Law Commons^™

Reparations And Unjust Enrichment, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Despite an initial appearance of superior doctrinal fit, restitution is not an appropriate vehicle for reparations claims based on slavery and similar large-scale historical injustices. The justifying principle behind restitution—prevention of unjust enrichment—lacks the moral force necessary to resolve a controversial public dispute about moral rights and obligations among segments of society. At its core, a claim to restitution is an attempt to right a wrong not by alleviating the adverse consequences to oneself, but by diminishing the position of others. In other words, the notion of unjust enrichment is a comparative idea that draws on resentment and the desire …

Comparison To Criminal Sanctions In The Constitutional Review Of Punitive Damages, Colleen P. Murphy

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Comparison To Criminal Sanctions In The Constitutional Review Of Punitive Damages, Colleen P. Murphy

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The "Bedbug" Case And State Farm V. Campbell, Colleen P. Murphy

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Prior Convictions After Apprendi, Colleen P. Murphy

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Treatment Of Cohabitation In The United States, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article discusses the variety of ways state legal systems in the United States treat cohabitation, both by same-sex and heterosexual couples. The different approaches are described along a spectrum that ranges from one extreme, under which cohabitants have essentially no rights against one another or against third parties, to the other extreme, under which cohabitants are to be treated as though they were married under state law. Different areas of law are discussed, including the rights of cohabitants both against one another (remedies upon dissolution, inheritance) and against third parties, such as state benefits, tort claims, health-related benefits, and …

Brown Ii'S "All Deliberate Speed" At Fifty: A Golden Anniversary Or A Mid- Life Crisis For The Constitutional Injunction As A School Desegregation Remedy?, Doug Rendleman

Scholarly Articles

In 1955 in Brown II the Supreme Court instructed school authorities and federal judges how to implement its decision in Brown I that racially segregated public schools violated the constitution. This article summarizes the half-century of federal injunctions that the courts granted to desegregate schools. It organizes the injunctions chronologically under three headings, "all deliberate speed," desegregate "now," and "unitary" districts. Rejecting both extravagant hoopla and charges of "failure," the article approves disciplined judicial discretion leading to large-scale structural injunctions when the times are ripe because unconstitutional conditions warrant massive judicial reconstruction. In particular, the article maintains that the courts' …

Supreme Court 2002 Term - The Property Cases: Iolta, Qui Tam Actions, And Punitive Damages (Symposium: The Fifteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Leon D. Lazer

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Threatening An Irrational Breach Of Contract, Oren Bar-Gill, Omri Ben-Shahar

Articles

When circumstances surrounding the contract change, a party might consider breach a more attractive option than performance. Threatening breach, this party may induce the other party to modify the original agreement. The contract law doctrine of modification determines whether and when these modifications are enforceable. To promote social welfare as well as the interests of the threatened party, the law should enforce modifications if and only if the modification demand is backed by a credible threat to breach. This paper argues that credibility is not a function of pecuniary interests alone. A decision to breach can be motivated also by …

The Blockbuster Punitive Damages Awards, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This paper provides an analysis of 64 punitive damages awards of at least $100 million. Based on an inventory of these cases, there is evidence that these blockbuster awards are highly concentrated geographically, as two states account for 27 of the 64 awards. The awards also have been rising substantially over time, with the majority of these blockbuster awards taking place since 1999. An assessment of the current status of the blockbuster punitive damages awards indicates that most of these awards have been appealed, but the reversal of these punitive damages awards is the exception rather than the rule. Many …

Punitive Damages: How Judges And Juries Perform, Joni Hersch, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This paper presents the first empirical anatysis that demonstrates that juries differ from judges in awarding punitive damages. Our review of punitive damages awards of $100 million or more identified 63 such awards, of which juries made 95 percent. These jury awards are highly unpredictable and are not significantly correlated with compensatory damages. Using data on jury and bench verdicts from the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1996, we find that juries are significantly more likely to award punitive damages than are judges and award higher levels of punitive damages. Jury awards are also less strongly related to compensatory …

The Recently Revised Marriage Law Of China: The Promise And The Reality, Charles J. Ogletree Jr., Rangita De Silva De Alwis

All Faculty Scholarship

In April 2001, the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), China's highest legislative body, passed the long-debated and much awaited amendments to the Marriage Law on the closing day of its twenty-first session. As stated by one PRC commentator, "In the 50 years since the founding of the New China, there has not been any law that has caused such a widespread concern for ordinary people."'

Even though the recent revisions to the marriage laws have been hailed as some of the most significant and positive changes in family law in China, thus far no empirical evaluation …

Important” And “Irreversible” But Maybe Not “Unreviewable”: The Dilemma Of Protecting Defendants’ Rights Through The Collateral Order Doctrine, Kristin B. Gerdy

Faculty Scholarship

This articles addresses the collateral order doctrine beginning with its inception in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., and continuing through an overview of theCourt's civil collateral order jurisprudence illustrating the development of the "requirements" for attaining appellate review under the doctrine. It examines the role of "important rights" in the Court's collateral order cases and attempts to determine whether "importance" is an additional requirement of the collateral order test. The author seeks to define what the Court means by an "important" right or issue, and to explain the view that some rights are sufficiently "important" to outweigh costs of …

Petitioner's Brief, Richard B. Collins

Publications

No abstract provided.