Law Commons^™

The Fourth Amendment And Common Law, David Sklansky

David A Sklansky

No abstract provided.

The Jury's Role In Deciding Normative Issues In The American Common Law, Mark P. Gergen

Mark P. Gergen

No abstract provided.

Magna Carta Then And Now: A Symbol Of Freedom And Equal Rights For All, Eugene K B Tan, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

Magna Carta became applicable to Singapore in 1826 when a court system administering English law was established in the Straits Settlements. This remained the case through Singapore’s evolution from Crown colony to independent republic. The Great Charter only ceased to apply in 1993, when Parliament enacted the Application of English Law Act to clarify which colonial laws were still part of Singapore law. Nonetheless, Magna Carta’s legacy in Singapore continues in a number of ways. Principles such as due process of law and the supremacy of law are cornerstones of the rule of law, vital to the success, stability and …

Authority For Sale And Privity Of Contract: The Proprietary Basis Of The Right To The Proceeds Of Sale In The Common Law, Benjamin Geva

Benjamin Geva

Upon an authorized sale of goods, the owner's ability to recover the price from the buyer can be explained either by his property in the goods or by a contractual relationship. This article deals with the right to recover the price in the context of an historical and theoretical analysis of the right to the proceeds of a sale at common law. It is suggested that property is the basis of this right, rather than a contractual nexus. Part I presents the sale of goods by an agent of an undisclosed principal as a model situation in which the right …

The Charter's Relevance To Private Litigation: Does Dolphin Deliver?, Brian Slattery

Brian Slattery

The author critically examines the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Local 580 v. Dolphin Delivery Ltd. This case holds that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms only applies to the relations between government and private persons and not to relations between private persons alone, with two exceptions. The author argues that the first exception - when a private person invokes a statute, rather than the common law, against another private person - is untenable because both the common law and the droit civil are grounded in legislative instruments, respectively …

A Postcolonial Theory Of Spousal Rape: The Carribean And Beyond, Stacy-Ann Elvy

Stacy-Ann Elvy

Many postcolonial states in the Caribbean continue to struggle to comply with their international treaty obligations to protect women from sexual violence. Reports from various United Nations programs, including UNICEF, and the annual U.S. State Department Country Reports on Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia (“Commonwealth Countries”), indicate that sexual violence against women, including spousal abuse, is a significant problem in the Caribbean. Despite ratification of various international instruments intended to eliminate sexual violence against women, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Commonwealth Countries have retained the …

Hadley V. Baxendale And Other Common Law Borrowings From The Civil Law, Wayne Barnes

Wayne R. Barnes

In 1854, the English Exchequer Court delivered the landmark case of Hadley v. Baxendale. That case provided, for the first time in the common law, a defined rule regarding the limitations on recovery of damages for breach of contract. It has been widely celebrated as a landmark in the law of contracts, and more widely as a triumph of the common law system. A little over a decade after it was decided, it had already become highly regarded, for Chief Baron Pollock stated in 1866: “[A] more extensive and accurate knowledge of decisions in our law books, and a more …

Romancing The Ppsa: Challenges For Instructors In Teaching And Reconciling New Concepts With Traditional Norms, Francina Cantatore, Ian Stevens

Francina Cantatore

Over the past two years the teaching of Personal Property Law has undergone a major transformation. At this point in time, after the end of the transitional 2 year period of the Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA) it is clear that the traditional common law principles now need to be examined in the context of a statute based approach. The PPSA has made significant inroads into the way personal property is dealt with in commercial transactions. Not only has the PPSA impacted on various types of security agreements such as mortgages, charges, and pledges, but it also reaches into areas …

Comparative Legal Traditions: Text, Materials, And Cases On Western Law. 3rd Edition., Paolo Carozza, Mary Glendon, Colin Picker

Paolo G. Carozza

This new edition includes some significant revisions since the last edition was published in 1994. The new edition includes: A greater emphasis on Public Law in the Continental and Common law traditions; More coverage of the impact of the regional European law (EC EU and ECHR) on the legal traditions;Some updated Problems (including one concerning Mixed Jurisdictions); and Numerous updates to the Common Law Tradition materials in light of the many significant reforms in England over the last ten years.

