Restitution and Realism

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-240
Author(s):  
Dennis Klimchuk
Keyword(s):  
Legal Theory ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Main Interest ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Law And Ethics ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Prevailing View

While the roots of the common law of restitution reach back hundreds of years, the idea that it constitutes a domain of private law was first clearly articulated in the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Restitution in 1932. The U.S. was at the forefront of development in the law of restitution but interest has declined. Recently John Langbein offered an explanation, first in terms of law and economics and then through legal realism. Realism, by Langbein’s estimation, has exacted “a terrible toll” on doctrinal study in the postwar period. One of the principal aims of The Law and Ethics of Restitution, Hanoch Dagan writes, is to disprove this claim. Realism, properly understood, is supportive of doctrine and, he argues, in this context, provides a better account of the law than the prevailing view. This book is a challenging and important work not only in the law of restitution but also in legal theory. My main interest in this Critical Notice is to ask whether the kind of justification for liability in restitution Dagan offers is compelling. While part of what separates Dagan from Langbein is their understanding of legal realism, I take Dagan to be right on this point, and ask whether he’s made the case in favour of a realist account of restitution. I do that by considering two examples of the doctrinal analyses that form the bulk of the book: first by outlining a pair of issues on which Dagan takes a position by setting up the question he aims to ask, and then by considering his rejection of the view to which The Law and Ethics of Restitution offers an alternative.

Jesus' Legal Theory—A Rabbinic Reading

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaim Saiman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
President Bush

These are heady times in America's law and religion conversation. On the campaign trail in 1999, then-candidate George W. Bush declared Jesus to be his favorite political philosopher. Since his election in 2001, legal commentators have criticized both President Bush and the Supreme Court for improperly basing their decisions on their sectarian Christian convictions. Though we pledge to be one nation under God, a recent characterization of the law and religion discourse sees America as two sub-nations divided by God. Moreover, debate concerning the intersection between law, politics and religion has moved from the law reviews to the New York Times Sunday Magazine, which has published over twenty feature-length articles on these issues since President Bush took office in 2001. Today, more than anytime in the past century, the ideas of an itinerant first-century preacher from Bethlehem are relevant to American law.

Fundamental Conceptions of International Law in the Jurisprudence of the Permanent Court of International Justice

1936 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 414-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Arthur Steiner
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Common Law ◽  
International Justice ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Anglo American

Even in the most highly formalized systems of jurisprudence the rules and practices of the law cannot be entirely separated from the fundamental conceptions of law underlying them. The legal systems of France, The Netherlands and Germany have not been formalized to so great an extent that there is neither occasion nor opportunity for the application of the law to be conditioned by concepts derived from juridical theory. Duguit and Geny, Krabbe, and Kohler and Stammler, in their various works, have made this quite clear. In Anglo-American law the fictions so abundantly found are often no more than concrete formulations of abstract fundamental concepts which judges have thought to be valid and consistent with policy and which they could not conveniently introduce into the law in any other way. That fundamental conceptions of the law may affect its development more than their logical consistency warrants has been amply illustrated in the common law, equity, and American constitutional law. What is true of well-developed systems of jurisprudence is no less true of international law. Fundamental conceptions have probably had a greater influence here, since theologic and scholastic philosophies explain many of the rules of modern practice, and the rules of current practice owe their very existence, in large measure, to the reconciliaation of the philosophical concepts of the State, sovereignty and independence with the conception of a community of nations and a rule of law.

scholarly journals The Common Law of War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens David Ohlin
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Law Of War ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Military Commissions ◽  
The Government

