Law Commons^™

The Legacy Of Industrial Pluralism: The Tension Between Individual Employment Rights And The New Deal Collective Bargaining System, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Coordinating Sanctions For Corporate Misconduct: Civil Or Criminal Punishment, David Yellen, Carl J. Mayer

Articles

No abstract provided.

Freedom From Reliance: A Contract Approach To Express Warranty, Sidney Kwestel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Reinsurance: Bad Faith Considerations And Insolvency Dilemma, Hui-Ju Hsieh

LLM Theses and Essays

Reinsurance is insurance that an insurance company purchases from another insurance company. The original insurance company is called the reinsured, and the insurance company that is contracted is called the reinsurer. The main purpose of reinsurance is to disperse or spread the risk of loss. The reinsurance relationship is frequently characterized as an exercise of fiduciary responsibility based upon an undertaking of utmost good faith between contracting parties. However, disputes arise; most litigation involving reinsurance has been between reinsurers and persons not party to the reinsurance agreement. This paper’s first major area of discussion is the relationship between the reinsurer …

Negotiation Of International Agreements: Legal And Practical Problems In The Third World Countries, Kuwayaway Stephen Stephen

LLM Theses and Essays

The purpose of this study was to investigate problems in negotiation of international agreements in Third World countries, to shed light on the salient features in negotiation agreements between developed and developing countries, and to propose measures to assess the situation. This study provides detailed description and techniques used in negotiating these agreements in international negotiations. The study reveals that when negotiating within unequal bargaining power, the weak party stands to lose because it enters the agreement without free will; consequently, the agreement becomes unenforceable. Three factors have been identified as being obstacles to freedom of contract, ie. The unequal …

Negotiation Of International Agreements: Legal And Practical Problems In The Third World Countries, Kuwayaway Stephen Kuwayaway

LLM Theses and Essays

The purpose of this study was to investigate problems in negotiation of international agreements in Third World countries, to shed light on the salient features in negotiation agreements between developed and developing countries, and to propose measures to assess the situation. This study provides detailed description and techniques used in negotiating these agreements in international negotiations. The study reveals that when negotiating within unequal bargaining power, the weak party stands to lose because it enters the agreement without free will; consequently, the agreement becomes unenforceable. Three factors have been identified as being obstacles to freedom of contract, ie. The unequal …

1991 Revisions To Articles 3 And 4 Of The Uniform Commercial Code, Timothy Fisher

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Exchange Loss Damages And The Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act: The Emperor Hasn't All His Clothes, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

In 1989, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved a new Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act. This Act is designed to change and clarify the law regarding judgments on obligations denominated in a foreign currency. It does so by recognizing that old rules preventing judgment in a foreign currency - developed in times of a strong dollar - are inappropriate. Unfortunately, in seeking fairness for plaintiffs when the U.S. dollar is weak, the Act replaces rigid old rules with stiff new rules that fail to address the basic issue of appropriate damages for exchange rate losses. While the …

Hungarian Legal Reform For The Private Sector, Cheryl W. Gray, Rebecca J. Hanson, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

Hungary is in the midst of a fundamental transformation toward a market economy. Although Hungary has long been in the forefront of efforts to reform socialism itself, after 1989 the goals of reform moved from market socialism toward capitalism, as the old Communist regime lost power and the idea of widespread private ownership gained acceptance. The legal framework – the "rules of the game – is now being geared toward encouraging, protecting, and rewarding entrepreneurs in the private sector.

This Article describes the evolving legal framework in Hungary in several areas: constitutional, real property, intellectual property, company, foreign investment, contract, …

Opting In And Out Of Fiduciary Duties In Cooperative Ventures: Refining The So-Called Coasean Contract Theory, Charles O'Kelley

Faculty Articles

Professor O’Kelley comments on a familiar problem in the law of closely held business associations - the alleged exploitation of weaker or minority investors by stronger or majority participants. The fact pattern is simple. At the outset of the cooperative venture, a stronger participant assumes the role of proprietor, partner, or majority shareholder, while the weaker participant assumes the role of agent, partner, or minority shareholder. For whatever reason, the venturers do not explicitly guarantee or protect the weaker participant’s right to income or continued participation in the venture. Consequently, at some later date the stronger participant reduces or eliminates …

Doctrinal Synergies And Liberal Dilemmas: The Case Of The Yellow-Dog Contract, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

The three decades spanning the years 1908 to 1937 saw a remarkable transformation of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence concerning the rights of workers to organize. In 1908, the Court held that a federal law prohibiting employers from discharging an employee because of his membership in a labor union violated the liberty of contract secured to the employer by the Fifth Amendment. In 1915, the Court similarly declared a state statute prohibiting the use of "yellow-dog" contracts unconstitutional. In 1937, by contrast, the Court upheld provisions of the Wagner Act prohibiting both discharges for union membership and the use of yellow-dog …

