Law Commons^™

Fiduciary Duties Of Officers And Directors Of Distressed Corporations, Royce De R. Barondes

Faculty Publications

This Article argues that this widely-accepted premise for analyzing the incentives created by various alternative structures of federal bankruptcy law is suspect.

Of Communists And Anti-Abortion Protestors: The Consequences Of Falling Into The Theoretical Abyss, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

Part I of this article briefly reviews the legal and social context of Dennis and Yates. Parts II and III similarly review Madsen and Schenck in order to show potential parallels to the earlier communist decisions. Part IV further examines both Madsen and Schenck, demonstrating that, from a doctrinal standpoint, they are far removed from the earlier communist cases. Finally, Part V explains how the Court in Madsen and Schenck actually contributed to misconceptions or manipulation of its opinions. Specifically, Part V examines the Madsen and Schenck Courts' approaches to three of the more difficult doctrinal issues facing them--prior restraint, …

Mortgage Drafting: Lessons From The Restatement Of Mortgages, Dale A. Whitman

Faculty Publications

The American Law Institute's adoption of the Restatement (Third) of Property: Mortgages may have significant impact on the negotiation and drafting of mortgages. Rather than merely reciting the prevailing case law, the Restatement proposes approaches the American Law Institute believes are desirable as a matter of sound policy. This Article highlights key areas in which the new Restatement may affect mortgage drafting and suggests useful techniques for mortgage drafters.

The Establishment Clause As A Structural Restraint On Governmental Power, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

This Article inquires into whether the singular purpose of the Establishment Clause is to secure individual rights, as is conventionally believed, or whether its role is more properly understood as a structural restraint on governmental power. If the Clause is indeed structural in nature, then its task is to negate from the purview of civil governance all matters "respecting an establishment of religion." Conceptualizing the role of the Establishment Clause as either rights-securing or structural has profound consequences for the nation's constitutional settlement concerning the interrelationship of government and religion.

The Right Mix, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

This edition of Dispute Resolution Magazine explores several aspects of the problem. It begins with a debate between Jean Sternlight and Theodore 0. Rogers over the propriety of mandatory predispute arbitration processes in the consumer and employment contexts, followed by a proposal by Terry Trantina for a "constructive compromise" regarding the general validity of arbitration agreements in contracts of adhesion.

This trio of essays is followed by articles on two major arbitration reform efforts. The first, by Thomas J. Stipanowich and J. Clark Kelso, discusses the rise of protocols and other industry standards intended to bring fairness to the arbitratica …

Of Sinking And Escalating: A (Somewhat) New Look At Stare Decisis, Rafael Gely

Faculty Publications

This article explores the concept of stare decisis from the escalation of commitment perspective. I argue that the theory of escalation of commitment provides a powerful tool that can be used in our understanding of the application of stare decisis . The literature on the use of precedent is extensive; however, this Article develops a new way of looking at case law development and stare decisis . In particular, the Article contemplates stare decisis as a decision-making process and then considers the academic literature in order that we may gain some insight into that process.

Justice Blackmun, Franz Kafka, And Capital Punishment, Martha Dragich

Faculty Publications

The Article discusses the problem of judging death penalty cases, comparing Justice Blackmun's death penalty jurisprudence to the struggle of a character in Kafka's story. It focuses on three critical moments in the decisional process--hesitation, decision, and escape--and assesses Justice Blackmun's performance at each step. It concludes that although Justice Blackmun's views remained consistent throughout his judicial career, his death penalty legacy is equivocal, and in some important respects, unsatisfying.

