the by-paths of V Canon Law will recall that the Sext ends with a splendid array of imposing maxims, not improbably the source of the Latin maxims with which every lawyer is familiar. The inveterate habit formed by the ecclesiastics of expressing a legal principle in a short and crisp formula persisted when they came into the courts of law and is peculiarly in evidence among the chancellors of the fifteenth century. What may at first have been merely casual became through repetition a habit and the result has been to …
The 'Source Of Law' In The Panama Canal Zone, Joseph H. Drake
The 'Source Of Law' In The Panama Canal Zone, Joseph H. Drake
Articles
A case just decided in the Supreme Court of the United States, coming to that court from the Canal Zone, shows the great difficulties under which our courts labor when they are called on to interpret and administer the law in our extra-continental possessions. The courts have apparently had the most difficulty in amalgamating the Roman law and the common law in cases involving questions of delictual liability. In the case of Fernandez v. Perez (1906), 202 U. S. 80, the procedural question was presented as to the validity of an action on the case for the wrongful levy of …
Boycott - Medical Association, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Boycott - Medical Association, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Articles
The opinion of McCardie, J., (without a jury), in Pratt v. British Medical Association (1919), I K. B. 244, (noted in the MICHIGAN LAW REVIEW, June, 1919, p. 704), brilliantly reviewing the English cases, merits a fuller statement of the facts and principles involved than was possible in a short note. The action was by Doctors Burke, Pratt, and Holmes, against the British Medical Association and four of its officers, for damages for conspiracy, slander and libel.
Liquidation Of Damages By Pre-Estimate, Joseph H. Drake
Liquidation Of Damages By Pre-Estimate, Joseph H. Drake
Articles
A freshly minted phrase, if attractive in form, even though it connotes no new idea, will frequently have as extensive a circulation, even in our supreme courts, as would a real concept. In a contract for building two laboratories for the Department of Agriculture, the contractor had agreed that the United States should be entitled to the "fixed sum of $200, as liquidated damages * * * for each and every day's delay" in the completion of the buildings. The court decided that this was a stipulation for liquidated damage because it was the result of a "genuine pre-estimate" of …
A Modern Evolution In Remedial Rights - The Declaratory Judgment, Edson R. Sunderland
A Modern Evolution In Remedial Rights - The Declaratory Judgment, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
In early times the basis of jurisdiction is the existence and the constant assertion of physical power over the parties to the action, but as civilization advances the mere existence of such power tends to make its exercise less and less essential. If this is true, it must be because there is something in civilization itself which diminishes the necessity for a resort to actual force in sustaining the judgments of courts. And it is quite clear that civilization does supply an element which is theoretically capable of entirely supplanting the exercise of force in the assertion of jurisdiction. This …
The 'Right' To Break A Contract, Willard T. Barbour
The 'Right' To Break A Contract, Willard T. Barbour
Articles
It is common knowledge that the fully developed common law affords no means to compel the performance of a contract according to its terms. Does it follow from this that there is no legal obligation to perform a contract, or if obligation there be, that it is alternative: to perform or pay damages? A note in the XIV MICH. L. REV. 480 appears to give an affirmative answer to this question and at least one court (Frye v. Hubbell, 74 N. H. 358, at p. 374) has taken the same view. Probably the most forcible exposition of this position is …
The 'Right' To Break A Contract, Willard T. Barbour
The 'Right' To Break A Contract, Willard T. Barbour
Articles
It is common knowledge that the fully developed common law affords no means to compel the performance of a contract according to its terms. Does it follow from this that there is no legal obligation to perform a contract, or if obligation there be, that it is alternative: to perform or pay damages? A note in the XIV MICH. L. REV. 480 appears to give an affirmative answer to this question and at least one court (Frye v. Hubbell, 74 N. H. 358, at p. 374) has taken the same view. Probably the most forcible exposition of this position is …
Recovery Of The Purchase Price Before Title Has Passed, John B. Waite
Recovery Of The Purchase Price Before Title Has Passed, John B. Waite
Articles
In an action recently instituted by The General Electric Co. to recover on a contract to manufacture certain machinery for the defendant, which machinery the defendant had refused to accept, the trial court adopted the contract price as the measure of damages. The upper court approved this measure of damages, rejecting the argument that the measure should have been the difference between the market value and the contract price, and dismissed, as no longer appropriate to modern conditions, the decisions in Bement v. Smith, 15 Wend. (N. Y.) 493, and Shawhan v. Van Nest. 25 Oh. St. 490. The court …
The Michigan Judicature Act Of 1915, Edson R. Sunderland
The Michigan Judicature Act Of 1915, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
IN 1848 a wave of reform in judicial procedure began to sweep over the United States. In that year the legislature of New York enacted the Code of Civil Procedure, a statute of far-reaching importance, for it became the source of and the model for similar legislation in almost two-thirds of the States in the Union.
