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Doing Less with More: Why the Fourth Circuit Missed Its Chance To Raise the Floor of Mental Health Care for Detained Persons
Get PDFFDA\u27s Accelerated Approval, Emergency Use Authorization, and Pre-Approval Access: Considerations for Use in Public Health Emergencies and Beyond
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The Mystery of the Missing Choice-of-Law Clause
Get PDFThere is widespread agreement among experienced contract drafters that every commercial contract should contain a choice-of-law clause. Among their many virtues, choice-of-law clauses facilitate settlement and reduce litigation costs. While most modern contracts contain these provisions, some do not. In many instances, the absence of these clauses may be attributed to outdated forms, careless drafting, inattentive lawyers, or some combination of the three. In a few instances, however, it appears that sophisticated contract drafters purposely omit choice-of-law clauses from their agreements. If these clauses add value to a contract — and there is nearuniversal agreement that they do — then this decision raises a perplexing question. Why would any experienced contract drafter ever consciously choose not to write a choice-of-law clause into an agreement?
This Article seeks to answer this question with respect to one type of agreement where choice-of-law clauses are routinely omitted — insurance contracts. All the available evidence suggests that many insurance contracts lack choice-of-law clauses. This is surprising because insurance companies are the epitome of the sophisticated contract drafter. To unravel the mystery of why so many insurance contracts do not contain choice-of-law clauses, the Article draws upon more than thirty interviews and email exchanges with industry experts. It argues that the absence of these provisions is attributable to a complex amalgam of legislative and regulatory hostility, judicial skepticism, standard forms, and strategic maneuvering on the part of insurers. The Article argues further that manuscript policies — which are negotiated between insurers and policyholders — sometimes lack choice-of-law clauses due to a perceived first-mover disadvantage and the absence of any body of truly neutral insurance law within the United States.
Solving the mystery of the missing choice-of-law clause in insurance contracts unlocks three important insights for contracts scholars. First, it sheds useful light on how regulatory intervention can influence the contract production process. Second, it calls into question whether insurance companies are, in fact, sophisticated contract drafters whose agreements invariably further their own interests. Third, it has the potential to change the way that contracts scholars think about the “stickiness” of absent contract terms
How Impeachment Works
Get PDFThis Article rejects the common view of the two Trump impeachments as a constitutional debacle. It asserts, instead, that the federal impeachment process retains significant vitality as a mechanism for holding presidents accountable for misconduct in office. If we take a step back from the tiny set of presidential impeachment trials in American history and adopt a more panoramic view of their effects and connections to other disciplinary mechanisms for presidential misconduct, it is easier to see that presidential impeachments still have bite. In fact, they can and do cripple legacies and reputations, create permanent evidentiary records of presidential misconduct, and deter some, if not the most, egregious kinds of presidential misconduct. In the aftermath of Trump’s second impeachment, state officials, too, played instrumental roles in curbing his efforts to undermine the integrity of the electoral process and to commit voter fraud. In this manner, states provided a check on the president’s overreaching.
Part II sets forth the surprisingly strong case against impeachment’s effectiveness in holding presidents accountable for their misconduct in office, a view that I sometimes have had myself. Nonetheless, Part III both dissects that case and shows how the two impeachments of Donald Trump damaged his legacy, reputation, and power. Public opinion is not an insignificant deterrent of presidential mischief, and the two impeachments of Donald Trump took their toll in his defeat in his reelection bid. Part IV examines the extensive lawyerly misconduct in the two Trump impeachments. Lastly, in Part V, I consider some modest reforms that may help to ensure that presidential impeachment trials are constitutionally meaningful events, even when they result in the acquittal of the president
Episode 3: I take head of household
No full textFrom Texas Public Radio, this is the Enduring Gap, a limited series exploring some of the reasons just 17% Latino adults in San Antonio have a bachelor’s degree. This is episode 2: \u27I take head of household.\u2
