Contracts Commons^™

Freelance Isn’T Free: The High Cost Of New York City’S Freelance Isn’T Free Act On Hiring Parties, Caitlin M. Baranowski

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Recently, the New York City Council enacted the Freelance Isn’t Free Act (FIFA) to protect freelancers from non-payment. Among FIFA’s protections is the requirement that hiring parties provide a written contract to freelancers for any work exceeding $800 over a 120-day period. As the nation’s first legislation ensuring freelancers’ rights, FIFA marks a major turning point in the development of protections for the gig economy’s growing independent workforce. While its purpose is laudable and necessary, this Note argues that FIFA is currently too ambiguous. To resolve FIFA’s ambiguity, this Note recommends, at the very least, amending FIFA to include: 1) …

A Fork In The Road: Issues Surrounding The Legality Of Mandatory Class Action Waivers In Arbitration Agreements, Brielle Oshinsky

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Recently, federal circuit courts have presented contrasting outcomes regarding the legality of mandatory class action waivers in arbitration agreements. More specifically, these outcomes vary on whether such waivers violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and importantly, whether it is possible for these statutes to coexist with the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The Second, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits have previously held that the act of an employer requiring employees to sign class action waivers in arbitration agreements posed no violation to either the FLSA or the NLRA. However, in May 2016, the Seventh …

When Courts Run Amuck: A Book Review Of Unequal: How America's Courts Undermine Discrimination Law By Sandra F. Sperino And Suja A. Thomas (Oxford 2017), Theresa M. Beiner

Texas A&M Law Review

In Unequal: How America’s Courts Undermine Discrimination Law (“Unequal”), law professors Sandra F. Sperino and Suja A. Thomas provide a point-by-point analysis of how the federal courts’ interpretations of federal anti-discrimination laws have undermined their efficacy to provide relief to workers whose employers have allegedly engaged in discrimination. The cases’ results are consistently pro-employer, even while the Supreme Court of the United States—a court not known for being particularly pro-plaintiff—has occasionally ruled in favor of plaintiff employees. The authors suggest some reasons for this apparent anti-plaintiff bias among the federal courts, although they do not settle on a particular reason …

Take This Job And Shove It: The Pragmatic Philosophy Of Johnny Paycheck And A Prayer For Strict Liability In Appalachia, Eugene "Trey" Moore Iii

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

A (Thigh) Gap In The Law: Addressing Egregious Digital Manipulation Of Celebrity Images, Jessica L. Williams-Vickery

Georgia State University Law Review

In 2012, world-renowned supermodel Coco Rocha agreed to be photographed for the cover of one of Elle’s magazine publications, Elle Brazil. Rocha posed for the pictures in a dress with significant cutouts, covered only by a sheer layer of skin-toned fabric. In keeping with her firm policy of no full or partial nudity, Rocha wore a bodysuit underneath the dress to limit her exposure. When Elle published the magazine, the final product shocked Rocha; the magazine had altered the image to remove her bodysuit, giving the impression Rocha had shown more skin than she in fact had. Rocha took to …

Whose Sperm Is It Anyways In The Wild, Wild West Of The Fertility Industry?, Tatiana E. Posada

Georgia State University Law Review

Imagine a couple that is unable to conceive a child naturally. Luckily, they had the money and resources available to them to conceive a child through assisted reproductive technology (ART), so they decided to start their family through the use of intrauterine insemination. They selected a sperm bank and began the arduous process of selecting a sperm donor who fit the desired traits and characteristics for their child. The sperm bank matched them with an anonymous donor, Donor 9623, and assured the couple that the donor was “a healthy male with an IQ of 160, a bachelor’s of science in …

The Politics Of Access: Examining Concerted State/Private Enforcement Solutions To Class Action Bans, Myriam E. Gilles

Faculty Articles

Procedural and substantive constraints on the ability of ordinary people to access the civil justice system have become all too commonplace. The “justice gap” owes much to cuts in funding for legal aid and court administration, heightened pleading standards, ever-rising costs of discovery, increasingly restrictive views on standing to sue, and the co-opting of small claims court by businesses seeking to collect debts, among other obstacles in the path to the courthouse. But the most consequential impediment, surely, is the enforcement of mandatory arbitration clauses with class action bans, which bar consumers and employees from bringing or being represented in …

Not So Good: The Classification Of “Smart Goods” Under Ucc Article 2, Chadwick L. Williams

Georgia State University Law Review

Refrigerators can now tweet. Today, almost sixty years after the states widely adopted the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), the line between goods and services is more blurred than ever. When the UCC was drafted, a good was the simple opposite of a service. A good was something “movable” and tangible, and a service was not. Article 2 of the UCC, which governs sales, limits its scope to goods.

However, because Article 2 was drafted long before the proliferation of so-called “smart goods,” courts continuously struggle to determine when a smart good falls within Article 2’s scope. Courts have developed different …

Don’T Let The Bed Bugs Bill: Landlord Liability For Bed Bug Infestations In Georgia, Megan M. Harrison

Georgia State University Law Review

Although the historical relationship between bed bugs and humans dates back to ancient Egypt, the common bed bug, or Cimex lectularius, vanished from the beds of Americans around World War II. In the late 1990s, however, our bloodsucking bedfellows returned. Bed bug infestations are a growing public health issue. Bed bugs are now found in all fifty states, with populations in five states reaching epidemic levels. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) consider bed bugs a “pest of significant public health importance."

Despite their name, bed bugs are not limited to …