Bailor Beware: Limitations and Exclusions of Liability in Commercial Bailments

Although people enter into bailment agreements every day, the diversity and significance of bailments generally are unknown to lay persons and ignored by lawyers. This neglect stems in part from the antiquity of bailment and from its overlap with other branches of the law.\u27 One commentator has stated that bailment stands at the point at which contract, tort, and property law converge, representing a contractual conveyance of personal property that is enforceable in tort. Although bailment draws from other areas of the law, it retains a separate legal personality whose independent character has yet to be fully explored.The term bailment, commonly defined as the rightful possession of goods by one who is not the owner, is derived from the French verb bailler, which means to deliver. \u27 The elements required to create most bailments include the intent to establish a bailment relationship,the bailor\u27s delivery of the property to the bailee, and the bailee\u27s acceptance of the item. In order for a valid bailment to arise, the bailee must obtain possession of the bailed property. If the bailee fails to take possession, no bailment exists, and none of the rights and obligations incident to a bailment are established. Possession in the bailment context consists of two elements: the bailee\u27s exercise of physical control over the bailed property and the bailee\u27s intent to exercise physical control. Many items may be balled-some ordinary, such as cars, film,and laundry,\u27 and others rather unusual, such as prunes and dead bodies. The bailment concept, however, is limited to tangible personal property and generally does not extend to either real or intangible property

Curtailing Civil RICO’s Long Reach: Establishing New Boundaries for Venue and Personal Jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 1965

Many judges, members of Congress, and commentators have bemoaned the fact that attorneys frequently add causes of action under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to “up the ante” in otherwise ordinary civil actions. After addressing civil RICO’s legislative history and § 1965’s statutory framework, this article describes different methods courts currently use to analyze venue and personal jurisdiction under U.S.C. § 1965. Next, this article proposes separate jurisdictional and venue tests for courts to apply when § 1965(b) is invoked in civil RICO cases. These tests are designed to protect defendants’ due process rights, give credence to the actual language of § 1965(b), adhere to legislative intent, bring some degree of uniformity and consistency to jurisdictional determinations under civil RICO, and discourage attorneys from adding RICO claims merely to gain a jurisdictional advantage. If applied, the tests should solve the major problems currently associated with venue and personal jurisdiction under civil RICO. The Article concludes with some practical advice for attorneys representing plaintiffs and defendants in civil RICO actions

Reducing case ascertainment costs in U.S. population studies of Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and cognitive impairment-Part 2

Dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (DAT) is a major public health threat in developed countries where longevity has been extended to the eighth decade of life. Estimates of prevalence and incidence ofDAT vary with what is measured, be it change from a baseline cognitive state or a clinical diagnostic endpoint, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Judgment of what is psychometrically “normal” at the age of 80 years implicitly condones a decline from what is normal at the age of 30. However, because cognitive aging is very heterogeneous, it is reasonable to ask “Is ‘normal for age’ good enough to screen forDAT or its earlier precursors of cognitive impairment?” Cost containment and accessibility of ascertainment methods are enhanced by well-validated and reliable methods such as screening for cognitive impairment by telephone interviews. However, focused assessment of episodic memory, the key symptom associated with DAT, might be more effective at distinguishing normal from abnormal cognitive aging trajectories. Alternatively, the futuristic “Smart Home,” outfitted with unobtrusive sensors and data storage devices, permits the moment-to-moment recording of activities so that changes that constitute risk for DAT can be identified before the emergence of symptoms