Alabama Law Scholarly Commons - The University of Alabama
Not a member yet
1539 research outputs found
Sort by
Beyond the Black Box, or, When Shrouded Clauses Are Pro-Consumer
Get PDFThis article compares two clauses in credit card contracts providing for alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Arbitration clauses use ADR to cut off consumer remedies, while reversal clauses use ADR to expand them. Holding constant the possibility of earning extra money by exploiting consumer biases, it is argued that the coexistence of these two clauses must be explained in terms of which aspects of a firm\u27s institutional structure leads it to instantiate this possibility. Viewing a firm as a forum to mediate the interests of the constituencies that either own or contract with it, one can ask how the aggregate interests of a firm\u27s constituencies (including consumers) affect its incentives to take advantage of consumer biases. Ownership can explain the low rate of arbitration clauses in credit union credit card contracts. Contracting patterns, specifically cross elasticity of merchants and consumers, can explain the consumer ftiendliness of reversal clauses. Implications for analyzing credit card contracts and consumer regulation more broadly are discussed
Applying the U.S. Constitution to Foreign Asylum Seekers: Exposing a Curious, Inconsistent Practice in the Federal Courts
Get PDFCommentary: Race Law Cases in the American Story: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
No full textCivil Rights in the American Story charts the ambiguous and contested meanings of civil rights in law and culture and confronts a variety of important questions about race in contemporary America. How important is civil rights in America\u27s story of possibility and change? How has it transformed the very meaning of citizenship and identity in American culture? Why does the subject of race continue to haunt the American imagination and continue to play such a large role in political and legal debates? Do affirmative action and multiculturalism promise a way out of racial polarization, or do they sharpen and deepen it? Are there new and better ways to frame our commitment to equal justice? This book brings together the work of five distinguished scholars to critically assess the place of civil rights in the American story. It offers different ways of talking about civil rights and different frames through which we can address issues of civil rights in the future.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_bookchapter/1029/thumbnail.jp
Of Mirrors and Media: The Blogger as Public Intellectual
No full textRights and Permissions DESCRIPTION AUTHORS PRAISE
What is a public intellectual? Where are they to be found? What accounts for the lament today that public intellectuals are either few in number or, worse, irrelevant? While there is a small literature on the role of public intellectuals, it is organized around various thinkers rather than focusing on different countries or the unique opportunities and challenges inherent in varied disciplines or professions. In Public Intellectuals in the Global Arena, Michael C. Desch has gathered a group of contributors to offer a timely and far-reaching reassessment of the role of public intellectuals in a variety of Western and non-Western settings. The contributors delineate the centrality of historical consciousness, philosophical self-understanding, and ethical imperatives for any intelligentsia who presume to speak the truth to power. The first section provides in-depth studies of the role of public intellectuals in a variety of countries or regions, including the United States, Latin America, China, and the Islamic world. The essays in the second section take up the question of why public intellectuals vary so widely across different disciplines. These chapters chronicle changes in the disciplines of philosophy and economics, changes that have combined to dethrone the former and elevate the latter as the preeminent homes of public intellectuals in the academy. Also included are chapters that consider the evolving roles of the natural scientist, the former diplomat, and the blogger as public intellectuals. The final section provides concluding perspectives about the duties of public intellectuals in the twenty-first century.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_bookchapter/1027/thumbnail.jp
Iran\u27s nuclear program and international law: from confrontation to accord
No full textThis book provides an international legal analysis of the most important questions regarding Iran\u27s nuclear program since 2002. Setting these legal questions in their historical and diplomatic context, this book aims to clarify how the relevant sources of international law - including primarily the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and IAEA treaty law - should be properly applied in the context of the Iran case. It provides an instructional case study of the application of these sources of international law, the lessons which can be applied to inform both the on-going legal and diplomatic dynamics surrounding the Iran nuclear dispute itself, as well as similar future cases. Some questions raised regard the watershed diplomatic accord reached between Iran and Western states in July, 2015, known as the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action. The answers will be of interests to diplomats and academics, as well as to anyone who is interested in understanding international law\u27s application to this sensitive dispute in international relations.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_books/1035/thumbnail.jp
The Duty of Care of Bank Directors and Officers Bank Director and Officer Responsibilities Conference
Get PDFIn the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) brought numerous lawsuits against directors and officers offailed banks asserting that they had breached their fiduciary duty of care. Under state corporate law, duty of care claims arise in different contexts, and courts often apply different standards of liability depending upon the context of the claim. In the banking setting, the standard of liability for breach of the duty of care is governed by the federal statute FIRREA and the Supreme Court\u27s decision in Atherton v. FDIC. In Atherton, the Court held that FIRREA allows the FDIC to sue directors and officers of failed banks under either a federal gross negligence standard or any applicable state law standard that imposes liability for less culpable conduct. This Article integrates the academic literature on the duty of care in the general corporate setting with the literature on the duty of care in the banking setting. After discussing how duty of care claims are treated in each setting, the Article makes four primary assertions. First, just as duty of care actions under state corporate law arise in different contexts, so too do duty of care actions in the banking setting. Second, because the standard of liability can vary depending upon the context, it is often a misleading oversimplification to frame the banker liability debate in any particular jurisdiction as a binary choice between negligence and gross negligence. Third, because duty of care liability is more nuanced than negligence versus gross negligence, the application ofFIRREA and Atherton to duty of care claims in the banking setting is more complicated than commentators have appreciated. Finally, FDIC guidelines that ignore context and suggest a nationwide standard of liability are inaccurate. The FDIC should update its guidelines to accurately reflect both the law and the FDIC\u27s litigation practices
A New Southern Strategy of Multigroup Oppression: A Response to Standard White by Michael Morris Essay
Get PDF
The Trouble with Tacking: A Reconsideration of Trademark Priority
Get PDFWhen trademarks cannot co-exist because they are confusingly similar, priority generally depends upon first use. However, through the practice known as “tacking,” the junior user can sometimes prevail based on its earlier adoption of a similar, but technically distinct trademark. The Supreme Court recently determined that tacking is a question of fact to be resolved by a jury, under the guidance of “careful jury instructions that make [the] standard clear.” Courts say the standard for tacking is “exceedingly strict,” and that tacking is allowed only when the earlier mark and the revised mark are so similar that they convey the “same commercial impression,” and consumers would regard both as “the same mark.” In practice, this standard is not “clear,” nor is it rooted in sound policy justifications. In fact, it could often hamper competition, deny consumers useful information, and lead to the very sorts of confusion that the trademark laws are intended to prevent. This Article proposes, as an alternative, a standard for tacking based on a comparison of the original and the revised trademarks to the intervening mark, the question being whether the changes did or did not contribute to the potential for confusion