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Full-Text Articles in Law

Adrift On Erie: Characterizing Forum-Selection Clauses, Kermit Roosevelt Iii, Bethan R. Jones May 2019

Adrift On Erie: Characterizing Forum-Selection Clauses, Kermit Roosevelt Iii, Bethan R. Jones

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Erie is one of our most famous cases, but also one of the most mysterious. It has become something of a Rorschach test, a pattern onto which scholars project their own concerns. This article presents a simple view of Erie as a case about power: first, who has the power to make certain laws and second, who has the power to interpret them. From this perspective, Erie has nothing to do with substance-procedure characterization—the topic now understood to be governed by Erie analysis. Indeed, early post-Erie cases describe Erie as concerned with power. The substance-procedure distinction enters the picture …


Certainty Versus Flexibility In The Conflict Of Laws, Kermit Roosevelt Iii Jan 2019

Certainty Versus Flexibility In The Conflict Of Laws, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

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Traditional choice of law theory conceives of certainty and flexibility as opposed values: increase one, and you inevitably decrease the other. This article challenges the received wisdom by reconceptualizing the distinction. Rather than caring about certainty or flexibility for their own sake, it suggests, we care about them because each makes it easier to promote a certain cluster of values. And while there may be a necessary tradeoff between certainty and flexibility, there is no necessary tradeoff between the clusters of values. It is possible to improve a choice of law system with regard to both of them. The article …


Choice Of Law And Jurisdictional Policy In The Federal Courts, Tobias Barrington Wolff Jan 2017

Choice Of Law And Jurisdictional Policy In The Federal Courts, Tobias Barrington Wolff

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For seventy-five years, Klaxon v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing has provided a one-line answer to choice-of-law questions in federal diversity cases: Erie requires the federal court to employ the same law that a court of the state would select. The simplicity of the proposition likely accounts for the unqualified breadth with which federal courts now apply it. Choice of law doctrine is difficult, consensus in hard cases is elusive, and the anxiety that Erie produces over the demands of federalism tends to stifle any reexamination of core assumptions. The attraction of a simple answer is obvious. But Klaxon cannot bear the …


A No-Tribunal Sdrm And The Means Of Binding Creditors To The Terms Of A Restructuring Plan, Charles W. Mooney Jr. Jan 2016

A No-Tribunal Sdrm And The Means Of Binding Creditors To The Terms Of A Restructuring Plan, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

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The paper addresses two discrete but related and essential attributes of a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM). It first considers the merits and feasibility of an SDRM that would provide a procedure for proposing and adopting a restructuring plan for a sovereign debtor’s debt which would not involve any tribunal or administrator (a No-Tribunal SDRM). The No-Tribunal SDRM would undertake the restructuring as if the sovereign debtor and its creditors were subject to the Model CAC regime. In addition to embodying a novel and interesting structure for an SDRM—and one that eliminates the difficult hurdle of identifying a satisfactory tribunal—adoption …


A Framework For A Formal Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism: The Kiss Principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) And Other Guiding Principles, Charles W. Mooney Jr. Oct 2015

A Framework For A Formal Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism: The Kiss Principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) And Other Guiding Principles, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

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Given the ongoing work on a multilateral restructuring process for sovereign debt in the UN, consideration of the content and implementation of a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM) is timely. The framework and content of the SDRM proposed here differs from earlier proposals in several important respects. For the classification and supermajority voting of claims in the approval a restructuring plan, it would mimic the structure and operation of the model collective action clauses (Model CACs) proposed by the International Capital Markets Association. Restructuring under a qualified sovereign debt restructuring law (QSDRL) would be guided by four principles: (i) observe …


Choice Of Law In Federal Courts: From Erie And Klaxon To Cafa And Shady Grove, Kermit Roosevelt Iii Jan 2012

Choice Of Law In Federal Courts: From Erie And Klaxon To Cafa And Shady Grove, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

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The article offers a new perspective on choice of law in federal courts. I have argued in a series of articles that ordinary choice of law problems are best understood through application of a particular conceptual framework, which I call the two-step model. Rather than thinking of choice of law as some sort of meta-procedure, this model takes it to address two substantive questions: what are the scope of the competing states’ laws, and which should be given priority if they conflict? My previous articles have explored the utility of this framework for tackling some perennial problems in choice of …


How To Prevent Hard Cases From Making Bad Law: Bear Stearns, Delaware And The Strategic Use Of Comity, Marcel Kahan, Edward B. Rock Jan 2009

How To Prevent Hard Cases From Making Bad Law: Bear Stearns, Delaware And The Strategic Use Of Comity, Marcel Kahan, Edward B. Rock

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The Bear Stearns/JP Morgan Chase merger placed Delaware between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the deal’s unprecedented deal protection measures – especially the 39.5% share exchange agreement – were probably invalid under current Delaware doctrine because they rendered the Bear Stearns shareholders’ approval rights entirely illusory. On the other hand, if a Delaware court were to enjoin a deal pushed by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury and arguably necessary to prevent a collapse of the international financial system, it would invite just the sort of federal intervention that would undermine Delaware’s role as the …


Initial Interest Confusion: Standing At The Crossroads Of Trademark Law, Jennifer E. Rothman Oct 2005

Initial Interest Confusion: Standing At The Crossroads Of Trademark Law, Jennifer E. Rothman

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While the benchmark of trademark infringement traditionally has been a demonstration that consumers are likely to be confused by the use of a similar or identical trademark to identify the goods or services of another, a court-created doctrine called initial interest confusion allows liability for trademark infringement solely on the basis that a consumer might initially be interested, attracted, or distracted by a competitor's, or even a non-competitor's, product or service. Initial interest confusion is being used with increasing frequency, especially on the Internet, to shut down speech critical of trademark holders and their products and services, to prevent comparative …