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Advertisements and Sponsorships in Charitable Cyberspace: Virtual Reality Meets Legal Fiction
Get PDFBy now, it is perhaps cliche to quote Sir Walter Scott\u27s familiar refrain\u27 when referring to communications occurring via the World Wide Web (the Web). And yet, that age-old wisdom comes readily to mind when one considers the unrelated business income tax (UBIT) as it relates to charities that, for consideration paid, participate in a profit-seeker\u27s web-based marketing communications. That first lie, to be precise, is that a charity\u27s payment-induced, unlimited public display of a profit-seeker\u27s logo, slogan and product, when unaccompanied by comparative or qualitative descriptions or explicit requests to buy, results in no trade or business income for purposes of UBIT. Thus, the Orange Bowl Committee is not selling anything when, upon receipt of value, it renames its football game from The Orange Bowl, to The FedEX Orange Bowl, and then incessantly repeats that name in its media, including its official Website. And now, as that lie is unloosed in Cyberspace, it looks as though it will undergo a period of growth at least as intense and exponential as the growth of the Web itself. Indeed, to avoid exposure of the original lie, the law must weave ever more elaborate patterns of necessarily myopic rules having no relationship to the reality or virtual reality of marketing communications
A&M Florida A&M University Magazine for Employees, Alumni and Friends: The Return of the FAMU College of Law
Get PDFThis issue celebrates the return of the FAMU College of Law. This posting includes former FAMU President Frederick S. Humphries\u27 President\u27s Message entitled Celebrating the Return of the College of Law and the Cover Story from the issue, The Rebirth of the FAMU College of Law 1949-1968 2000-Present. It contains a compilation of excerpts from Chapter Five in the The Florida Agricultural and Meghanical University College of Law (1949-2000) written by Larry O. Rivers.https://commons.law.famu.edu/newsletters-pubs/1006/thumbnail.jp
Nachfrist Was Ist? Thinking Globally and Acting Locally: Considering Time Extension Principles of the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods in Revising the Uniform Commercial Code
Get PDFThis article examines the Nachfrist concept as it applies to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and considers its potential application to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). Part II provides an overview of the applicability of the CISG to international sales contracts and compares some of its provisions with those found in the UCC. Part III discusses the difference between what constitutes breach under the UCC and the CISG and explains when Nachfrist applies to CISG contracts. Part IV takes a closer look at the UCC, considering the need for adding a new provision such as Nachfrist and rethinking some of the current mechanics in light of potential incorporation of the Nachfrist provision. Part V offers suggestions for inclusion of the Nachfrist procedure in light of the reconsideration of these existing provisions
Convenient Shorthand: The Supreme Court and the Language of State Sovereignty
Get PDFRecent Supreme Court decisions have dramatically underscored the significance of the states as vital entities within the United States constitutional system. The Court has repeatedly protected the states\u27 political and legal integrity against congressional conscription\u27 and federal court litigation. In addition, the Court has broadened the effective range of state autonomy through its revival of content-based limitations on the scope of Congress\u27s delegated powers. This recent wave of federalism has generated opinions that often seem to turn on The problem with this principle of respect for state sovereignty is that its meaning is not self-evident. The states plainly are not sovereigns as that term is used in international law, or even in the domestic sphere. As the Court acknowledged, the Constitution rests on a premise of sovereignty in both the central Government and the separate States. The language of state sovereignty may be convenient shorthand, as the Alden Court said, for the expression Eleventh Amendment immunity, but unless we are clear about what such shorthand denotes, the terminology is of little analytical value. This essay is an effort to outline what a modern Supreme Court justice might mean when using the terms sovereign and sovereignty in an opinion discussing the role and powers of the states under the federal Constitution. Because a justice writing an opinion is engaged in law, not political theory or historical scholarship, the most obvious background to his or her decisions about terminology are earlier opinions of the Court. The second part of this essay reports the results of this attempt to examine and make sense of the Court\u27s use of the language of state sovereignty from the 1790s to the present. The Court seems to employ the terms in a number of ways, not all of which are easy to relate to one another. The consequence is that general assertions about state sovereignty are without clear meaning
The Scintilla of Individual Profit: In Search of Private Inurement and Excess Benefit
Get PDFPrivate inurement certainly manifests itself in protean ways, but regardless of form, the prohibition against private inurement must be rendered consistent with the generally accepted notion that exempt entities are singularly distinguishable from taxable entities by the act of forbearance with respect to individual profit, since that is the distinction the prohibition was originally intended to enforce. Rendering the prohibition consistent with the single notion underlying the existence and theories of tax-exemption will resolve much of its elasticity, elusiveness, and long-lasting evolution. Such a result is necessary and good not only because of the imposition of personal liability under section 4958, but also because the effectiveness of the charitable delivery of goods and services is at stake. As a practical matter, the uncertainty inherent in a protean prohibition acts to discourage efficiency and ultimately harms charitable beneficiaries. Alternatively, the private inurement prohibition should be questioned and perhaps discarded. Determining whether the prohibition against private inurement is the necessary linchpin of tax-exemption will have the same resolving effect and will also allow the evolution of a more appropriate theory upon which exemption from tax ought to be granted
Deans of Color Speak Out: Unique Voice in a Unique Role
Get PDFThese comments are a reflection on, and an expansion of, points made during the author’s introduction of the panel for “Deans of Color Speak Out,” presented as part of the First National Meeting of the Regional People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences, and Deans of Color Legal Scholarship Conference
Save the Marriage before (Not after) the Ceremony: The Marriage Preparation Act - Can We Have a Public Response to a Private Problem