Researching Cases On The Web, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Tribute To Professor Richard B. Tyler, William B. Fisch

Faculty Publications

Tribute to Professor Richard B. Tyler

Understanding Congressional Reform: Lessons From The Seventies, Rafael Gely, Asghar Zardkoohi

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to examine voting behavior of representatives when faced with dual constraints (constituents back home and the leadership) as compared to one constraint (constituents back home). An ambitious goal of the study would have been to examine the effects of both sets of reforms. However, there are two reasons for not using the 1995 reforms in our empirical examinations. First, not enough time has passed to fully observe the effect of term limits on voting behavior. Second, and more importantly, the leadership, whose power it was to impose a constraint on a representative's promotional opportunities, …

Failing Faith In Litigation? A Survey Of Business Lawyers' And Executives' Opinions, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

To provide a more systematic assessment of contemporary faith in litigation, this article looks at a particular context-- business litigation--and analyzes the opinions of three groups of respondents: lawyers in private law firms who do commercial litigation (“outside counsel”), lawyers employed in business firms who do some litigation (“inside counsel”), and nonlawyer executives in business firms (“executives”). These groups have the greatest exposure to litigation in the corporate setting; furthermore, because they play powerful roles in our political, economic, and social life as well as the legal system, their opinions influence public opinion more generally.

Coping With "Loss": A Re-Examination Of Sentencing Federal Economic Crimes Under The Guidelines, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article has three objectives. First, it attempts to rethink the sentencing of federal economic criminals in light of the basic purposes of sentencing and of the Guidelines' particular structure and objectives. Second, it examines the deficiencies in the current sentencing guidelines regarding theft, fraud, and other economic crimes, and the problem areas in the case law construing those guidelines. Third, it proposes and analyzes a consolidated guideline, together with accompanying application notes, for sentencing virtually all theft and fraud cases (a draft of which follows the text of this Article as Appendix A).

Adoption Of Children In Missouri, Mary M. Beck

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Article is to investigate the effect of Missouri law on adoption and to determine whether its provisions adequately protect the parties to adoption and whether its degree of clarity properly forestalls litigation.

Crime Or Punishment: The Parental Corporal Punishment Defense - Reasonable And Necessary, Or Excused Abuse, Kandice Johnson

Faculty Publications

The parental right to use physical force to discipline and restrain children is a privilege firmly rooted in the American system of jurisprudence. This privilege is often asserted as a defense when parents are charged with a crime of aggression against their child. While the privilege to use disciplinary force is universally recognized as a defense in criminal actions, it is equally acknowledged that child abuse is a pervasive reality of American life. This article postulates that current laws, addressing assertion of the parental privilege defense in criminal actions, fail either to provide adequate guidance to parents or to sufficiently …

The Illusion Of Autonomy At The End Of Life: Unconsented Life Support And The Wrongful Life Analogy, Philip G. Peters Jr.

Faculty Publications

Overwhelming evidence indicates that physicians routinely ignore patient preferences about life-sustaining care. Yet, the ability of wrongfully treated patients to recover compensatory damages has recently been placed in doubt. Both courts and commentators have suggested that actions for unconsented life support are analogous to actions for wrongful life and should, for that reason, be rejected. In this article, Professor Philip Peters argues that the obvious similarity between the two kinds of claims is overshadowed by many factors that distinguish the two settings. As a result, Professor Peters concludes that a physician who wrongfully administers life-sustaining care over the objections of …

Hypocrites And Barking Harlots: The Clinton-Lewinsky Affair And The Attack On Women, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

This essay defends against the wholesale castigation of women who support the President. It reveals that such criticism is wrong and unfair. Specifically, it demonstrates that the critics have unreasonably characterized women's responses to Clinton as hypocritical or extremely naive, rather than as examples of astute political decision-making. The essay further exposes the sexism underlying the critics' arguments, revealing that stereotypes regarding (1) women's role as the keeper of morals and (2) women as non-political or non-rational beings are at the heart of much of the criticism. By reinforcing these stereotypes, the critics pose a greater danger to women than …

The Constitutionalization Of Law In The United States, William B. Fisch, Richard S. Kay

Faculty Publications

The constitution is that the federal courts and a majority of state court systems will only entertain a constitutional claim in the context of a concrete dispute involving adversary parties with a specific stake in the outcome, and abstract review in these systems is unknown.