The Sheriff's Return, Edson R. Sunderland
The Sheriff's Return, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
When William the Conqueror found himself military master of Britain, he was confronted by a governmental problem quite different from that which has usually accompanied foreign conquest. He did not subdue a nation already organized, substituting his power for that of its former ruler in the conventional way of conquerors. Britain was a geographical unit but politically and socially it was a congeries of loosely related communities. The natural law of survival of the fittest normally operates upon peoples as upon individuals, and develops centralized power as a means of self-preservation. But Britain had a substitute for this. The sheltering …
Taking Of Equitable Easements For Public Use, Edgar N. Durfee
Taking Of Equitable Easements For Public Use, Edgar N. Durfee
Articles
The case of Flynn v. New York &c Railway Co., decided by the Court of Appeals of New York in April last, involves the right of an owner of land to which is appurtenant a so-called equitable easement, arising under a covenant restricting the use of other land, to compensation upon the taking of the servient land for a public use inconsistent with the restriction. A tract of land was laid out in accordance with a plan, and all, lots therein were sold and conveyed by deeds containing covenants, inter alia, that, "No building or structure for any business purpose …
The Rule Of Certainty In Damage And The Value Of A Chance, Joseph H. Drake
The Rule Of Certainty In Damage And The Value Of A Chance, Joseph H. Drake
Articles
AIthough our text-books say that the rule of certainty is "more fundamental than any rule of compensation because compensation is allowed or disallowed subject to it," (cf. SEDGWICK, EL. or DAMAGES, p. 12) nevertheless the tendency of the courts seems to be to save the equitable principle of compensation at the expense of certainty. A striking illustration of this is found in a recent case in the Court of Appeal, Chaplin v. Hicks, C. A. [1911] 2 K. B. 786. The defendant, a theatrical manager, agreed to give positions as actresses to persons chosen by the votes of the readers …
Limitation Of The Amount Of The Common Carrier's Liability, Edwin C. Goddard
Limitation Of The Amount Of The Common Carrier's Liability, Edwin C. Goddard
Articles
When the case of Railroad v. Lockwood, 17 Wall. (U. S.) 357, settled the law that the common carrier can not contract against liability for losses due to his negligence, it did not put an end to the efforts of common carriers to escape liability for losses so arising.
Liquidated Damages And Estoppel By Contract, Joseph H. Drake
Liquidated Damages And Estoppel By Contract, Joseph H. Drake
Articles
In the last edition of "Sedgwick's Elements of the Law of Damages" the author says (p. 232) that the subject of liquidated damages has been put in a new light by the two cases of the Sun Printing and Publishing Association v. Moore1 and the Clydebank R. &S. Co. v. Castaneda,2 and that they may be expected to have a considerable effect upon the further development of the law on the subject. The learned author then presents the old canons of interpretation with full illustration from the cases, followed by the citation of the decisions above mentioned, and concludes that …
Attachments On Unliquidated Demands, John R. Rood
Attachments On Unliquidated Demands, John R. Rood
Articles
If the creditor should not have the aid of attachment to recover on unliquidated demands, why not? It is true that attachment as a security for the satisfaction of the judgment that may be recovered in an action pending or just commenced was unknown to the general common law of England, and existed only in a restricted form as a special custom of London and other places in the form of garnishment till it was introduced into the New England colonies by an early statute of Massachusetts, whence its utility commended it so that it was soon adopted in all …
Influence Of Social And Economic Ideals On The Law Of Malicious Torts, W. Gordon Stoner
Influence Of Social And Economic Ideals On The Law Of Malicious Torts, W. Gordon Stoner
Articles
"The existence and the alteration of human institutions," says DICEY, "must in a sense, always and everywhere depend upon the beliefs or feelings, or, in other words, upon the opinion of the society in which such institutions flourish."1 Undoubtedly, law, as much as any other human institution, has felt this influence of public opinion. The political, economical and ethical ideals of a people find expression in their laws. True it is that public opinion is usually, if not always, in the lead, but in a truly happy and contented society the distance is never great. As MAINE says, in progressive …
Surface Water In Cities, John R. Rood
Surface Water In Cities, John R. Rood
Articles
It is evident that no one hard and fast rule could be applied to all cases, either in city or country, without producing injustice and impolitic results. The needs and conditions in city and country are different. They usually differ widely in different parts of the same city. These considerations have induced the Supreme Court of New Hampshire to adopt the flexible rule, that: "In determining this question all the circumstances of the case would, of course, be considered; and among them the nature and importance of the improvements sought to be made, the extent of the interference with the …
Liability Of Hospitals For The Negligence Of Their Physicians And Nurses, Harry B. Hutchins
Liability Of Hospitals For The Negligence Of Their Physicians And Nurses, Harry B. Hutchins
Articles
Liability of Hospitals for the Negligence of their Physicians and Nurses.-This question was recently examined by the Supreme Court of Utah in the case of Gitzhoffen v. Sisters of Holy Cross Hospital Association, 88 Pac. Rep. 691 (Jan. 26, 1907), and the opinion filed may well serve as a basis for comment. The hospital association was sued for damages for injuries that plaintiff claimed to have sustained through the negligence of defendant's nurses.
Liability Of Water Companies For Fire Losses, Edson R. Sunderland
Liability Of Water Companies For Fire Losses, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
In two recent articles published'in this Review, the question of the liability of water companies for fire losses was somewhat exhaustively discussed. The majority of the actions wherein it has been sought to hold water companies liable for fire losses suffered by private property owners, have been brought for breach of contract. In a few cases the theory adopted was that the water company owed a duty to all property owners, by reason of the public character of its service; and the fact that it was under contract with the city to furnish an adequate water supply and pressure for …
Authority Of Allen V. Flood, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Authority Of Allen V. Flood, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Articles
In the case of Allen v. Flood, one of the Lords asked this interesting question, "If the cook says to her master, 'Discharge the butler or I leave you,' and the master discharges the butler, does the butler have an action against the cook?" This, Lord Shand said, was the simplest form in which the very question in Allen v. Flood could be raised.4 And, like the original question, it puzzled the judges and Lords very much to answer.
Effect Of A Change In The Law Upon Rights Of Actions And Defences, Thomas M. Cooley
Effect Of A Change In The Law Upon Rights Of Actions And Defences, Thomas M. Cooley
Articles
A very interesting and important question frequently is, what effect has been produced upon a right of action, or upon a previously existing defence to an action, by a change in the law effected by statute after the right has accrued, or the cause of action has arisen, to which the defence was applicable. The question is encountered in a great variety of cases, and is sufficiently important to be considered under the several heads where the cases seem to range themselves. This is done imperfectly below.