Agency Commons^™

The Evolution Of Entrepreneurial Finance: A New Typology, J. Brad Bernthal

Publications

There has been an explosion in new types of startup finance instruments. Whereas twenty years ago preferred stock dominated the field, startup companies and investors now use at least eight different instruments—six of which have only become widely used in the last decade. Legal scholars have yet to reflect upon the proliferation of instrument types in the aggregate. Notably missing is a way to organize instruments into a common framework that highlights their similarities and differences.

This Article makes four contributions. First, it catalogues the variety of startup investment forms. I describe novel instruments, such as revenue-based financing, which remain …

Mays V. City Of Flint, Michigan, Nathan A. Burke

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Mays v. City of Flint Michigan, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees removed a class action against them in the Michigan state court to federal court under the federal-officer removal statute. This court ruled in favor of the residents of Flint, determining that the federal officer removal statute did not give the federal court jurisdiction over a state agency simply because the agency must follow federal rules. The court held that Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees could not have been “acting under” the federal government even though the state agency’s enforcement authority could be trumped by the …

Budzko V. One City Center Associates Limited Partnership: Maine's Unique Approach To Business Owners' Duty To Remove Ice And Snow, Jennifer A.W. Williams

Maine Law Review

In February 2001, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, decided for the first time in Budzko v. One City Center Associates Limited Partnership, what duty of care a business landowner owes to business invitees regarding the accumulation of ice and snow during a storm. Terry Budzko slipped and fell as she was exiting One City Center, the building in which her employer leased office space. The steps had not been shoveled or sanded and a snowstorm had been progressing throughout the day. The Law Court, placing heavy reliance on the factor of foreseeability, held that “[b]usiness …

Church Liability For Clergy Sexual Abuse: Have Time And Events Overthrown Swanson V. Roman Catholic Bishop Of Portland?, Sonia J. Buck

Maine Law Review

In Swanson v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, Albert and Ruth Swanson sued their former pastor, Father Maurice Morin, after the couple's marriage counseling sessions with Father Morin led to a sexual relationship between Father Morin and Mrs. Swanson. The Swansons brought claims against Father Morin for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent pastoral counseling. They also sued the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, a corporation, and Bishop Joseph Gerry in his personal capacity (collectively referred to as the “Church”) for negligence in selecting, training, and supervising Father Morin. The Maine Superior Court dismissed the claims against …

The Crime Of Conviction Of John Choon Yoo: The Actual Criminality In The Olc During The Bush Administration, Joseph Lavitt

Maine Law Review

At the outset of the administration of President Barack Obama, there is intense debate about whether to prosecute members of the former administration of President George W. Bush. This Article first considers whether officers who were in command and control of the Executive Branch of the government of the United States during the Bush administration can be excused from criminal responsibility on charges of illegal torture, based on their claim to have acted in good faith reliance upon the advice of attorneys employed by the Department of Justice. Focus then turns to the accountability, if any, of those attorneys in …

Algorithmic Contracts, Lauren Henry Scholz

Scholarly Publications

Algorithmic contracts are contracts in which an algorithm determines a party’s obligations. Some contracts are algorithmic because the parties used algorithms as negotiators before contract formation, choosing which terms to offer or accept. Other contracts are algorithmic because the parties agree that an algorithm to be run at some time after the contract formation will serve as a gap-filler. Such agreements are already common in high speed trading of financial products and will soon spread to other contexts. However, contract law doctrine does not currently have a coherent approach to describing the creation and enforcement of algorithmic contracts. This Article …

Center For Biological Diversity V. Jewell, Lowell J. Chandler

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The ESA protects threatened or endangered species, and species likely to become threatened or endangered within the foreseeable future, throughout all or a significant portion of their range. In Center for Biological Diversity v. Jewell, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona overturned a Fish and Wildlife Service policy defining the significant portion of range language in the ESA. The policy interpretation limited ESA protections to apply only when a species faced risk of extinction throughout its entire range. The court deemed this policy impermissible because it effectively rendered the significant portion of range language meaningless. …

Lewis V. Clarke, Summer L. Carmack

Public Land & Resources Law Review

One manner in which Indian tribes exercise their inherent sovereignty is by asserting sovereign immunity. In Lewis v. Clarke, the Court decided that the sovereign immunity extended to instrumentalities of tribes did not further extend to tribal employees acting within the scope of their employment. The Court acknowledged the concerns of the lower court, namely, the possibility of setting a precedent allowing future plaintiffs to sidestep a tribe’s sovereign immunity by suing a tribal employee in his individual capacity. However, the Supreme Court ultimately felt that the immunity of tribal employees should not exceed the immunity extended to state …

