Law Commons^™

A Theory Of Insurance Policy Interpretation, Kenneth S. Abraham

Michigan Law Review

The first principle of insurance law is captured by the maxim contra proferentem, which directs that ambiguities in a contract be interpreted "against the drafter," who is almost always the insurer. Yet given the modern recognition that language is an inherently imperfect instrument for communicating meaning, insurance policy provisions are in a sense always ambiguous. Moreover, in addition to contra proferentem, policyholders may invoke such allied doctrines as waiver, estoppel, and the rule that the reasonable expectations of the insured should be honored even if those expectations are unambiguously contradicted by fine-print provisions in the policy. Contra proferentem and these …

Revitalizing Environmental Federalism, Daniel C. Esty

Michigan Law Review

Politicians from Speaker Newt Gingrich to President Bill Clinton, cheered on by academics such as Richard Revesz, are eagerly seeking to return authority over environmental regulation to the states. In the European Union, localist opponents of environmental decisionmaking in Brussels rally under the banner of "subsidiarity." And in debates over international trade liberalization, demands abound for the protection of "national sovereignty" in environmental regulation. All of these efforts presume that a decentralized approach to environmental policy will yield better results than more centralized programs. This presumption is misguided. While the character of some environmental concerns warrants a preference for local …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of books recenlty received by Michigan Law Review.

Is Turn About Fair Play? Copyright Law And The Fair Use Of Computer Software Loaded Into Ram, Chad G. Asarch

Michigan Law Review

Computer systems, especially those in heavy-use commercial settings, often require routine maintenance to continue functioning properly. Many businesses turn to an independent service organization ("IS0") to provide computer maintenance services because ISOs frequently charge less than the original equipment manufacturer ("OEM") for those services. The tremendous growth in computer use has spawned a multi-billion dollar computer maintenance industry in the United States, and ISOs and OEMs have become engaged in fierce competition for this computer service business. The struggle between ISOs and OEMs to capture this expanding market has spilled over into the courts, spawning a number of recent decisions …

A More Sensible Approach To Regulating Independent Expenditures: Defending The Constitutionality Of The Fed's New Express Advocacy Standard, Michael D. Leffel

Michigan Law Review

Campaign finance reformers argue that the "unholy alliance of private money and public elections" has created "a crisis of confidence in our elected officials." The now-deceased campaign reform advocate Philip M. Stem summed up the role of money in campaigns this way: "[M]oney-power has replaced people-power as the driving force in American politics and the determinant of electoral victory." One form of "money-power" in elections that received a great deal of attention in the last election cycle was "independent expenditures." Independent expenditures are funds spent by interested individuals or groups - usually in the form of television or radio advertisements …

Vol. 47, No. 5, November 25, 1996, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•He's Back! •Kozinski Pleads: Don't Drop the Torah •Kamisar Pens Suicide "Note" •Post-Election Round-Up •RG Lineman of Fine Culture Jason Blankenship Tackles Teenage Wondercrooner Fiona Apple •B&B's Fun Page: B&B Explore the Miracles of Birth •How to Become President of a Large Midwestern University

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of books recenlty received by Michigan Law Review.

Determining Ripeness Of Substantive Due Process Claims Brought By Landowners Against Local Governments, David S. Mendel

Michigan Law Review

Landowners who sustain economic harm from arbitrary and capricious applications of land use regulations may sue the local government entities responsible for applying those regulations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the local government entities deprived them of substantive due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. A landowner who brings this claim - an "as-applied arbitrary and capricious substantive due process" claim - may in appropriate cases seek declaratory and injunctive relief, damages, and attorney's fees. Despite controversy among courts and commentators over both the definition of property interests protected by the Due Process Clause and the standard …

The Limited Liability Company: A Catalyst Exposing The Corporate Integration Question, Susan Pace Hamill

Michigan Law Review

The rise of the domestic limited liability company (LLC) from obscurity to its present position as a viable, mainstream alternative to the corporation or partnership was met with enormous enthusiasm by the business community and the practicing bar. First introduced by the State of Wyoming in 1977 and recognized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a partnership for federal income tax purposes in 1988, the LLC offers for the first time a domestic entity that combines the tax advantages of a partnership with limited liability protection for all members, an advantage commonly associated with corporations. The advantages of the …

The First Amendment Comes Of Age: The Emergence Of Free Speech In Twentieth-Century America, G. Edward White

Michigan Law Review

As the number of issues perceived as having First Amendment implications continues to grow, and the coterie of potential beneficiaries of First Amendment protection continues to widen - including not only the traditional oppressed mavericks and despised dissenters but some rich and powerful members from the circles of political and economic orthodoxy - alarms have been sounded. Another period of stocktaking for free speech theory appears to be dawning, and some recent commentators have proposed a retrenchment from the long twentieth- century progression of increasingly speech-protective interpretations of the First Amendment. At the heart of the retrenchment literature lies the …

