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Vanderbilt Law Review

Article Title

Recent Cases

First Page

1337

Abstract

Laurence M. Hamric

The instant decision demonstrates the inability of the Court, on its own or with the meager guidance provided by Congress, to discern a clear standard by which to measure the propriety of union organizational activity in light of current federal labor and antitrust law. Faced with a fact pattern that did not embody an apparent anticompetitive intent, a classic conspiracy between labor and non-labor entities, or activity clearly unrelated to the legitimate union interest in achieving better wages and working conditions, the Court was forced to abandon the "clear showing" test of Pennington," the"intimately related" test of Jewel Tea' and, perhaps, even the Allen Bradley doctrine.

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William G. Scott

By extending federal jurisdiction to encompass all robbery and extortion potentially affecting interstate commerce, the instant decision not only reflects, but substantially contributes to, the increasing federalization of intrastate crime under the commerce clause. In light of the decision's broad rationale, the case may portend virtually unlimited expansion of federal jurisdiction into the field of crime control. At the very least, the decision constitutes authority for extending the jurisdictional range of other "affecting commerce"statutes to encompass all conduct potentially affecting commerce. It is difficult to conceive of any criminal activity, no matter how localized, that remains beyond the scope of the instant rationale.

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Mitchell M. Purvis

The instant decision, relying on one side of conflicting precedent from other circuits, does little to reconcile the divergent answers to the issue raised by the Hayden caveat: what limits, if any, on searches and seizures should be developed to replace the discredited categorizations of the mere evidence rule. The Bennett decision,considering whether an item that possessed the requisite characteristics for protection under the privilege against self-incrimination consequently was proscribed as an object of a reasonable search and seizure, began a series of opinions obscuring the focus of this issue by failing to recognize that the amendments jointly protect overlapping substantive values through procedurally distinct mechanisms.

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George M. Kryder, III

The instant court attempted to resolve the tension between these interests by permitting rejection of the entire agreement only after a substantial showing that continued operations would lead to collapse of the business. The court then would require a debtor-in-possession to bargain with the incumbent employees. A better approach would be to permit rejection of only those portions of the collective bargaining agreement that the court finds onerous and burdensome, while leaving in force the remaining portions of the agreement upon which the employees have relied. Such an analysis would afford employees greater protection than merely imposing an obligation to bargain, while simultaneously allowing the debtor-in-possession to renegotiate the burdensome provisions of the old agreement.

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Richard Michael Pitt

The instant court recognized at the outset that the proper extraterritorial application of the securities laws was not to be found in the language of the acts. Neither did the court consider the SEC's disclaimer of the applicability of registration requirements to be controlling." Rather, the court looked to case law and foreign relations policy in determining subject matter jurisdiction. The court analyzed, one at a time, the jurisdictional bases relied upon by the lower court. Considering first the defendants' activities within the United States, the court noted its holding in IT v. Vencap, Ltd., that the United States was not to be a breeding ground for fraud."

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