The Law Business

A Review of The Law Business: A Tired Monopoly by Joseph W. Bartlett and The Partners by James B. Stewar

BILLS AND NOTES-HOLDERS IN DUE COURSE-RECEIPT OF STOLEN INSTRUMENTS

In the course of employment by defendant, X handled large amounts of cash. To facilitate this work, plaintiff gave X access to its banking house, enabling X to steal $5,000 in paper currency. X used the money to repay a shortage in his accounts with defendant, placing the money in the treasury of defendant as a credit to himself and obtaining a receipt from defendant\u27s cashier. Defendant had no knowledge of the theft. Plaintiff sued for the money, claiming defendant was unjustly enriched by the acts of X and had no right to the money. Defendant contended that the pre-existing indebtedness constituted value and that it was a holder in due course with full title to the$5,000. Held: plaintiff is entitled to recovery; the defendant did not part with value. One judge dissented on the basis that the antecedent debt constituted value, enabling the transferee to become a holder in due course. Stone & Webster Engineering Corp. v. Hamilton Nat. Bank, (6th Cir. 1952) 199 F. (2d) 127

A language-familiarity effect for speaker discrimination without comprehension

The influence of language familiarity upon speaker identification is well established, to such an extent that it has been argued that “Human voice recognition depends on language ability” [Perrachione TK, Del Tufo SN, Gabrieli JDE (2011) Science 333(6042):595]. However, 7-mo-old infants discriminate speakers of their mother tongue better than they do foreign speakers [Johnson EK, Westrek E, Nazzi T, Cutler A (2011) Dev Sci 14(5):1002–1011] despite their limited speech comprehension abilities, suggesting that speaker discrimination may rely on familiarity with the sound structure of one’s native language rather than the ability to comprehend speech. To test this hypothesis, we asked Chinese and English adult participants to rate speaker dissimilarity in pairs of sentences in English or Mandarin that were first time-reversed to render them unintelligible. Even in these conditions a language-familiarity effect was observed: Both Chinese and English listeners rated pairs of native-language speakers as more dissimilar than foreign-language speakers, despite their inability to understand the material. Our data indicate that the language familiarity effect is not based on comprehension but rather on familiarity with the phonology of one’s native language. This effect may stem from a mechanism analogous to the “other-race” effect in face recognition

How Preclinical Models Evolved to Resemble the Diagnostic Criteria of Drug Addiction.

Drug addiction is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder that affects a subset of the individuals who take drugs. It is characterized by maladaptive drug-seeking habits that are maintained despite adverse consequences and intense drug craving. The pathophysiology and etiology of addiction is only partially understood despite extensive research because of the gap between current preclinical models of addiction and the clinical criteria of the disorder. This review presents a brief overview, based on selected methodologies, of how behavioral models have evolved over the last 50 years to the development of recent preclinical models of addiction that more closely mimic diagnostic criteria of addiction. It is hoped that these new models will increase our understanding of the complex neurobiological mechanisms whereby some individuals switch from controlled drug use to compulsive drug-seeking habits and relapse to these maladaptive habits. Additionally, by paving the way to bridge the gap that exists between biobehavioral research on addiction and the human situation, these models may provide new perspectives for the development of novel and effective therapeutic strategies for drug addiction.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.01.00

Civil Procedure - Compensation of Witnesses in a Civil Action

As the amount and complexity of litigation has increased, there have been corresponding increases in demands for added compensation of witnesses. Like the juror, the witness often receives the time-honored answer that he cannot be heard to complain that his compensation is inadequate; the administration of justice is a mutual benefit to all members of the community, and each is under a public duty to further it. At common law witnesses received no compensation. Time spent in testifying was held to be claimed by the public as a tax, paid by the witness to the system of law which protected the rights of all. Statutory provisions gradually were enacted, providing for various degrees of compensation. Today, there are such statutory provisions in every state as well as in the federal courts. The area is fraught with controversies and bears examination

TAXATION-FEDERAL INCOME TAX-LIMITED DEDUCTIBILITY OF ENTERTAINMENT EXPENSES

In the sophisticated commercial world of today there are many expenses that might be termed of a mixed complexion, having elements of both a business and non-business character. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the area of entertainment expenses. Though one may assume that it should be the policy of the courts to allow full and fair deduction of business expenses in general, many difficulties arise regarding expenditures for entertainment purposes. In virtually all entertainment there is personal enjoyment of a social nature by the taxpayer as well as potential business value. Furthermore, what business value there is will often be of an intangible nature; it is difficult for a businessman to point to a specific transaction and say this is the result of taking John Doe out to dinner. In addition, most of the evidence of the purpose of the expenditure will of necessity come from the taxpayer, who is probably inclined to overemphasize the business need for the expenditure. Thus, even if the courts would not generally follow a doctrine that deductions are a matter of legislative grace, the question of are legitimate entertainment expenses must nevertheless be narrowly construed because of these peculiar factors

Orienting asymmetries in dogs’ responses to different communicatory components of human speech

It is well established that in human speech perception the left hemisphere (LH) of the brain is specialized for processing intelligible phonemic (segmental) content (e.g., [1–3]), whereas the right hemisphere (RH) is more sensitive to pro- sodic (suprasegmental) cues [4, 5]. Despite evidence that a range of mammal species show LH specialization when pro- cessing conspecific vocalizations [6], the presence of hemi- spheric biases in domesticated animals’ responses to the communicative components of human speech has never been investigated. Human speech is familiar and relevant to domestic dogs (Canis familiaris), who are known to perceive both segmental phonemic cues [7–10] and supra- segmental speaker-related [11, 12] and emotional [13] proso- dic cues. Using the head-orienting paradigm, we presented dogs with manipulated speech and tones differing in segmental or suprasegmental content and recorded their orienting responses. We found that dogs showed a sig- nificant LH bias when presented with a familiar spoken command in which the salience of meaningful phonemic (segmental) cues was artificially increased but a significant RH bias in response to commands in which the salience of intonational or speaker-related (suprasegmental) vocal cues was increased. Our results provide insights into mech- anisms of interspecific vocal perception in a domesticated mammal and suggest that dogs may share ancestral or convergent hemispheric specializations for processing the different functional communicative components of speech with human listeners

Myelin: A gatekeeper of activity-dependent circuit plasticity?

The brain is responsive to an ever-changing environment, enabling the organism to learn and change behaviour accordingly. Efforts to understand the underpinnings of this plasticity have almost exclusively focussed on the functional and underlying structural changes that neurons undergo at neurochemical synapses. What has received comparatively little attention is the involvement of activity-dependent myelination in such plasticity and the functional output of circuits controlling behaviour. The traditionally held view of myelin as a passive insulator of axons is changing to one of lifelong changes in myelin, modulated by neuronal activity and experience. Here we review the nascent evidence of the functional role of myelin plasticity in strengthening circuit functions that underlie learning and behaviourEuropean Research Council Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group UK Multiple Sclerosis Society Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine Medical Research Counci