Employment is a part of the foundation of American adulthood. In the nineteenth century, particularly for the working poor, peoples spent almost all their waking hours working. The conditions were bleak, with hundred-hour weeks, children working as soon as they were capable,1 and millions of Black Americans enslaved.2. Yet, many pushed forward in search of…
Month: April 2019
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: How a Mortgage Default May Now Have Affected the Classification of Debt Collector Status
The ordinary consumer may welcome the incurrence of debt in exchange for access to additional capital for opportunities, such as the purchase of a vehicle or the payment of tuition for a college education, that may otherwise be unattainable. However, the difficulties and frustrations in the event of default on the repayment of debt may…
South Dakota v. Wayfair: E-commerce Now Fair Game for State Sales Taxes
Last term, on June 21, 2018, the Supreme Court decided South Dakota v. Wayfair, the first sales tax jurisdiction case heard by the Court in 25 years.1 The Court’s decision in Wayfair has significant implications for online retailers, as well as for the future of stare decisis.2 Background Wayfair overruled two prior Supreme Court decisions…
Digital Access Codes: An Overhaul of the Textbook Marketplace
The rising cost of higher education in the United States is well documented and is frequently the topic of discussion. The increase has been staggering, as the average tuition and fee prices at public four-year institutions have risen by over three hundred percent since the 1988-89 academic year.1 Another issue closely associated with the rising…
Education or Exploitation: How Alston v. NCAA Could Change the Game
On March 8, 2019, Judge Wilken, a California District Court judge, ruled for the second time that the NCAA is unlawfully conspiring to suppress compensation of student athletes who play at the highest level of college football and basketball.1 This case, Alston v. NCAA, featured former and current Division I athletes seeking an injunction against…
Michigan Defamation Law and Businesses
The reputations of businesspeople and of businesses matter. Someone spreading nasty rumors about a businessperson or business can have a drastic effect on performance, client relations, and employee morale, among other things. How can businesspeople and businesses protect themselves? Each state has had to grapple with this question. In Michigan, however, there is a curious…
Marketing Battles Spur Litigation: MillerCoors sues Bud Light
If you were watching this year’s Super Bowl, you likely saw ads by Anheuser-Busch for Bud Light. These ads highlighted the fact that MillerCoors products, specifically, Miller Lite and Coors Light, are brewed using corn syrup, while Bud Light is not. The ads were immediately met with backlash from corn lobbying groups, who fear that…
Too Big To Fail Doesn’t Mean they Won’t
On March 11th, 2019, a federal court in Manhattan convicted KPMG’s former national managing partner for audit quality, David Middendorf, on conspiracy and wire fraud charges for to his role in the ‘steal the exam’ scandal which involved executives and employees from both KPMG and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).1 In January of…
Security Regulations: When in Rome, Use a Trebuchet
Thanks to the meticulous work of Pythagoras, humans have known for two and half millennia that a line is the shortest distance between two points.1 Despite this knowledge and a general desire for efficiency, societies have often failed to incorporate this principle into systems. Take, for example, last century BC Rome, home of the milliarium…
Reconsidering Tax Policy on Constructive Receipt
Nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements are commonplace among executives in the American workforce. These arrangements raise tax timing issues for our cash-basis accounting system. When should the compensation be determined to have been “constructively received” by the worker, and thus subject to taxation? Our policy on the issue was originally too lenient in the wake of…