Alabama Law Scholarly Commons - The University of Alabama
Not a member yet
1539 research outputs found
Sort by
Zoom Wills
Get PDFThis brief essay suggests that suddenly popular online meeting platforms like Zoom can be used to execute wills while people are subject to shelterin-place orders following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although will execution ceremonies using Zoom do not strictly comply with statutory formalities, Zoom-based ceremonies satisfy the two primary curative doctrines-the substantial compliance doctrine and the UPC\u27s harmless error rule-for admission to probate. Informed by statutes that recognize e-wills, the essay concludes that a Zoom-based execution ceremony produces a Zoom will without stretching statutory formalities beyond recognition during a period of extreme isolation
Jail Suicide by Design
Get PDFJeffrey Epstein’s death in the federal jail in downtown Manhattan was the result of a conspiracy. But the conspirators were not the Clintons, President Trump, or Prince Andrew. Instead, his death, like too many others, was the result of a longtime conspiracy of lawmakers and actors within the criminal legal system itself. Several features of our legal system seem almost designed to promote suicide in jail. This Article examines and proposes solutions to two of those features: (1) jail conditions are inhumane in part because inmates face often insurmountable obstacles to hold jailers accountable; and (2) high rates of pretrial detention put far too many people at risk
Payday
Get PDFLegislation lags behind technology all too often. While trillions of dollars are exchanged in online transactions-safely, cheaply, and instantaneously-workers still must wait two weeks to a month to receive payments from their employers. In the modern economy, workers are effectively lending money to their employers, as they wait for earned wages to be paid. The same worker who taps a credit card to pay for groceries in semiautomated checkout lines depends on dated payroll systems that only transfer payments on a payday. Workers, especially those living paycheck-to-paycheck, are hard-pressed to meet their daily needs and turn to expensive, short-term credit products-notably, payday lenders. While the need for credit is a real one, credit providers charge a steep price, often culminating in endless debt spirals. So, why does the payday still exist?
This Article studies various explanations-economic, historical, behavioral, and legal. A primary conclusion is that the payday owes its existence to legacy legal architecture. That is, payday is a software problem, not a hardware problem. The hardware-i.e., money and payroll technology-is here. We can pay workers daily; in fact, gig economy workers in developing countries will often be paid more quickly than an American employee for the same work. What holds us back is our legal software: dated Eisenhower-era legislation that failed to anticipate technological change. Surprisingly, even pro-worker legislation, such as minimum wage laws, inadvertently encourages the practice. By revealing the overlooked and dated legal infrastructure that sustains the payday, this Article suggests a path for legal reform. Daily streams of payment to workers are feasible, practical, and far more efficient than most people realize. A focused reform could effectively bring an end to the puzzling and pernicious practice of having workers lend money to their employers while they wait for their payday
Of Death and Delusion: What Survives Kahler v. Kansas
Get PDFMental illness is not a crime. That fundamental proposition is threatened by the Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in Kahler v. Kansas, which allows states to abolish the insanity defense. This Essay presents three examples of absurd and discriminatory results that could follow. But the conclusion is a positive one: constitutional constraints not considered in Kahler-the Equal Protection Clause and the Eighth Amendment-should prevent the worst results from materializing
Theory of the Nudnik: The Future of Consumer Activism and What We Can Do to Stop It
Get PDFHow do consumers hold sellers accountable and enforce market norms This Article contributes to our understanding of consumer markets in three ways First The Article identifies the role of a small subset of consumers ” the titular ˜nudniks\u27 ” as engines of market discipline Nudniks are those who call to complain speak with managers post online reviews and file lawsuits Typified by an idiosyncratic utility function and personality traits nudniks pursue action where most consumers remain passive Although derided in courtrooms and the court of public opinion we show that nudniks can solve consumer collective action problems thereby leading to broad market improvementsbrbrSecond the Article spotlights a disconcerting development Sellers\u27 growing usage of Big Data and predictive analytics allows them to identify specific consumers as potential nudniks and avoid selling to or disarm them before they can draw attention to sellers\u27 misconduct The Article therefore captures an understudied problem with Big Data tools sellers can use these tools to shield themselves from market accountability brbrFinally the Article evaluates a menu of legal strategies that would preserve the benefits of nudnikbased activism in light of these technological developments In the process we revisit the conventional wisdom on the desirability of form contracts mandatory arbitration clauses defamation law and standing doctrine
Insuring Apologies
Get PDFBased on evidence demonstrating that an apology from a wrongdoer to a victim can assuage the victim\u27s anger, reduce the likelihood that the victim seeks legal redress, and facilitate settlement, state legislatures have passed apology laws to encourage the delivery of more apologies. Aimed primarily at medical malpractice litigation-a traditional locus of the tort reform effort-apology laws render apologies from physicians to patients inadmissible in subsequent legal proceedings. In theory, privileging apologies will encourage their use and reduce malpractice liability risk as patients assert fewer claims and settle those claims that are asserted. However, if apology laws encourage the delivery of insincere or disingenuous apologies, liability risk may increase, as such apologies exacerbate, rather than assuage, patient anger. Similarly, if apology laws encourage physicians to offer apologies that signal the occurrence of malpractice that otherwise would have gone undiscovered, physician liability risk may increase. Thus, apology laws may increase or decrease medical malpractice liability risk, and the nature of their ultimate effect has sparked an intense debate among scholars, policymakers, and physicians. This Article shows that apology laws have the counterintuitive effect of increasing liability risk. To evaluate whether apology laws work as intended, I examine a novel dataset of medical malpractice insurance premiums charged to physicians over nineteen years. This dataset provides a better measure of liability risk than publicly available-but incomplete-) data on malpractice claims used in prior work. Across three separate specialties (general surgery, internal medicine, and obstetrics/gynecology), my analysis demonstrates that apology laws increase the premiums charged to physicians by between 10 and 16 percent. These increases translate into substantial additional costs for individual physicians, with surgeons, internists, and obstetricians paying 1,700, and $7,200 more in annual premiums, respectively. Based on strong and consistent evidence that apology laws increase, not decrease, malpractice liability risk, I argue that these laws fail to achieve their stated goal. Also on the basis of this evidence, I propose several alternative legal strategies for legislatures to accomplish their goals
Responses to Liability Immunization: Evidence from Medical Devices
No full textThe Supreme Court\u27s decision in Riegel v. Medtronic immunized medical device manufacturers from certain types of state product liability claims. However, this immunization applies only when the devices underlying those claims have been approved through the Food and Drug Administration\u27s most rigorous—and costly—review process, premarket approval (PMA). Exploiting this decision, we examine whether manufacturers strategically respond to this new immunity. We find evidence that, following Riegel, approvals for high-risk product categories increase relative to the comparable change for low-risk categories, suggesting that firms are sensitive to the newly immunized risk. We additionally find evidence that physician treatment patterns with respect to medical devices also change, consistent with Riegel shifting liability away from device manufacturers and toward physicians. The analysis provides evidence that sophisticated actors respond to changes in their expected legal liability and that technical legal decisions have important ramifications for the provision of healthcare