Moral Discourse, Bioethics, And The Law, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Dan Callahan follows a distinguished tradition when he uses the phrase "moral discourse" to describe the law's work. The frequency with which that image is deployed suggests its resonance and even rightness: When we think about the way society considers moral issues and develops moral positions, it can be useful to imagine the law as one of many social institutions that contribute to a social discussion. Nevertheless, this image is misleading. At least for our (graying and balding) genera- tions, the law is regarded as a worthy participant in American moral discourse preeminently because of its part in the civil …

Vol. 47, No. 3, October 7, 1996, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Federalist Society Sponsors Affirmative Action Debate •Journal Moratorium Ends •Jesse Jackson Gets Down With the Vote •Prof. Reed Begins 51st Year of Teaching •Computerization May End Enrollment Woes •Commentary: The Alcohol Policy •Blanks' Culture Corner •Hey, Third Year •B&B's BS Write Your Own Ding Letter

Curtailing The Economic Distortions Of The Mortgage Interest Deduction, William T. Mathias

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Many Americans consider the mortgage interest deduction a necessary fixture of the American tax system. In this Article, Mathias examines the economic underpinnings of the deduction and finds that it cannot be justified on purely economic grounds. He then evaluates the major policy arguments for the mortgage interest deduction and concludes that it is inefficient, inequitable, and too costly in its present form to be justified on policy grounds. Finally, the author advocates for the elimination or substantial reduction in the size and scope of the mortgage interest deduction.

The Three-Judge District Court In Voting Rights Litigation, Michael E. Solimine

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In recent Terms the Supreme Court has heard numerous appeals from the decisions of three-judge district courts in controversial Voting Rights Act cases as well as in challenges to congressional districts designed allegedly to facilitate the election of members of minority groups. Although the cases themselves have been followed closely, the institution of the three-judge district court itself has received relatively little attention, even though Congress passed legislation in 1976 that restricted the three-judge court's jurisdiction to reapportionment and certain Voting Rights Act cases. In this Article, Professor Solimine argues that numerous problems attend the formation and operation of such …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of books recenlty received by Michigan Law Review.

Copyright Law And Electronic Access To Information, Jessica D. Litman

Articles

At the same time as we have been discovering the Internet’s enormous potential to enhance access to information and revolutionize the ways libraries do business, the Internet’s high profile in popular media has made it the focus of a wide spectrum of fears about the future. This paper focuses on pending proposals to amend copyright law to enhance the control copyright owners wield over the appearance of their works on digital networks. These proposals would stifle libraries’ use of the Internet. Libraries and their supporters must participate in the copyright debate, and think creatively about new models for copyright. The …

Is Amendment 2 Really A Bill Of Attainder? Some Questions About Professor Amar's Analysis Of Romer, Roderick M. Hills Jr.

Michigan Law Review

As I first discovered as a law student in Professor Amar's classes on legal history and federal courts, it is generally an intellectual treat to listen to Professor Amar's legal analysis, even when he is attacking one's own arguments. So my pleasure at reading Professor Amar's analysis of the Court's decision in Romer v. Evans was only partly dampened by his disapproval of the respondents' brief that I and other plaintiffs' counsel filed with the Court. According to Amar, this respondents' brief provided the Court with "so little help" that it had to rely on an entirely different and much …

Attainder And Amendment 2: Romer's Rightness, Akhil Reed Amar

Michigan Law Review

Call me silly. In fact, call me terminally silly. For despite Justice Scalia's remarkably confident claim, I believe, and shall try to prove below, that the Romer Court majority opinion invalidating Colorado's Amendment 2 was right both in form and in substance, both logically and sociologically. I stress "form" and "logic" at the outset because I share Justice Scalia's belief in the importance of these things in constitutional adjudication. I also share his commitment to constitutional text, history, and structure, and his suspicion of "free-form" constitutionalism. And so I shall highlight the text, history, and spirit of a constitutional clause …

Democratizing Hmo Regulation To Enforce The "Rule Of Rescue", Kent G. Rutter

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Despite heightened public concern about HMOs, misguided regulatory measures have not guaranteed HMO patients access to the treatment options many consider vital. This Note recommends four changes to the current regulatory system that would preserve HMOs' ability to control health care costs while allowing patients and doctors, rather than lawmakers or HMO administrators, to set health care priorities.