Get PDFTwo individuals meet, engage in an intimate, not necessarily sexual, relationship and marry. The two join in a union with the promise to spend the remainder of their natural lives together. But forever is not forever. On a national level, over 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.\u27 Perhaps marriage vows should include a statement about the inevitability of divorce. States\u27 divorce laws vary, from faultbased, to no-fault, to a statutory period of separation. Some states recently made it easier for individuals to be granted a divorce. Reasons for making it easier to end marriages could have been related to the increased incidences of domestic violence. Or the reasons could simply be related to a change of times. By making it easier to get a divorce, states may have simply played piper to individuals wanting to end their marriages without being forced to prolong the inevitable. Rather than prolong an unwanted marriage, the move to no-fault divorce was to serve as an out of a failing marriage. Such a move could have created an environment where rather than try to resolve differences individuals simply divorced their married partner. The divorce rate has reached an all time high and it would not be a stretch to assume that there is a correlation between the high divorce rate and the move to a no-fault system. The break down of the family structure resulting from the high divorce rate is also of concern to states. In an attempt to prepare individuals for marital conflicts and resolves, Florida enacted the Marital Preparation and Preservation Act. The purpose of the act, I presume, is to educate individuals about the marital union before the marriage ceremony. Education prior to the union would presumably prepare couples for conflicts that may arise during the union and would therefore have the affect of saving the marriage. The Marital Preparation and Preservation Act provides that individuals are to enroll in classes prior to entering into a marriage union. The Act does not make it mandatory for individuals to enroll in such classes but it does provide for a reduction in the marriage license fee for individuals who choose to enroll. The Act does, however mandate a three-day waiting period for individuals who do not enroll in such classes. Why would a state such as Florida enact such a statute when Florida made it easier to divorce? Florida is now a no-fault state, which means married individuals meeting residency requirements simply file for divorce once they believe the marriage is irretrievably broken. What are the states\u27 expectations for enacting such a statute? To preserve marriages, to prepare individuals for the union of marriage or to prepare individuals on how to care for children who are brought into the union? Or could it be to set the standard for the norms, values, and morals of the state? If the states\u27 interests are in preserving marriages then why not simply require fault on a party prior to granting a divorce? If the state\u27s interest is in preparing individuals for the union or preparing individuals for children who may be brought into the union then is the state overstepping it\u27s bounds with such a statute because of the privacy nature of child rearing? If the state\u27s interest is in setting the norms, values and morals, then is it overstepping it\u27s bounds by commingling the church with the state and/or also interfering with a family\u27s private family values? How will the state dictate who instructs the courses? Can an instructor be a divorcee? On what basis will the state determine the content of the material? What role will religion play? If religion has any role is there a church and state conflict? Could such a course cause a conflict to arise if individuals do not share the same religion or have no religion at all? Can state government enter into a contract with individuals premarriage for a lifetime commitment post-marriage-- a contract that two free engaging individuals are, purportedly, failing to uphold at alarming rates? Should the government engage in this type of bargaining? If not a contract, is it an unconstitutional imposition? What are other countries doing with regard to maintaining marriages? Are other countries\u27 divorce rates as high as the United States\u27? Is it a jurisdictional problem, an international one, or is it simply a matter for concern in the United States? Who will prepare the individuals for this lifetime commitment? Will we require the educators to be married? Will we prohibit the educators from divorcing? How will such an Act impact the fundamental right to marry which includes a right not to, and to end it? These are some of the questions I probe as I consider whether marriage preparation and preservation acts are constitutionally sound
The Spratly Islands Dispute: China Defines the New Millennium
Get PDFChina is a growing and prosperous nation that many predict will become the second most powerful military and economic nation in the world, behind the United States, within the early part of the new millennium. China\u27s developmental goals include a claim of right to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The China/Taiwan claim to the Spratly Islands is antagonistic towards the claims asserted by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam who each claim the Spratly Islands in whole or in part. This Article focuses on China\u27s perception of the Spratly Islands dispute and China\u27s potential courses of conduct as it relates to resolving the dispute
The Independent Counsel Statute: A Legal History
Get PDFThe independent counsel statute has been one of the most-if not the most-controversial federal laws of its time. A presence on the national stage for twenty years, it will expire on June 30, 1999, unless Congress affirmatively acts to save it. As the other articles in this issue of Law and Contemporary Problems attest, the statute\u27s future seems bleak, perhaps even if substantial revisions are made. Numerous other sources also have heaped praise, criticism, and everything in between upon the statute. A law with so dark a beginning and so storied a political history may be doomed to extinction. Among all of the political upheaval over the independent counsel statute since its enactment, politicians, legal scholars, and laypersons alike often cannot help but lose sight of one aspect of the statute that has remained unchanged-it is a statute that, like any other, generates law by its existence and through its interpretation. Unlike the other currently available sources on the statute, this article is not a normative critique of the law, a review of the politics surrounding the statute, or a history of investigations under the statute. Instead, it provides a comprehensive legal history of the independent counsel statute from its inception in 1978 until its apparent last hurrah in 1999. The article\u27s purpose, therefore, is to set forth the law that the statute has created, but to allow others to evaluate for themselves the merits of the statute and the praises and criticisms of it in this volume and elsewhere. The article proceeds in four parts. Part II briefly summarizes the history of the statute and outlines its current provisions. Part III analyzes the statute\u27s triggering mechanisms, the procedures by which an independent counsel appointment is or is not made. Part IV addresses the complex relationships between an independent counsel and other relevant actors in the political system: the public, the Special Division of the Court that oversees independent counsel investigations, the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, and Congress. Part V focuses on a specific legal issue of great importance to the statute\u27s past and future: the role of the independent counsel in the history and practice of the government\u27s evidentiary privileges, including the attorney client privilege and the President\u27s executive privilege