Law Commons^™

Law School News: Throw Out The Old Thinking 9-30-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Arc And Architecture Of Private Enforcement Regimes In The United States And Europe: A View Across The Atlantic, Jason Rathod, Sandeep Veheesan

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The United States and Europe have traditionally taken very different approaches to the regulation of harmful conduct. Previously, European nations relied almost entirely on the public enforcement of laws, whereas the United States relied on a mix of public and private actors. In the United States, private rights of action have played a central role deterring illegal conduct—and, in fact, provided greater deterrence than public enforcers in some areas of law. They have also allowed injured parties to obtain compensation. Despite their very different histories, the private enforcement systems in the United States and Europe are showing signs of convergence …

Saturns And Rickshaws Revisited: What Kind Of Employment Arbitration System Has Developed?, Alexander Colvin, Kell Pike

Alexander Colvin

[Excerpt] In this article, we examine a new, more detailed dataset of employment arbitration cases administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA), which includes information on many important aspects of these cases that are not included in the California Code of Civil Procedure disclosure requirements. With the availability of this new data, we are able to revisit Estreicher's argument and look at the question of whether employment arbitration has become a new Saturn system of justice providing better access to employees and to what degree it is different from the Cadillac-Rickshaw system of justice in employment litigation. We begin by …

Comparing Mandatory Arbitration And Litigation: Access, Process, And Outcomes, Alexander Colvin, Mark D. Gough

Alexander Colvin

[Excerpt] What do we know about mandatory arbitration and its impact? Some existing studies have examined samples of employment arbitration cases, usually obtained from the American Arbitration Association (AAA), which is currently the largest arbitration service provider in the employment area. Although some early studies found relatively high employee win rates and damage awards in arbitration, comparable to those in litigation, these results were mainly based on arbitration under individually negotiated agreements or in the securities industry and involved relatively highly paid individuals. More recent studies using larger samples of cases based on mandatory arbitration agreements find much lower employee …

Medicare Secondary Payer And Settlement Delay, Eric Helland, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

The Medicare Secondary Payer Act of 1980 and its subsequent amendments require that insurers and self-insured companies report settlements, awards, and judgments that involve a Medicare beneficiary to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The parties then may be required to compensate CMS for its conditional payments. In a simple settlement model, this makes settlement less likely. Also, the reporting delays and uncertainty regarding the size of these conditional payments are likely to further frustrate the settlement process. We provide results, using data from a large insurer, showing that, on average, implementation of the MSP reporting amendments led to …

Slides: The Colorado River: Innovation In The Face Of Scarcity, Anne J. Castle

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Anne J. Castle, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

40 slides

Judgment Day For Fraud-On-The-Market: Reflections On Amgen And The Second Coming Of Halliburton, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the "fraud on the market" presumption of reliance, facilitating large scale class actions for this kind of securities fraud. This essay traces the road from its decision last year in Amgen to this year's reaffirmation in Halliburton II, and considers some of the issues that will emerge as lower courts struggle with Halliburton II's secondary holding--that the issue of "price impact" is crucial to class certification, even if the burden of proof is on the defendants.

Sue On Pay: Say On Pay’S Impact On Directors’ Fiduciary Duties, Lisa Fairfax

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article advances a normative case for using say on pay litigation to enhance the state courts’ role in policing directors’ compensation decisions. Outrage over what many perceive to be excessive executive compensation has escalated dramatically in recent years. In 2010, such outrage prompted Congress to mandate say on pay—a nonbinding shareholder vote on executive compensation. In the wake of say on pay votes, some shareholders have brought suit against directors alleging that a negative vote indicates a breach of directors’ fiduciary duties. To date, the vast majority of courts have rejected these suits. This Article insists that such rejection …

Protecting Employee Rights And Prosecuting Corporate Crimes: A Proposal For Criminal Cumis Counsel, Josephine Sandler Nelson

J.S. Nelson

Slides: Air Monitoring And Litigation Update, John Jacus

Air Quality Impacts from Oil and Gas Development (January 27)

