Nonprofit Organizations Law Commons^™

Angling For A Fair Standard: A Recommendation For A Narrowly Tailored Non-Profit Exemption To The Closed Captioning Requirements, 25 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 165 (2007), Joshua Pila

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

In late 2006, the FCC’s Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau (“CGB”) issued the Anglers Order, providing a wholesale exemption for non-profit entities seeking to avoid the strictures of the Commission’s closed captioning rules. Disability advocates quickly criticized the Anglers Order on administrative law and communications law grounds. This paper avoids administrative law and communications law issues, but instead criticizes the Anglers Order on non-profit law and policy grounds. The paper then recommends and supports a post-application, narrowly-tailored financial test, automatically exempting A) non-profit organizations, with B) less than $25,000 in annual revenue, who C) receive no financial compensation for airing …

Development And Confirmatory Factor Analysis Of The Community Norms Of Child Neglect Scale, Rebecca Goodvin, David R. Johnson, Sam A. Hardy, Michelle Graef, Jeff M. Chambers

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

This article describes the development of the Community Norms of Child Neglect Scale (CNCNS), a new measure of perceptions of child neglect, for use in community samples. The CNCNS differentiates among four subtypes of neglect (failure to provide for basic needs, lack of supervision, emotional neglect, and educational neglect). Scenarios ranging in seriousness for each subtype were presented to a large community sample (N = 3,809). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a four-factor model provided a better fit to the data than did a model specifying only one overall neglect factor, suggesting this sample distinguished among the four subtypes of …

Does Nonprofit Ownership Matter?, Jill R. Horwitz

Articles

In recent years, policymakers have increasingly questioned whether nonprofit institutions, particularly hospitals, merit tax exemption. They argue that nonprofit hospitals differ little from their for-profit counterparts in the provision of charity care and, therefore, should either lose their tax-exempt status or adhere to new, strict, and specific requirements to provide free services for the poor. In this Article, I present evidence that hospital ownership-whether it is for-profit, nonprofit, or government owned-has a significant effect on the mix of medical services it offers. Despite notoriously weak enforcement mechanisms, nonprofit hospitals act in the public interest by providing services that are unlikely …

What's Good For The Goose Is Not Good For The Gander: Sarbanes-Oxley-Style Nonprofit Reforms, Lumen N. Mulligan

Michigan Law Review

In this Article, I contend that the Sarbanes-Oxley-inspired nonprofit reforms currently being put forward in seven states, particularly the costly disclosure requirements, will be of little value in the effort to improve ethical nonprofit board governance. After providing a primer on the oversight of nonprofit organizations and highlighting the unique difficulties facing the nonprofit sector the Article reviews the recent Sarbanes-Oxley-like nonprofit reforms introduced in seven states. It then contends that the disclosure- focused reforms that form the bulwark of these initiatives will not foster improved ethical nonprofit board governance. It also argues that this failure stems from the inappropriate …

Law School, Law Students, Civic Engagement, And Community-Based Research As Resources For Improving Access To Justice In Utah, James H. Backman

Utah Law Review

Law School students and faculty alike enjoy the opportunity to contribute to new developments for the improvement of access to justice. Too often, our traditional research is published in a law journal and is often unknown to policymakers and community organizations that make an impact on our society and the way our legal system functions. Community-based research conducted by a student with the courts, the bar, legal service providers, and volunteer providers of services is presented in a context in which it can be used by these organizations dedicated to improvement of access to justice.

The Role Of Nonprofits In The Production Of Boilerplate, Kevin E. Davis

Michigan Law Review

Drafting contracts-by which I really mean the documents that embody contracts-requires investments of time, experience, and ingenuity. Those investments may yield significant returns because the quality of contractual terms can be an important determinant of the gains that parties realize from trade. This in tum suggests that, from an economic perspective, it is important to understand how contracts are produced. It seems particularly important to examine the production of contracts or individual contractual terms that are widely used-that is to say, "boilerplate." In a market oriented society, boilerplate is the predominant feature of the network of legal obligations that provides …

Creating A System For Citizen Participation: How The Nonprofit Sector Can Provide Citizens A Voice In Tokyo's Urban Development System, Nicolas J. Vikstrom

Washington International Law Journal

Recent changes in Japan’s civil society together with the current political and economic environment have created the first opportunity to develop a viable nonprofit sector that represents citizen interests and allows for public participation in Tokyo’s urban development scheme. Tokyo’s urban environment has failed to meet the social and cultural needs of its citizens due to unprecedented economic and industrial growth from the beginning of the Meiji era until the 1990s. Through this extended period of growth, the goal for urban development was solely to increase Tokyo’s economic strength, while social needs were not addressed. While the City Planning Law …

