Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Reconciling The Public Policy Exception To Enforcing Contracts With Title Vii's Public Policy On Disciplining Harassers, Stephen Plass

St. Thomas Law Review

This article looks at the evolution of the public policy doctrine and its effects on Title VII when unionized employees are dismissed for harassment. Some writers have questioned whether the Court eliminated the public policy exception by defining it so narrowly. But, the focus of commentary has been on the effects of the Eastern decision in the traditional collective bargaining context where the need to limit judicial involvement is great. However, the public policy doctrine's impact is no longer limited to traditional contract issues that are unregulated. As a result, the doctrine's impact on the operation and goals of Title …

“An Ingenious Man Enabled By Contract”: Entrepreneurship And The Rise Of Contract, Catherine Fisk

Faculty Scholarship

A legal ideology emerged in the 1870s that celebrated contract as the body of law with the particular purpose of facilitating the formation of productive exchanges that would enrich the parties to the contract and, therefore, society as a whole. Across the spectrum of intellectual property, courts used the legal fiction of implied contract, and a version of it particularly emphasizing liberty of contract, to shift control of workplace knowledge from skilled employees to firms while suggesting that the emergence of hierarchical control and loss of entrepreneurial opportunity for creative workers was consistent with the free labor ideology that dominated …

The Other Side Of The Picket Line: Contract, Democracy, And Power In A Law School Classroom, Michael Fischl

Faculty Articles and Papers

his essay - from a forthcoming symposium on teaching from the left in the NYU Review of Law & Social Change - offers an account of the successful union organizing campaign among custodial and landscaping workers at the University of Miami during the 2005-06 academic year, focusing in particular on the role played by faculty during the course of the campaign. It examines a fractious debate generated by faculty who held classes off campus in order to support the striking workers and the author's own decision to put the question of whether to honor the picket line to a vote …

Two Goals For Executive Compensation Reform, Brett H. Mcdonnell

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering The Public Interest: An Analysis Of The Common Law Governing Post-Employment Non-Compete Contracts For Media Employees, Cathy Packer, Johanna Cleary

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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 New Judicial Hostility To Arbitration: Unconscionability And Agreements To Arbitrate, Steven J. Burton

ExpressO

Many, many contract disputes are now being settled by arbitration instead of litigation. The United States Supreme Court strongly favors the enforcement of agreements to arbitrate that fall within the Federal Arbitration Act. This Article shows that many lower courts, however, are using the contract unconscionability doctrine to refuse enforcement of agreements to arbitrate. It argues (1) that many such lower court decisions should be pre-empted by the Federal Arbitration Act, and (2) that lower courts should give due weight to the federal policy favoring arbitration when deciding whether to enforce an agreement to arbitrate.

Final Offer Arbitration In The New Era Of Major League Baseball, Spencer B. Gordon

ExpressO

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic, athletic, and social impact of final offer salary arbitration in Major League Baseball (“MLB”). The article delves into the motivations, fluctuations, and evolution of the player-owner relationship and free agency. The commentary then focuses on the distinguishing features and intricacies of final offer arbitration. Although salary arbitration in the context of Major League Baseball is a topic oft discussed in the law review setting, the analysis rarely reaches the level exhibited in this article. Moreover, most articles on the subject were written between 1996 and 2000 when the 1994 players’ strike …

The Reckless Pursuit Of Dominion: A Situational Analysis Of The Nba And Diminishing Player Autonomy, Michael Mccann

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines required genetic testing of NBA players from a situational vantage point, integrating socio-psychological, legal, and ethical analyses. The core argument may be expressed as follows: required genetic testing of NBA players appears consistent with a broader and largely deleterious agenda by the NBA to control players. Since implementation of the rookie wage scale in 1995 through the recent imposition of a paternalistic player dress code, the NBA has increasingly usurped player autonomy. The NBA's capacity to do so largely rests in its adroit manipulation of the situational influences that influence fans and media. For instance, because of …

The Great Vanishing Benefit, Employer Provided Retiree Medical Benefits: The Problem And Possible Solutions, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 785 (2006), Larry Grudzien

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contractual Waivers Of A Right To Jury Trial - Another Opinion, Brian D. Weber

Cleveland State Law Review

It is well-settled that arbitration in the employment context is favored by the courts, and that there is a federal policy favoring arbitration agreements, in general. However, jury waivers outside of arbitration in the employment context are still a relatively novel idea in some jurisdictions, despite the fact that an arbitration agreement itself inherently prevents the employee from having a jury trial. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as the Ohio Supreme Court, have yet to determine if jury waivers in employment contracts are binding. This paper will assess contractual jury trial waivers in the employment context as …

An Empirical Analysis Of Ceo Employment Contracts: What Do Top Executives Bargain For?, Randall Thomas, Stewart J. Schwab

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this paper, we examine the key legal characteristics of 375 employment contracts between some of the largest 1500 public corporations and their Chief Executive Officers. We look at the actual language of these contracts, asking whether and in what ways CEO contracts differ from what are thought of as standard employment contract features for other workers. Our data provide some empirical answers to several common assertions or speculations about CEO contracts, and shed light on whether these contracts are negotiated solely to suit the preferences of CEOs or have provisions that insure that the employers' interests are also safeguarded. …

Good Faith Performance In Employment Contracts: A "Comparative Conversation" Between The Us And England, Katherine M. Apps