In recent litigation before U.S. federal courts, the government has argued that military commissions have jurisdiction to prosecute offenses against the "common law of war," which the government defines as a body of domestic offenses, such as inchoate conspiracy, that violate the American law of war. This Article challenges that definition by arguing that stray references to the term "common law of war"in historical materials meant something completely different. By examining the Lieber Code, the writings of early natural law theorists, and early American judicial decisions, this Article concludes that the "common law of war" referred to a branch of the law of nations that applied during internal armed conflicts, such as civil wars with non-state actors. This body of law was called "common," not because it was extended or elaborated by the common law method of judge-applied law, but rather because it was "common" to all mankind by virtue of natural law, and thus even applied to internal actors, such as rebel forces, who were not otherwise bound by international law as formal states were. By recapturing this lost definition of the common law of war, this Article casts some doubt on the U.S. government's position that military commissions have jurisdiction not only over international offenses, but also domestic violations of the law of war.Published: Jens David Ohlin, "The Common Law of War," 58 William & Mary Law Review (2016)

scholarly journals The Metaphysics of Mind and the Practical Science of the Law

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah A. Seo ◽  
John Fabian Witt
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Practical Science ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Metaphysics Of Mind

In “Mind of a Moral Agent,” Susanna Blumenthal elegantly limns the rise and partial fall of the common sense theory of moral responsibility in American law. As Blumenthal convincingly describes it, the problem for early American jurists was nothing less than to solve the paradox of determinism and free will. How can the law declare someone morally culpable unless we are free to choose our own ends?

Brownsword, R and Howells, G, ‘The implementation of the EC Directive on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts – some unresolved questions’ [1995] JBL 243. Brownsword, R, Howells, G and Wilhelmsson, T (eds), Welfarism in Contract, 1994, Aldershot: Dartmouth. Burrows, A, (ed), Essays on the Law of Restitution, 1991, Oxford: Clarendon. Burrows, A, The Law of Restitution, 1993, London: Butterworths. Burrows, A, Understanding the Law of Obligations, 1998, Oxford: Hart. Burrows, A, ‘Free acceptance and the law of restitution’ (1988) 104 LQR 576. Carr, C, ‘Lloyd’s Bank Ltd v Bundy’ (1975) 38 MLR 463. Cheshire, G, Fifoot, C and Furmston, M, Law of Contract, 13th edn, 1996, London: Butterworths/Tolley. Chitty (Guest, AG (ed)), Contracts: General Principles, 27th edn, 1994, London: Sweet & Maxwell. Coase, R, ‘The problem of social cost’ (1960) 3 Journal of Law and Economics 1. Collins, H, Law of Contract, 3rd edn, 1997, London: Butterworths. Collins, H, ‘Good faith in European contract law’ (1994) OJLS 229. Cooke, PJ and Oughton, DW, The Common Law of Obligations, 3rd edn, 2000, London: Butterworths. Coote, B, Exception Clauses, 1964, London: Sweet & Maxwell. Coote, B, ‘The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977’ (1978) 41 MLR 312. De Lacey, J, ‘Selling in the course of a business under the Sale of Goods Act 1979’ (1999) 62 MLR 776. Dean, M, ‘Unfair contract terms – the European approach’ (1993) 56 MLR 581. Duffy, P, ‘Unfair terms and the draft EC Directive’ (1993) JBL 67. Evans, A, ‘The Anglo-American mailing rule’ (1966) 15 ICLQ 553. Fehlberg, B, ‘The husband, the bank, the wife and her signature – the sequel’ (1996) 59 MLR 675.

1995 ◽  
pp. 808-808
Keyword(s):  
Law And Economics ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
European Contract ◽  
Consumer Contracts ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Unfair Terms

Equitable Correction of Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 249-263
Author(s):  
Emily Sherwin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Maker ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

This chapter highlights how equity can coexist with a system of well-crafted rules and shows how American legal realism has impeded equity from correcting the law in its traditional fashion. The baseline is ‘good’ rules, which are those that produce better results by being followed across the board. Yet even good rules will sometimes lead to bad results. If, at the point of application, a decision maker is empowered to deviate from the rule, rules’ coordination benefits can quickly dissipate. Such undermining of the rules of the common law is one of the dangers of equity, which can be seen as having been dampened at one time by the less-than-overt operation of equity when it was separate from law. With the rise of American legal realism towards the end of the process of fusing law and equity, courts and commentators became more sceptical about rules and averse to less-than-transparent legal doctrine, and so equity could no longer limit itself to correcting the law without doing undue damage.