A Cross-Sectional Exploration Of Household Financial Reactions And Homebuyer Awareness Of Registered Sex Offenders In A Rural, Suburban, And Urban County., John Charles Navarro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As stigmatized persons, registered sex offenders betoken instability in communities. Depressed home sale values are associated with the presence of registered sex offenders even though the public is largely unaware of the presence of registered sex offenders. Using a spatial multilevel approach, the current study examines the role registered sex offenders influence sale values of homes sold in 2015 for three U.S. counties (rural, suburban, and urban) located in Illinois and Kentucky within the social disorganization framework. Homebuyers were surveyed to examine whether awareness of local registered sex offenders and the homebuyer’s community type operate as moderators between home selling …

Agency And Partnership Law [2016], Pearlie M. C. Koh, Stephen Noel Henry Bull

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

Security Clearance Conundrum: The Need For Reform And Judicial Review, Heidi Gilchrist

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Involuntarily Committed Patients As Prisoners, Matt Lamkin, Carl Elliott

University of Richmond Law Review

Part I relates several stories of involuntarily committed patients who were recruited into studies posing serious risks. Part II draws on these cases to argue that the involuntary commitment of these patients leaves them vulnerable to unethical treatment by researchers. Their inherently coercive circumstances present an overwhelming obstacle to voluntary consent, and their captive status makes them attractive targets for research that could be performed using less vulnerable subjects.

Part III argues that most research on this patient population is improper under generally applicable principles of informed consent and fair subject selection. However, existing protections have proved insufficient to prevent …

Paying Too Dearly For A Whistle: Properly Protecting Internal Whistleblowers, Leonardo Labriola

Fordham Law Review

In light of substantial disagreement among the circuits on which types of whistleblowers Dodd-Frank intends to protect, and newly proposed legislation which suggests a solution, this Note inspects Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower protections in an effort to better explain which types of Business Organizations whistleblowers should and should not be protected. This Note briefly outlines the United States’s repeated history of increased regulation following financial crises, culminating in the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts. It then describes the goals that motivated these acts and how whistleblowers play an outsized role in accomplishing those goals. It also examines the critical statute for Business Organizations …

Next Generation Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Law: Renewing 702, William C. Banks

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Executive Estoppel, Equitable Enforcement, And Exploited Immigrant Workers, Angela D. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

Unauthorized workers in abusive workplaces have found themselves in a tug-of-war between federal agencies. On one side are federal prosecutors with the Department of Justice or Immigration and Customs Enforcement--who seek to criminally prosecute or deport the workers and treat the workers as defendants. On the other side are agencies like the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Labor, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services who have determined the workers are victims of workplace exploitation and deserve protection. This mixed message—protection from one federal agency and prosecution by another—is contrary to Congressional intent and undermines the enforcement of …

Agency In State Agencies, Anya Bernstein

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 5 in Distributed Agency, N. J. Enfield & Paul Kockelman, eds.

The democratic state is an administrative state: the actual work of representative governance is done primarily in administrative agencies, which interpret and implement the often vague ambitions inscribed in statutes. When we talk about agency in the state, then, we must primarily be talking about agency in agencies. That may seem odd. Bureaucracy seems like the absence of agency: just mechanistic gear-grinding continuing things begun by other, distant, powerful actors. Where can agency find a foothold amid the faceless people, the featureless buildings, the infinite red …

Mind The Gap: Proposing A Tool For Identifying Gaps In Institutional Arbitration Rules, Wheaton Webb

Florida A & M University Law Review

A recognized benefit of arbitration is the power of the disputants to select, usually in advance, the procedural rules that will govern their dispute resolution. The right to determine procedural rules may be particularly important in transnational agreements where contracting parties are from States with different legal cultures. Of course, Parties capitalizing on this advantage do not draft new procedural rules for every transaction. Instead, the parties incorporate procedural rules created by arbitral institutions into their agreements. This creates clear incentives for institutions to develop thorough yet flexible procedural rules. Despite this incentive, the rules themselves may be deficient in …

Contractors’ State License Board, Mayra Castro, J. D. Fellmeth

California Regulatory Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Corporate Officers As Agents, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

Although officers are crucial to corporate operations, scholarly and theoretical accounts tend to slight officers and amalgamate them with directors into a single category, "managers." This essay anchors officers within the common law of agency-as does black-letter law-which crisply differentiates officers from directors. Understanding that agency is central of the legal account of officers' positions and responsibilities is crucial to seeing why, like directors, officers are fiduciaries, but distinctively so, not as instances of generic "corporate fiduciaries." Officers, like directors, owe duties of loyalty, but also particularized duties of care, competence, and diligence. Additionally, officers' duties of performance encompass two …

V.23-1, 2017 Masthead

California Regulatory Law Reporter

No abstract provided.