Conflict of Laws Commons^™

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

The Secret Is Out: Patent Law Preempts Mass Market License Terms Barring Reverse Engineering For Interoperability Purposes, Daniel Laster

ExpressO

As patent protection has emerged to protect software, courts and commentators have mistakenly focused on copyright law and overlooked the centrality of patent preemption to limit contract law where a mass market license which prohibits reverse engineering (RE) for purposes of developing interoperable products leads to patent-like protection. Review of copyright fair use cases on RE and Congress’s policy favoring RE for interoperability purposes in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act reinforce the case for patent preemption. Also, the fundamental freedom to RE embodied in state trade secret law, coupled with federal patent and copyright law and policies, cumulatively should override …

“The (Cisg) Road Less Travelled”: Case Comment On Grecon Dimter Inc. V. J.R. Normand Inc., Antonin I. Pribetic

ExpressO

At first glance, the Supreme Court of Canada's recent decision in GreCon Dimter Inc. v. J.R. Normand Inc. appears to be a case upholding the primacy of international commercial arbitration, choice of forum and choice of law clauses. Upon closer scrutiny, however, the Supreme Court of Canada failed to consider the application of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) to the overall dispute. Interestingly, the same choice of forum and choice of law clauses were considered by the United States Court of Appeals a year earlier in GreCon Dimter, Incorporated v. Horner Flooring Company, …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Finding The Contract In Contracts For Law, Forum, And Arbitration, William John Woodward

ExpressO

Contract provisions specifying the law or forum (either judicial or arbitration) have begun appearing in litigated cases, as businesses have pressed many courts for their enforcement against consumers. In at least some of the cases, enforcement of a choice of law provision results in the displacement of the consumer’s home state protection by the lesser consumer protection of the State of the form drafter’s choosing. This phenomenon raises serious problems of federalism and local control of consumer protection. But while considerable scholarly attention has been lavished on so-called “mandatory arbitration” in this context, much less has attempted to improve our …

Corporations And Autonomy Theories Of Contract: A Critique Of The New Lex Mercatoria, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

One of the central problems of contracts jurisprudence is the conflict between autonomy theories of contract and efficiency theories of contract. One approach to solving this conflict is to argue that in the realm of contracts between corporations, autonomy theories have nothing to say because corporations are not real people with whose autonomy we need to be concerned. While apparently powerful, this argument ultimately fails because it implicitly assumes theories of the corporation at odds with economic theories of law. Economics, in turn, offers a vision of the firm that is quite hospitable to autonomy theories of contract. The failure …

A State's Power To Enter Into A Consent Decree That Violates State Law Provisions: What "Findings" Of A Federal Violation Are Sufficient To Justify A Consent Decree That Trumps State Law?, David W. Swift

ExpressO

In the last forty years federal courts have played a prominent role in reshaping our public institutions. And while some scholars question the efficacy of these structural injuctions, the authority of federal courts to order such relief is generally unquestioned. What is open to debate, however, is whether state officials can agree to a remedy they would not have had the authority to order themselves; and if so, to what extent must an underlying constitutional violation be proved so as to justify the remedy?

This article discusses the competing theories and concludes that a remedy that violates state law may …

Good Faith In The Cisg: Interpretation Problems In Article 7, Benedict C. Sheehy

ExpressO

ABSTRACT: This article examines the dispute concerning the meaning of Good Faith in the CISG. Although there are good reasons for arguing a more limited interpretation or more limited application of Good Faith, there are also good reasons for a broader approach. Regardless of the correct interpretation, however, practitioners and academics need to have a sense of where the actual jurisprudence is going. This article reviews every published case on Article 7 since its inception and concludes that while there is little to suggest a strong pattern is developing, a guided pattern while incorrect doctrinally is preferable to the current …

Lessons For The Hague: Internet Jurisdiction In Contract And Tort Cases In The European Community And The United States, 23 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 1 (2004), Moritz Keller

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

With the increasing use of the Internet, all on-line users, web site owners, e-commerce companies and consumers alike, feel the need to be able to rely on clear standards for a potential contract or tort lawsuit following the Internet presence that could lead to multinational litigation. This goal could be achieved if the negotiations of the Hague Convention on international jurisdiction and enforcement of foreign judgments in civil and commercial matters succeed in harmonizing the rules of the different legal systems around the globe, or at least create a minimum standard for legal cases which would benefit greatly e-commerce and …

“All Aboard!” An Overview Of The Continuing Debate Regarding The Enforceability Of Dispute Resolution Provisions Of Filipino Seamen Employment Contracts, Richard V. Blystone

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Second Generation Of Law And Economics Of Conflict Of Laws: Baxter's Comparative Impairment And Beyond, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, William H. Allen

Scholarly Publications

In his 1963 article in the Stanford Law Review, “Choice of Law and the Federal System,” Professor William F. Baxter criticized the choice-of-law approach of the First Restatement of the Conflict of Laws. According to the Restatement, courts should apply the law of the state where the last act or event deemed necessary to create a cause of action occurred. In contrast, Baxter advocated a comparative-impairment approach, whereby judges were obligated to apply the law of the state whose public policy would suffer the greatest impairment if its law was not applied. The authors contend that although Baxter’s approach caries …

The Internationalization Of Contractual Conflicts Law, Patrick J. Borchers

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Professor Borchers maintains that United States conflict of laws rules regarding contracts have long had an international character. This Article reviews the development of contractual conflicts law and examines how, through Joseph Story's treatises, the United States law in this area assumed an international perspective.