Ignore The Rumors—Campaigning From The Pulpit Is Okay: Thinking Past The Symbolism Of Section 501(C)(3), Michael Hatfield

Articles

This Article is enough to ruin many Thanksgiving family dinners. It is about American religion, politics, and taxes. Mostly it is about taxes. As I will explain, this is what sets it apart from the contemporary legal scholarship exploring the campaign restrictions on tax exempt churches. This Introduction identifies the problem addressed in the article, then introduces the contemporary legal scholarship and the alternative approach this article takes.

Part I of this Article introduces the reader to the legal context of "the problem" of churches being unable to campaign if they choose to be Tax Exempt under Section 501 (c) …

Do Different Types Of Hospitals Act Differently?, Jill R. Horwitz

Other Publications

This essay is based on testimony delivered before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means on May 26, 2005.

Dismissing The Class: A Practical Approach To The Class Action Restriction On The Legal Services Corporation, Joshua D. Blank, Eric A. Zacks

Law Faculty Research Publications

The class action lawsuit has emerged as an effective legal device for addressing common harms. Claimants who might not litigate their claims individually are empowered by the opportunity to speak with one voice. The class action device, however, has been made largely unavailable to legal services lawyers representing the poor. Congressional restrictions enacted in 1996 prohibit legal services organizations that receive federal funding from the Legal Services Corporation from using that funding to initiate or participate in any class action lawsuit. This article examines the social, legal and professional impact of the class action restriction on the Legal Services Corporation …

The Common Law Power Of The Legislature: Insurer Conversions And Charitable Funds, Jill R. Horwitz, Marion R. Fremont-Smith

Articles

New York's Empire Blue Ccoss and Blue Shield conversion from nonprofic cofor­ profic form has considerable legal significance. Three aspects of the conversion ma.ke checase unique: the role of the scace legislature in directing the disposicion of the conversion assets, che face chac it made itself che primary beneficiary of chose assets, and the actions of che scace attorney general defending the state rather than che public inceresc in che charitable assets. Drawing on several cenruries of common Law rejecting the Legislacive power to direct the disposition of charitable funds, chis article argues chat the legislature lacked power cocontrol che …

Tax Exemption Of American Churches And Other Nonprofits: One Election Cycle After Branch Ministries V. Rossotti, Jerome Park Prather

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Looking For A Nexus Between Trust, Compassion, And Regulation: Colorado's Search For Standards Of Care For Private, Non-Profit Wildlife Sanctuaries, Katherine A. Burke

Animal Law Review

In 2004, the Colorado legislature amended its wildlife statutes, formally recognizing the existence of private, nonprofit wildlife sanctuaries under the jurisdiction of the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW). Opponents to the 2004 amendments and CDOW staff have repeatedly expressed concerns that private sanctuaries should not be authorized in the absence of regulations and enforcement mechanisms sufficient to protect the animals and the people who come into contact with them. In implementing the sanctuary statute, CDOW has followed a familiar pattern, relying on the accreditation program of the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums (AZA) to provide the basis of …

Federal Faith-Based Funding Aims To Level The Charitable Playing Field, Katherine Licup

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

University Technology Transfer And Economic Development: Proposed Cooperative Economic Development Agreements Under The Bayh-Dole Act, 36 J. Marshall L. Rev. 397 (2003), Clovia Hamilton

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gifts, Gafts And Gefts: The Income Tax Definition And Treatment Of Private And Charitable 'Gifts' And A Principled Policy Justification For The Exclusion Of Gifts From Income, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Articles

Gifts have been given special treatment by the income tax laws since the first post-16th Amendment tax statute was adopted in 1913. The determination of how the income tax law should treat gifts raises a number of issues. For example: should gifts be given special treatment? If so, what should qualify as a gift? Should gifts to a private party be taxable to the donee? Should gifts to a private party be deductible by the donor? Should the donee's basis in a gift of property be determined by reference to the basis that the donor had, and should any modifications …

Why We Need The Independent Sector: The Behavior, Law, And Ethics Of Not-For-Profit Hospitals, Jill R. Horwitz

