Law Commons^™

Monrad Paulsen: An Affectionate Appreciation, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

I have been an admirer of Monrad Paulsen since my first days as his junior colleague at the University of Minnesota Law School back in 1955. In retrospect, I recognize that my view of what makes a great law professor was profoundly influenced by the qualities I saw, and respected, in Monrad. For me, they began with collegiality – a personal interest in and a professional commitment to the welfare of the new boy. That first year at Minnesota was an enormously happy and productive apprenticeship for me, and Monrad helped make it so.

Integrating Governmental And Officer Tort Liability, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The legislative and judicial dismantling of sovereign immunity is among the more significant and celebrated reforms of recent American administrative law. In many instances, this development has given those seeking damages for wrongful governmental action their first and only defendant. Even in situations in which litigants already had a cause of action against individual public officials, making the government amenable to suit has enhanced the chances of actual recovery, since officials often lack the means to satisfy judgments rendered against them. The immunity from liability enjoyed by public officials also has undergone a complex series of changes. Though still in …

Liquidated Damages, Penalties And The Just Compensation Principle: Some Notes On An Enforcement Model And A Theory Of Efficient Breach, Charles J. Goetz, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

For more than five centuries, strict judicial scrutiny has been applied to contractual provisions which specify an agreed amount of damages upon breach of a base obligation. Although the standards determining the enforceability of liquidated damage clauses have developed novel and labyrinthine permutations, their motivating principle has remained essentially immutable. For an executory agreement fixing damages in case of breach to be enforceable, it must constitute a reasonable forecast of the provable injury resulting from breach; otherwise, the clause will be unenforceable as a penalty and the non-breaching party will be limited to conventional damage measures.

The historical genesis of …