These international influences have played and will increasingly play an important role in the development of U.S. contractual conflicts rules. This influence can be seen in both choice-of-forum and choice-of-law agreements. Both have been upheld by U.S. courts initially in international cases, which presented starker contrasts in choice of law or choice of forum. Once …

Will The Copyright Office Be Obsolete In The Twenty-First Century?, Pamela Samuelson

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The Copyright Office In The Age Of Information, Eric Schwartz

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Conflict Of Laws Resolution In Employment Contracts: The West Virginia Approach, Linda M. Gutsell

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Enforcement Provisions Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1866: A Legislative History In Light Of Runyon V. Mccrary, The Review Essay And Comments: Reconstructing Reconstruction, Robert J. Kaczorowski

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this Comment is to examine the history of the enactment and early enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 from the perspective of the remedies Congress sought to provide to meet the problems that necessitated the legislation. Its main foci are the statute's enforcement provisions and their early implementation, an aspect of the history of the statute that has not been fully considered in relation to section one, the provision that has received the most scholarly attention. The occasion of this study is the Supreme Court's reconsideration of Runyon v. McCrary' in Patterson v. McLean Credit …

Choice Of Law Stipulations By Litigants

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital V. Mercury Construction Corporation, Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

International Products Liability Litigation: Choosing The Applicable Law, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

Growth in transnational commerce and travel has substantially increased the cases in which injury-causing products have significant contacts with more than one state. A defective automobile is manufactured in Italy, by an Italian company, and exported to France; it is purchased by a French student who drives it to Oxford, where a defect in the steering causes an accident and injury. Or, an Englishman on a business trip to Italy buys a box of Swiss chocolate, eats the candy during a stopover in Paris, and falls ill on arrival back in London; as a result of the illness, he is …

Survey Of Developments In West Virginia Law: 1975-1976, Lloyd George Jackson Ii, John Burdick Koch, Alan Dale Moats, Thomas A. Vorbach

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Contracts Provisions Of The Restatement (Second): An Analysis And A Critique, Robert Allen Sedler

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Patents, Technical Data And International Defense Agreements, Harry M. Saragovitz, James A. Dobkin

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Government Contracts-Adoption Of Uniform Commercial Code As The Applicable Federal Law In An Action For Breach Of Government Contract-United States V. Wegematic Corp., Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Appellant contracted to supply the Federal Reserve Board with a "truly revolutionary" electronic digital computing system. After twice requesting postponement of the delivery date, appellant informed the Board that delivery under the terms of the contract would be impracticable because of unforeseen engineering difficulties that would require at least one year and one million dollars to overcome. Appellant asked for cancellation of the contract, but the Board refused and brought a suit for damages. Both parties conceded that federal law governed the action; appellant, however, argued that section 2-615 of the Uniform Commercial Code (Code) should be adopted as the …

Conflict Of Laws And Joint Bank Accounts - An Autopsy Of A Case, Joseph C. Kelly

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study, Second Edition. Volume Three. Special Obligations: Modification And Discharge Of Obligations, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Legal Studies Series

The third volume of Ernst Rabel's comparative treatise on the conflict of laws was originally published in 1950. With the continued support ofThe University of Michigan Law School and the cooperation of the Max-Planck-Institut für auslaändisches und internationals Privatrecht in Hamburg, this second edition of Volume III has been prepared. Plans for the revision of Volumes I and II were made before the death of the author on September 7, 1955, and the work was carried to completion by Dr. Ulrich Drobnig of the staff of the Institut in Hamburg. We were fortunate in obtaining the services of another well-qualified …

Conflict Of Laws-Law Applicable In Federal Courts-Federal Law Applied To Contractual Relations Of Admiralty Lawyer, Robert E. Thorne S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff attorney was retained by a Spanish seaman to prosecute personal injury claims under the Jones Act and the general maritime law. Defendant shipping company induced the seaman to fire his lawyer and to recover instead under his Spanish employment contract. Plaintiff sued the shipping company in tort for interference with contractual relations. In a federal diversity suit, held, for plaintiff. Federal common law should be applied to determine the validity of the contract and the claim of tortious interference with it. Greenberg v. Panama Transp. Co., 185 F. Supp. 320 (D. Mass. 1960).

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent Cases

Conflict of Laws--Implied Warranties Governed by Law of the State Most Closely Associated with the Contract

============================

Constitutional Law--Due Process--Absolute Statutory Prohibition of the Use of Contraceptives Not a Violation of Rights Secured by Fourteenth Amendment

=============================

Constitutional Law--Freedoms of Speech and Press--Ordinance Prohibiting Distribution of Handbills Without Identification of Author Violates Fourteenth Amendment

=============================

Contracts--Termination--Employment for Indefinite Duration not Terminable for Refusal of Employee to Commit Perjury

=============================

Evidence--Federal Courts--Evidence Obtained by State Officers Through Unreasonable Search and Seizure Inadmissible in Federal Courts

=============================

Judgments--Limitation of Overruling Decision to Parties Before the Court and to Causes of …

Conflict Of Laws - Release In A Tort Action - Effect Of Lex Loci Delicti And Contractus, Stanley A. Williams

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, defendant, and a third party were involved in a three-car collision in Virginia. Plaintiff settled an action against the third party's estate by executing a release, entered into in New York, in which plaintiff reserved any claims which he might have against the defendant. He then sued defendant, a resident of Pennsylvania, in a federal district court in Pennsylvania. The lower court, applying Virginia law to determine the effect of a release of one joint tortfeasor, dismissed plaintiff's action. On appeal, held, affirmed. The law of the place of the tort governs the effect of a release, not …

The Effects Of The Autonomy Of The Parties On The Validity Of Conflict-Of-Laws Sales Contracts, Louis C. James

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.