Articles

Among the major forms of corporate ownership, the not-for-profit ownership form is distinct in its behavior, legal constraints, and moral obligations. A new empirical analysis of the American hospital industry, using eleven years of data for all urban general hospitals in the country, shows that corporate form accounts for large differences in the provision of specific medical services. Not-for-profit hospitals systematically provide both private and public goods that are in the public interest, and that other forms fail to provide. Two hypotheses are proposed to account for the findings, one legal and one moral. While no causal claims are made, …

Targeting Exemption For Charitable Efficiency: Designing A Nondiversion Constraint, Frances R. Hill

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Nonprofit Sector And The New State Activism, Mark Sidel

Michigan Law Review

The burgeoning field of nonprofit and philanthropic law has a new and superb history in Norman Silber's pathbreaking A Corporate Form of Freedom: The Emergence of the Nonprofit Sector. In confronting "the history of efforts to control the creation and permissible purposes for nonprofit corporations by states, and ... the relocation of these efforts to the Internal Revenue Service" (p. 5), Professor Silber effectively deliniates the rich history of our ambiguous, often conflicted attempts to regulate the American nonprofit sector, and points clearly to the ways in which history influences the current complexities of state regulation. From a discredited …

The Children Left Behind: How Zero Tolerance Impacts Our Most Vulnerable Youth, Ruth Zweifler, Julia De Beers

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The Michigan Journal of Race & Law Symposium, February 8th and 9th, 2002, at the University of Michigan examined the issue: Separate but Unequal: The Status of America's Public Schools. In the past, children of color were expressly denied an equal education on the basis of their race. Today's policies deny many children of color access to educational programs and supports, for reasons that are neutral on their face, with devastating consequences to the students, their families and their communities. The following article explores the concerns and experiences of a public service agency with the growing application of "Zero Tolerance" …

Legal Services Provision Through Multidisciplinary Practice- Encouraging Holistic Advocacy While Protecting Ethical Interests, Stacy L. Brustin

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Financing Public Health Through Nonprofit Conversion Foundations, Christopher W. Frost

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Pragmatism In American Foreign Policy: Unsolicited Advice To The Bush Administration On Relations With International Nongovernmental Organizations, Kenneth Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The Bush Administration has tended to see international nongovernmental organizations in a pragmatic way, as functionally the international equivalent of domestic "volunteer" organizations. This article argues that the Bush Administration ought to see international nongovernmental organizations as organizations seeking to substitute so-called "international civil society," on the one hand, and public international organizations, on the other, for the authority of democratically sovereign states. Looking beyond the particular issues on which international NGOs press political agendas - human rights, environmentalism, etc. - the function of international NGOs is to delegitimize democratic sovereignty in favor of liberal internationalism. The article argues that …

Nonprofit Organizations In Brownfields Redevelopment: Leveling The Playing BrownField, Ellen B. Sturm

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Use Of The Nonprofit "Defense" Under Section 7 Of The Clayton Act, Amanda J. Vaughn

Vanderbilt Law Review

Since the early 1980s, for-profit and nonprofit hospitals have undergone an unprecedented number of mergers,' reflecting the dramatic changes in the health care industry. The Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") and Department of Justice ("DOJ") have challenged mergers of both types of hospitals. Recently, however, a handful of nonprofit hospitals have offered nonprofit status as a "defense" to federal challenges to nonprofit hospital mergers. Although not a complete defense-nonprofit status alone does not remove the entity from antitrust scrutiny-a limited "defense" has evolved as nonprofit hospitals claim that a nonprofit merger is less likely to have anti- competitive effects than an …

Unsettled Standing: Who (Else) Should Enforce The Duties Of Charitable Fiduciaries?, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Challenge To Financial Regulators Posed By Social Security Privatization, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court, 1996 Term: Leading Cases, Dana Brakman Reiser

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Corporate Philanthropy And Campaign Finance: Exempt Organizations As Corporate-Candidate Conduits, Frances R. Hill

Articles

No abstract provided.

Nonprofit Housing Providers: Can They Survive The Devolution Revolution?, John J. Ammann, Peter W. Salsich, Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the potential of nonprofit housing providers to participate effectively in housing programs linked to the welfare reform self-sufficiency movement. It reviews proposals for housing reforms which address expanded roles for nonprofit housing providers. With actual experiences of nonprofits as a framework, it explains their organizational patterns. Further, the article explores the supportive services and incentive programs commonly included in self-sufficiency programs employed by nonprofits and suggests modifications to such programs to improve upward mobility for participants. The authors acknowledge that self-sufficiency plans are not for everyone, and suggests alternative schemes for serving those segments of the population …