Presenter: John Jacus, Partner, Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP, reviews recent litigation aimed at oil and gas development activities with respect to air emissions impacts, and also several recent and ongoing studies and ambient monitoring efforts focused upon air emissions from oil and gas activities

23 slides

Threats Escalate: Corporate Information Technology Governance Under Fire, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

In a previous publication The Board’s Responsibility for Information Technology Governance, (with Kara Altenbaumer-Price) we examined: The IT Governance Institute’s Executive Summary and Framework for Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology 4.1 (COBIT®); reviewed the Weill and Ross Corporate and Key Asset Governance Framework; and observed “that in a survey of audit executives and board members, 58 percent believed that their corporate employees had little to no understanding of how to assess risk.” We further described the new SEC rules on risk management; Congressional action on cyber security; legal basis for director’s duties and responsibilities relative to IT governance; …

What's Good In Theory May Be Flawed In Practice: Potential Legal Consequences Of Poor Implementation Of A Theoretical Sample, Melanie S. Williams, A. Lynn Phillips, G. Michael Phillips

Melanie S. Williams

The article discusses the problem of the use in litigation of statistical sampling. Sample-based research is increasingly used in cases as diverse as products liability, antitrust, intellectual property, and criminal law, among others. Sample-based research provides objective evidence upon which decisions, damages and liability may rest. Despite its importance, however, statistical evidence is often misused and misunderstood by attorneys who may be unfamiliar with the underlying form of analysis. The paper explores common errors when using litigative samples, comments upon best practices for the use in law of sample-based research, and demonstrates the importance of sound statistical sampling and data …

Slides: Engaging Stakeholders, Duane Zavadil

Opportunities and Obstacles to Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Natural Gas Development in Uintah Basin (October 14)

Presenter: Duane Zavadil, Bill Barrett Corporation

5 slides

Slides: Rifle, Silt, New Castle Community Development Plan: A Collaborative Planning Approach To Natural Gas Development, Peggy Utesch

Best Practices for Community and Environmental Protection (October 14)

Presenter: Peggy Utesch, Movin' Forward Consulting

25 slides

Green Building Claims: What Theories Will A Plaintiff Pursue, Who Has Exposure, And A Proposal For Risk Mitigation, Darren Prum, Stephen Del Percio

Darren A. Prum

No abstract provided.

A Winning Solution For Youtube And Utube? Corresponding Trademarks And Domain Name Sharing, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Articles

In June of 2007, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio ruled on a motion to dismiss various claims against the Youtube video-sharing service. The claimant was Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corp ("Universal"), a manufacturer of pipes and tubing products. Since 1996, Universal has used the domain name utube.com - phonetically the same as Youtube's domain name, youtube.com. Youtube.com was registered in 2005 and gained almost-immediate popularity as a video-sharing website. As a result, Universal experienced excessive web traffic by Internet users looking for youtube.com and mistakenly typing utube.com into their web browsers. Universal's servers …

Solving The Digital Piracy Puzzle: Disaggregating Fair Use From The Dmca's Anti-Device Provisions, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Articles

Copyright law has always involved balancing creative pursuits against innovations in copying, distribution and, more recently, encryption technologies. A significant problem for copyright law is that many such technologies can be utilized for both socially useful and socially harmful purposes. It is difficult to regulate such technologies in a way that prevents social harms while at the same time facilitating social benefits. The most recent example of this dynamic is evident in the 2005 United States Supreme Court decision in MGM v Grokster - dealing with digital file-sharing technologies. This article draws from the file sharing debate in considering another …

Understanding New Hampshire’S Rule 4.2 As Applied To Corporate Litigants: An Explanation And Suggestions For Improvement, Heather Menezes

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Consider this scenario: an attorney represents a client in litigation against a corporation. The attorney gets a call from an employee of that corporation and the employee says, “Everything in your complaint is absolutely correct.” However excited the attorney is to speak with this person, the Rules of Professional Conduct constrain whom the attorney can talk to if a corporation is involved in the pending litigation. In New Hampshire, any attorney can quickly find that Rule 4.2 prohibits contact with a represented party.1 But is this corporate employee a represented party? Even after reading the comment to the rule …