American Slavery and the Path of the Law

1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny B. Wahl
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
District Of Columbia ◽  
Appellate Court ◽  
Accidental Injury ◽  
Henry V ◽  
American Slavery ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,Would men observingly distill it out.— Shakespeare,Henry VFederal and state appellate court reporters for the 15 American slave states and the District of Columbia contain nearly 11,000 cases concerning slaves. In deciding these cases, southern judges formulated doctrines that would later become commonplace in other disputes. In fact, the common law of slavery, whether it concerned the sale, hiring, or accidental injury of a slave, looks far more like modern-day law than like antebellum law. Slave law, in many ways, helped blaze the path of American law generally.

scholarly journals The Comparative History and Theory of Corporate Criminal Liability

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus D. Dubber
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Corporate Criminal Liability

An exercise in comparative legal history and legal theory, this article challenges the radical distinction that traditionally has been drawn between corporate criminal liability in German and Anglo-American law. In the familiar account, corporate criminal liability in the common law and the civil law passed each other like ships in the night, sometime around the turn of the nineteenth century: the common law had no corporate criminal liability before 1800, and the civil law had no corporate criminal liability after 1800. Closer inspection, however, reveals that corporate criminal liability was widely accepted in both common law and civil law countries at least since the Middle Ages, and that rejection of corporate criminal liability was complete neither in England before 1800 nor in Germany after 1800.

scholarly journals Quality in Jurisprudence

2017 ◽  
pp. 5-11
Author(s):  
Оле Хассельбальк ◽  
Ole Khasselbalk
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Legal Science ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Making

In the article the author formulates the main tasks of the legal science. He describes and enumerates various aspects of the scientific activities in the sphere of jurisprudence. The author asks the questions of what the law is and who is personally responsible for the legal researching. Composing the answers to his own questions, the author underlines, that the unified approach to the understanding of law how it is and to the methods, forms, ways and facilities, used while undertaking legal exploring and studies, should be refused. Besides this the author makes a statement, that the objectivity of the legal science and its being in a great social demand are directly depended upon the common people`s participation in the law making process. The author makes a true conclusion, that law, as a social phenomenon and public regulator, is completely and fundamentally based on traditions, habits, customs, culture and tenor of social life, which is law creator. The Scandinavian countries are shown by the author as an above said example, providing the active participation of the common inhabitants in the law making procedures there. The author expresses his own viewpoint, concerning the realization of the conception, aimed at the democratic, social and legal state maintaining procedure. In the article it is shown, that it can be fulfilled only through the rational, reasonably self – sufficing and conscientious law making. Further on the author displays the arguments, providing the existence of the mutual dependence between the appropriately effected law making and the properly ensured state and social interactivity promotion. The article also presents the correlation between the different and various criteria, implemented for the public law research and for the private law studies. Then the author makes a reader pay attention to the necessity to elaborate a real rank and a succession of the undertaken legal scientific research ventures in the sphere of law, in order to learn a human being first and only then to study a society but not on the contrary. At the same time it is very important to determine a subject, an object, the matter, the tasks, the goals, the facilities, a method and a way of scientific analytic research in learning law. It is also mentioned, that it is of a vital importance how to correlate and to consider the difference between the status and the development of legal theory on one hand and the legal practice on the other hand. The author is sure, that nowadays the convergence of the democratic and the autocratic methods, facilities, forms and ways of state governing should become one of the most substantial matters of the scientific research in the field of law. The author is persisting on his proposal of the obligatory usage of the potential of the other, contiguous to the legal one, adjacent sciences in order to obtain the most magnificent effect on the way to understanding law. At the very end of the article, while installing his inferences, the author describes his recommendations, targeted at the perfection of the scientific legal research activity quality, at the professional legal application level heightening and at the provision of the scholars` and of the legal practitioners` choice of the most optimal ways of approbation the results of the scientific research ventures, obtained by them. Particularly the author suggests promulgating these results done in the concrete determined forms, such as: through incorporating them into the process of teaching at the legal high schools, by a thorough selection of the informational resources for scientific analysis, by elaborating the criteria of the scientific research activities’ quality estimation and by combining the usage of the normative and functional approach to understanding the destination and the role of law.

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