The Politics Of Postmodern Jurisprudence, Stephen M. Feldman

Michigan Law Review

What is the politics of postmodern jurisprudence? Forms of postmodern interpretivism, including philosophical hermeneutics and deconstruction, assert that we are always and already interpreting. This assertion has provoked numerous scholarly attacks, many of which invoke standard modernist hobgoblins such as textual indeterminacy, solipsism, ethical relativism, and nihilism. From the modernist standpoint, postmodern jurisprudence thus is either conservative or apolitical because it lacks the firm foundations necessary for knowledge and critique. In this article, I argue that these modernist attacks not only are mistaken but that they also obscure the potentially radical political ramifications of postmodern interpretivism. My discussion focuses on …

Antitrust Balancing In A (Near) Coasean World: The Case Of Franchise Tying Contracts, Alan J. Meese

Michigan Law Review

Antitrust law has largely succumbed to the hegemony of balancing. Courts applying the rule of reason are told to balance a restraint's procompetitive effects against its anticompetitive impact. Mergers once deemed anticompetitive solely because they facilitated the exercise of market power are now evaluated by weighing the anticompetitive effects of such increased power against any efficiencies created by the transaction. Finally, some activities once deemed per se illegal are now subject to a balancing approach, either by explicit application of the rule of reason, or by recognition of certain affirmative defenses to otherwise per se violations. Unlike many other balancing …

Securing Russia's Future: A Plea For Reform In Russian Secured Transactions Law, Jason J. Kilborn

Michigan Law Review

After many turbulent years of uneasy transition to a market economy, Russia is finally "open for business." Nonetheless, the transitional period remains far from over, and Russian enterprises are still starved for capital that they desperately need for retooling to convert from military to consumer production, for acquiring new equipment to replace old and worn machinery, and for undertaking new and lucrative projects. While Russian financial institutions may provide significant funding, their reserves are limited; they could not hope to finance independently the multitude of existing and potential enterprises within the expansive Russian territory. Therefore, much of the financing for …

Congressional Ethics And Constitutent Advocacy In An Age Of Mistrust, Ronald M. Levin

Michigan Law Review

Like lawyer-bashing, Congress-bashing seems never to go out of style. As every newspaper reader knows, and as public opinion surveys confinn, the public's regard for the legislative branch has been discouragingly low for years. One of the incidents that has done most to fuel this mood is the Keating Five affair. The Senate Ethics Committee's decision in the Keating case, which has been called "the ultimate metaphor for political corruption," provides a fitting prologue for this article's theme: the ethical dimensions of intervention by members of Congress into administrative agency proceedings.

Vol. 47, No. 2, September 23, 1996, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Decline in Percentage of Women in the Class of 1999 •Law School Again (and Again) Welcomes Visiting, Adjunct Faculty •International Law Workshop Begins •Course Evaluations in a Nutshell •Incompatible Hiring Criteria •Letters to the Editor •Commentary: Faculty Hiring •Blanks' Culture Corner •Four Years Out: Are We Having Fun Yet? •B&B's BS 1st Year Quiz

Vol. 47, No. 1, September 9, 1996, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

•Campbell Chapter of Phi Alpha Delta Wins International Awards •The New Career Services •An Insider's Guide to NYC •FYI Program •The Nature of Diversity •Reviewing the Selection Process •Blanks' Culture Corner •Hey, Third Year

Toward A Tax-Based Explanation Of The Liability Insurance Crisis, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

The so-called liability insurance crisis of 1985 and 1986 transformed the way we think about tort law and about liability insurance markets. The crisis phenomena, which first appeared in late 1984 and lasted until mid-1986, consisted of enormous increases in liability insurance premiums and alarming reductions in the availability of certain types of liability coverage. In the two principal liability lines of insurance (Other Liability and Medical Malpractice), premiums increased by hundreds (in some cases thousands) of percentage points in a matter of months. At the same time, the availability of liability insurance contracted sharply. The liability policies that were …

Random Thoughts By A Distant Collaborator, Wayne R. Lafave

Michigan Law Review

A Tribute to Jerry Israel

The Limits Of Legal Language: Decisionmaking In Capital Cases, Jordan M. Steiker

Michigan Law Review

To make the case for the proposed changes, I will first describe briefly in Parts I and II the structure of pre- and post-Furman capital decisiorurtaking and the weaknesses of those approaches. I then will set forth in Part III the specific rationales for each proposed reform.

The scheme I propose raises a significant constitutional question. Can the death penalty be retained as a punishment if we abandon the pretense of providing meaningful guidance through detailed sentencing instructions? Would the reestablishment of relatively unstructured penalty phase deliberations similar to, but also importantly different from, those characteristic of pre-Furman …

A Peculiar Privilege In Historical Perspective: The Right To Remain Silent, Albert W. Alschuler

Michigan Law Review

Supreme Court decisions have vacillated between two incompatible readings of the Fifth Amendment guarantee that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." The Court sometimes sees this language as affording defendants and suspects a right to remain silent. This interpretation - a view that countless repetitions of the Miranda warnings have impressed upon the public - asserts that government officials have no legitimate claim to testimonial evidence tending to incriminate the person who possesses it. Although officials need not encourage a suspect to remain silent, they must remain at least neutral toward …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of Books received by Michigan Law Review.