Vultures Or Vanguards?: The Role Of Litigation In Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Jill E. Fisch, Caroline M. Gentile

All Faculty Scholarship

The market for sovereign debt differs from the market for corporate debt in several important ways including the risk of opportunistic default by sovereign debtors, the importance of political pressures, and the presence of international development organizations. Moreover, countries are subject to neither liquidation nor standardized processes of debt reorganization. Instead, negotiations between a sovereign debtor and its creditors lead to a voluntary restructuring of the sovereign's debt. One of the greatest difficulties in restructuring claims against sovereign debtors is balancing the interests of the majority of the creditors with those of minority creditors. Holdout creditors serve as a check …

Aggregation, Auctions, And Other Developments In The Selection Of Lead Counsel Under The Pslra, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Uncertain Litigation Cost And Seller Behavior: Evidence From An Auditing Game, Ping Zhang, Bryan K. Church, Lucy Ackert

Faculty and Research Publications

Investigates difficulties that arise in estimating expected litigation costs in an auditing game in the United States. Effect of effort level on certain and uncertain costs of performing the engagement; Frequency of observed fee offers below the total expected cost of an engagement; Institutional arrangements and damage-sharing regimes; Theoretical and behavioral predictions.

Teaching Corporate Governance Through Shareholder Litigation, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Incentives To Settle Under Joint And Several Liability: An Empirical Analysis Of Superfund Litigation, Howard F. Chang, Hilary Sigman

All Faculty Scholarship

Congress may soon restrict joint and several liability for cleanup of contaminated sites under Superfund. We explore whether this change would discourage settlements and is therefore likely to increase the program 's already high litigation costs per site. Recent theoretical research by Kornhauser and Revesz finds that joint and several liability may either encourage or discourage settlement, depending on the correlation of outcomes at trial across defendants. We extend their two-defendant model to a richer framework with N defendants. This extension allows us to test the theoretical model empirically using data on Superfund litigation. We find that joint and several …

The Scope Of Private Securities Litigation: In Search Of Liability Standards For Secondary Defendants, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Recent federal court decisions have struggled to apply the Supreme Court's decision in Central Bank v. First Interstate to determine when outside professionals should be held liable as primary violators under section IO(b) of the Securities Exchange Act. In keeping with the Court's current interpretive methodology, Central Bank and its progeny employ a textualist approach. In this Article, Professor Fisch argues that literal textualism is an inappropriate approach for interpreting the federal securities laws generally and misguided in light of legislative developments post-dating the Central Bank decision. Instead, Professor Fisch advocates an approach that weighs Congress 's recent endorsement of …

Agenda: Outdoor Recreation: Promise And Peril In The New West, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, Colorado. Bureau Of Land Management

Outdoor Recreation: Promise and Peril in the New West (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Co-sponsored by the Natural Resources Law Center and the Colorado Bureau of Land Management.

The conference will explore several components of the “promise and peril” of the ongoing outdoor recreation explosion. The conference will begin on the morning of June 8 with a series of introductory presentations designed to place the outdoor recreation movement in a useful historical and socioeconomic context. This material will be followed in the afternoon session by a discussion of environmental impacts of outdoor recreation, recognizing that the diversity and magnitude of impacts is as broad as the industry itself. This discussion will be followed on …

Class Action Reform, Qui Tam, And The Role Of The Plaintiff, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Class Action Reform: Lessons From Securities Litigation, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Constructing The Insurance Relationship: Sales Stories, Claims Stories, And Insurance Contract Damages, Tom Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Agenda: Natural Resource Development In Indian Country, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Natural Resource Development in Indian Country (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Conference organizers and/or faculty included University of Colorado School of Law professors David H. Getches, Charles F. Wilkinson, Lawrence J. MacDonnell and Richard B. Collins.

Indian reservations constitute about 2.5% of all land in the country and 5% of all land in the American West. During the last two decades, Indian natural resources issues have moved to the forefront as tribal governments have dramatically expanded their regulatory programs, judicial systems. and resource development activities. This major symposium will address current developments and assess likely future directions in the areas of tribal, federal, and state regulation; tribal-state intergovernmental agreements; financing; mineral …