Prying, Spying And Lying: Intrusive Newsgather And What The Law Should Do About Them, Lyrissa Lidsky

Faculty Publications

The media's use of intrusive newsgathering techniques poses an increasing threat to individual privacy. Courts currently resolve the overwhelming majority of conflicts in favor of the media. This is not because the First Amendment bars the imposition of tort liability on the media for its newsgathering practices. It does not. Rather, tort law has failed to seize the opportunity to create meaninful privacy protection. After surveying the economic, philosophical, and practical obstacles to reform, this Article proposes to rejuvenate the tort of intrusion to tip the balance between privacy and the press back in privacy's direction. Working within the framework …

Choppy Waters, Richard C. Reuben, Nancy H. Rogers

Faculty Publications

The movement toward a uniform standard for confidentiality in mediation among the states is one that from the outset casts off into choppy waters, marked by pitching cross-currents of remarkable force.

Allocation Of Decisionmaking Between Defense Counsel And Criminal Defendant: An Empirical Study Of Attorney-Client Decisionmaking, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

In Commonwealth v. Woodward, the highly publicized murder trial of an au pair accused of killing an infant in her care, the defense team faced a strategic decision commonly encountered at trial: whether to request or to object to lesser included jury instructions. Put simply, the Woodward defense team had to decide whether to ask for an instruction that would permit the jury to return a manslaughter verdict, or to object to such an instruction, leaving the jury only the choice either to acquit the defendant or to convict her of second degree murder as charged in the indictment. Undoubtedly …

Crossing The Line: The Political And Moral Battle Over Late-Term Abortion, Rigel C. Oliveri

Faculty Publications

This paper focuses on the political and moral debate surrounding two pieces of federal legislation which sought to criminalize a particular late term abortion technique scientifically known as "intact dilation and extraction," and popularly known as "partial birth abortion." The Congressional "Partial Birth Abortion" Bans of 1996 and 1997 inflamed the already emotionally charged contest over abortion rights. The intense lobbying and advocacy efforts put pro-choice activists in the uncomfortable position of having to defend one of the most extreme positions on the abortion-rights spectrum. The advocacy was further complicated by the fact that very few women obtain late term …

Third Party Intervention And Joinder As Of Right In International Arbitration: An Infringement Of Individual Contract Rights Or A Proper Equitable Measure?, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

Arbitration has long been called a creature of contract, a dispute resolution mechanism that has no form or validity outside the four corners of the parties' arbitration agreement. Some feel, however, that it may be time to change this narrow interpretation of arbitration's function and scope, and nowhere is this need for reform more apparent than in the realm of multi-party international disputes. Arbitration has taken on an increasingly important role in international commercial transactions and has become the preferred dispute resolution mechanism in many types of transnational contracts. Although there are any number of reasons why this may be …

Reforming The Law: The Payment Rule As A Paradigm , Dale A. Whitman

Faculty Publications

The concept of negotiability of promissory notes is solidly entrenched in American commercial law. It derives from the English common law notion that a negotiable instrument is a reification of the obligation it describes; the instrument is regarded as a tangible form of the obligation. This notion has multiple ramifications, but three stand out. The first is the holder in due course doctrine which asserts that, when a negotiable instrument is transferred by the correct process (negotiation, which requires delivery of the paper) to someone with the right qualities (good faith, lack of notice, and payment of value), the maker …

A "Party Satisfaction" Perspective On A Comprehensive Mediation Statute, James Levin, Chris Guthrie

Faculty Publications

Mediation Statute, 13 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 885 (1998)

During the past fifteen years, the alternative dispute resolution movement has greatly altered the legal landscape. Courts, legislatures and administrative agencies have enacted more than 2000 laws dealing with mediation and other dispute resolution processes. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution have recently formed a unique partnership to assess whether a model or uniform mediation statute might remedy some of the problems caused by the current patchwork of often confusing and conflicting mediation laws. The task …

Insurance, Contract, And The Doctrine Of Reasonable Expectations, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

This article examines the connections between the doctrine of reasonable expectations and the law of contract. Judge Keeton urged in his 1970 article that protecting the insured's reasonable expectations is a better justification for results in many reported cases than the rationales offered by judges! Without disagreeing with that point, it can be claimed, as this article does, that insurance law's efforts to explain outcomes that contradict the plain language of contractual text are appropriately viewed as a subset of a larger effort to rationalize contract law with the challenges presented by the widespread use of standardized forms in consumer …