Positivism In The English Law Of Contract, Andrew B.L. Phang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

While there has been no paucity of theoretical discussion on the law of contract,’ there has, in English law at least, been little clear evidence from the courts themselves which particular jurisprudential approach is favoured.2 This is not surprising, given the rather formal nature of the English legal system.’ Herein, perhaps, lies a clue - that English law in general and its contract law in particular are generally oriented towards so-called ‘black letter law’; or, to be more precise, that the generally favoured conception of law is that of po~itivism.~ Asalready mentioned, however, there has been little express acknowledgement of …

Plea-Bargaining As A Social Contract, Robert E. Scott, William J. Stuntz

Faculty Scholarship

Most criminal prosecutions are settled without a trial. The parties to these settlements trade various risks and entitlements: the defendant relinquishes the right to go to trial (along with any chance of acquittal), while the prosecutor gives up the entitlement to seek the highest sentence or pursue the most serious charges possible. The resulting bargains differ predictably from what would have happened had the same cases been taken to trial. Defendants who bargain for a plea serve lower sentences than those who do not. On the other hand, everyone who pleads guilty is, by definition, convicted, while a substantial minority …

The Economic Structure Of The Post-Contractual Corporation, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Conflicting Visions: A Critique Of Ian Macneil’S Relational Theory Of Contract, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Perhaps the leading contemporary critic of placing consent at the center of contract law has been Ian Macneil. In his book The New Social Contract as well as in a series of complex and richly textured articles spanning nearly two decades, Macneil has eloquently presented and defended his now well-known relational theory of contract. It is a tribute to the important core of previously neglected truth in Macneil's theory that, for all its complexity, the theory can be summarized succinctly.

Macneil presents nothing less than a "holistic" "social theory" of human exchange--with particular emphasis on the human activity of "projecting …

The Sound Of Silence: Default Rules And Contractual Consent, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this article, the author challenges the received wisdom of "gap-filling in the absence of consent" by showing how the concept of default rules bolsters the theoretical importance of consent. He accomplishes this by expanding and refining his analysis of a "consent theory of contract." The author proposes that the concept of default rules reveals consent to be operating at two distinct levels of contract theory. First, the presence of consent to be legally bound is essential to justify the legal enforcement of any default rules. Second, nested within this overall consent to be legally bound, consent also operates to …

Some Problems With Contract As Promise, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The promise theory views the origin of contract in the making of a promise. This means that it views the creation of contracts as arising, in an important part, from the voluntary acts of promisors rather than from third parties like the State. In this regard, the theory facilitates the classical liberal value of freedom to contract. The promise theory also supports the notion that contracts should be interpreted according to the terms of the promise rather than by imposing terms on the parties. In this regard, the theory facilitates the classical liberal value of freedom from contract. These strengths …

Corporate Takeover Of Teaching Hospitals, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article explores the potential and the dangers of this novel form of collaboration between academic medicine and the for-profit world. The author focuses on those arrangements--purchases and leasing agreements--by which investor-owned corporations operate, for a profit, hospitals that serve as major medical teaching and research sites. He begins by reviewing how the evolving needs of academic medical centers and for-profit hospital chains have generated mutual interest in such arrangements. The author then considers some frequently expressed ethical, economic, and other public policy objections to the provision of hospital services by for-profit firms. Opponents of the acquisition and leasing of …

Rational Bargaining Theory And Contract: Default Rules, Hypothetical Consent, The Duty To Disclose, And Fraud, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author begins by responding to Coleman's rational choice approach to choosing default rules. In part I, he applies the expanded analysis of contractual consent and default rules that he had recently presented elsewhere to explain how rational bargaining, hypothetical consent, and actual consent figure in the determination of contractual default rules. Whereas Coleman advocates the centrality of rational bargaining analysis to this determination, the author explains why rational bargaining theory's role must be subsidiary to that of consent.

The author then turns his attention to Coleman's appraisal of contracting parties' duty to disclose information concerning the resources that are …

Case Comment: Smyth V. Szep Unsettling Settlements: Of Unconscionability And Other Things, David Vaver

Articles & Book Chapters

The recent decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Smyth v. Szep once again canvasses the validity of releases signed by injured victims in favour of insurance companies and once again plunges into the murky waters of contractual unconscionability. Both issues have become more or less permanent squatters on judicial calendars throughout North America, and it seems worthwhile to consider why this is so and whether something can be done to reduce their tenure at least in Canada.