ExpressO

This paper asks two questions connected by the fact that they both stem from the inherent incompleteness of employment contracts: in American law, how can the terms in employment handbooks be variable, but sometimes only within reasonable procedurally fair circumstances; and in English law, why doesn’t the implied term of mutual trust and confidence in employment contracts fall foul of the strict test for implication of terms into contract? This paper finds the answer to both questions in the doctrine of good faith. An analysis of good faith as a “comparative conversation” between academic and judicial debates in the US …

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

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Arbitration Of Employer Violations Of The West Virginia Human Rights Act: West Virginia Should Make Like Ants Marching And Continue Its Pursuit Of Bliss, Nicholas S. Johnson

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is U.S. Ceo Compensation Inefficient Pay Without Performance?, John E. Core, Wayne R. Guay, Randall S. Thompson

Michigan Law Review

In Pay Without Performance, Professors Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried develop and summarize the leading critiques of current executive compensation practices in the United States. This book, and their highly influential earlier article, Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation, with David Walker offer a negative, if mainstream, assessment of the state of U.S. executive compensation: U.S. executive compensation practices are failing in a widespread manner, and much systemic reform is needed. The purpose of our Review is to summarize the book and to offer some counterarguments to try to balance what is becoming …

The Doctrine Of Good Faith In Contract Law: A (Nearly) Empty Vessel?, Emily Houh

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Empty Vessel explores both the positive and normative questions of what the contractually implied obligation of good faith does and should require of contracting parties. The Article attempts to assess and evaluate the ways in which courts are currently employing the good faith doctrine in contract disputes, as part of a larger project whose goal is to re-conceive and reinvigorate the private law doctrine of good faith as one that might assist in effecting the public law norm of equality. Empty Vessel identifies two dominant theoretical approaches to how to define good faith, which I refer to as the fairness …

Erisa: State Regulation Of Insured Plans After Davila, 38 J. Marshall. L. Rev. 693 (2005), Donald T. Bogan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lack Of Meaningful Choice Defined: Your Job Vs. Your Right To Sue In A Judicial Forum, Sara Lingafelter

Seattle University Law Review

Mandatory arbitration agreements subvert an employee's constitutional right to a judicial forum and generally place unfair burdens on plaintiffs. An employee faced with the option of either signing a mandatory arbitration agreement or losing a job often has no meaningful choice. The Supreme Court, however, has failed to recognize first that Congress did not intend for mandatory arbitration to extend to Title VII claims and second, that employers often leave employees with no meaningful choice regarding mandatory arbitration. Nonetheless, state and federal judges are increasingly recognizing that arbitration agreements may be the product of procedural unconscionability. Accordingly, when employees are …

When Trade Secrets Become Shackles: Fairness And The Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

Critics of the inevitable disclosure doctrine decry the inconsistency with which courts rule on these cases, and the difficulty in predicting case outcomes. They contend that courts are left to "grapple with a decidedly ... nebulous standard of 'inevitability."' Further, they claim the doctrine undermines the employee's fundamental right to move freely and pursue his or her livelihood.

Ultimately, both the problem and solution here are about fairness: fairness in the employer-employee relationship, fairness in the application of the law, and fairness in providing protection from unfair competition between competing employers. The crux of the opposition to the doctrine, in …

Introduction, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

Have we come to bury Lochner, or to praise it? Lochner v. New York,' decided 100 years ago, gave its name to an era in which judges struck down popular statutes that regulated hours, wages, and conditions of work, on grounds that such labor regulations violated a constitutional liberty of contract. After 1937, Lochnerism and Lochnerizing were more or less uniformly condemned by judges and law professors alike. Recently, some scholars have tried to resurrect the Lochner approach, presumably as a way to render much of the twentieth-century regulatory state unconstitutional.

Mediation And The Transformation Of American Labor Unions, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

First, the Article analyzes in more detail the changes in the workplace that have led to various proposals for reform. Then the Article looks at the potential for mediation of claims that do not arise out of the collective bargaining agreement, analyzing the possible benefits from the point of view of employers, employees and unions. Next, some of the issues and obstacles to mediation are reviewed. Ultimately the Article concludes that the benefits of mediation outweigh the disadvantages and that in most collective bargaining relationships the obstacles should not prevent either negotiation of such provisions or their successful use for …

Erisa: Re-Thinking Firestone In Light Of Great-West - Implications For Standard Of Review And The Right To A Jury Trial In Welfare Benefit Claims, 37 J. Marshall L. Rev. 629 (2004), Donald T. Bogan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Arbitrability Of Side And Settlement Agreements In The Collective Bargaining Context, Richard A. Bales

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Critical Interventions: Toward An Expansive Equality Approach To The Doctrine Of Good Faith In Contract Law, Emily Houh

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article argues that courts should use the doctrine of good faith in contract law to prohibit improper considerations of race in contract formation and performance, and should recognize good faith as a device for eliminating racial subordination that can function beyond the scope of conventional civil rights discourse. Although civil rights laws provide important remedies to victims of discrimination, the elimination of racial subordination cannot remain the exclusive domain of civil rights law. Rather, other substantive areas of law can and should incorporate expansive equality principles to achieve that end. For example, this article demonstrates how the implied obligation …

Labor And Employment Law, Thomas M. Winn Iii

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nevada's Employee Inventions Statute: Novel, Nonobvious, And Patently Wrong, Mary Lafrance

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Trade Secrets, Property, And Social Relations, Steven Wilf

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Knowledge At Work: Disputes Over The Ownership Of Human Capital In The Changing Workplace, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.