Reading Statutes In The Common Law Tradition, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

There is wide agreement in American law and scholarship about the role the common law tradition plays in statutory interpretation. Jurists and scholars of various stripes concur that the common law points away from formalist interpretive approaches like textualism and toward a more creative, independent role for courts. They simply differ over whether the common law tradition is worth preserving. Dynamic and strongly purposive interpreters claim the Anglo-American common law heritage in support of their approach to statutory interpretation, while arguing that formalism is an unjustified break from that tradition. Formalists reply that the common law mindset and methods are …

Unconstitutional Quartering, Governmental Immunity, And Van Halen's Brown M&M Test, Tom W. Bell

Tom W. Bell

The jurisprudence of the Third Amendment, which limits the quartering of troops in private homes, effectively consists of just one case: Engblom v. Carey. But what a case! In addition to showcasing an unjustly neglected corner of our constitutional heritage, Engblom demonstrates the troubling effects of a dubious legal doctrine: governmental immunity. Though the court of appeals had held New York officials potentially liable for violating the Third Amendment when they had quartered National Guard troops in the dormitory rooms of striking prison guards, the lower court on remand in Engblom denied the plaintiffs a remedy. Why? Because throughout the …

"Everybody Knows What A Picket Line Means": Picketing Before The British Columbia Court Of Appeal, Judy Fudge, Eric Tucker

Eric M. Tucker

The general hostility of courts towards workers’ collective action is well documented, but even against that standard the restrictive approach of the British Columbia Court of Appeal stands out. Although this trend first became apparent in a series of cases before World War II in which the court treated peaceful picketing as unlawful and narrowly interpreted British Columbia’s Trade Union Act (1902), which limited trade unions’ common law liability, this study will focus on the court’s post-War jurisprudence. The legal environment for trade union activity was radically altered during World War II by PC 1003, which provided unions with a …

Judges As Rulemakers, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

In Do Cases Make Bad Law?, Frederick Schauer raises some serious questions about the process of judicial lawmaking. Schauer takes issue with the widely held assumption that judge-made law benefits from the court's focus on a particular real-world dispute. Writing with characteristic eloquence, Schauer argues that the need to resolve a concrete dispute does not enhance the ability of judges to craft sound rules, but instead generates cognitive biases that distort judicial development of legal rules. Schauer's observations about the risks of rulemaking in an adjudicatory setting are very persuasive. Yet his overall assessment of the common law process may …

A Comparative View Of Standards Of Proof, Kevin M. Clermont, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

In common-law systems, the standard of proof for ordinary civil cases requires the party who bears the burden of proof to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the facts alleged are true. In contrast, the prevailing standard of proof for civil cases in civil-law systems is indistinguishable from the standard for criminal cases: the judge must be firmly convinced that the facts alleged are true. This striking difference in common-law and civil-law procedures has received very little attention from either civilian or comparative scholars. The preponderance standard applied in common-law systems is openly probabilistic and produces, on average, …

A Defense Of Analogical Reasoning In Law, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

This Article defends the practice of reasoning by analogy on the basis of its epistemic and institutional advantages. The advantages identified for analogical reasoning include that it produces a wealth of data for decisonmaking; it represents the collaborative effort of a number of judges over time; it tends to correct biases that might lead judges to discount the force of prior decisions; and it exerts a conservative force in law, holding the development of law to a gradual pace. Notably, these advantages do not depend on the rational force of analogical reasoning. Rather, the author contends that, as open-ended reasoning …

Objeto Imposible Jurídicamente Y Objeto Ilícito. La Supuesta Eliminación De La Causa Del Negocio Jurídico –Y En Particular Del Contrato– Por Obra De La Jurisprudencia Judicial, Rómulo Morales

Rómulo Martín Morales Hervias

Mediante la Casación Nº 3189-2012-Lima-Norte emitida por la Sala Civil Permanente de la Corte Suprema, se equipara erróneamente el objeto imposible jurídicamente y el objeto ilícito en el caso de los contratos sobre bienes ajenos, y considera que el resultado del negocio jurídico es su causa, su fin o su finalidad. Tales aseveraciones son erróneas por cuanto dichos contratos no son nulos, sino perfectamente válidos, pero ineficaces parcialmente porque las cosas ajenas son comerciables.

Keepings, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The Role Of The Profit Imperative In Risk Management, Christopher French

Christopher C. French

Disaster Law And Policy, Daniel Farber, Jim Chen, Robert Verchick, Lisa Grow Sun

Daniel A Farber