Nonprofit Interjurisdictionality

The federal system of dual sovereignties guarantees that most American legal regimes tolerate jurisdictional overlap between the enforcement authority of federal and state agencies. This Article explores interjurisdictional overlap in the context of nonprofit legal supervision. Notwithstanding the common assumption that states police mission while the IRS polices money, it is suggested here that the overlap has become much broader than generally has been supposed; that over a wide range of common misconduct among the preponderance of organizations in the nonprofit sector, either the Internal Revenue Service or state authorities could, if they wanted to and in no particular order, exercise statutory or common law authority to prosecute nonprofit charities, including their officers and directors. As a policy matter, this overlap has generally been viewed as positive by both state and federal officials, who can defer or shift the burden of supervision to avoid spending scarce resources, to avoid political difficulty, or for other reasons. In many cases, they can build on one another\u27s work, use the legal precedent established by one another\u27s litigation, or act in independent disregard of it. They can act first, second, or not at all. If legislation currently being considered becomes law, furthermore, it may become easier than ever for regulators to coordinate their activities and to share information; but the lines of authority will not (as a general matter) become more sharply drawn. This Article raises several disadvantages that result from the increasing breadth of overlap, including erratic and inconsistent growth in the law, unpredictable law enforcement, a lack of accountability and responsibility for supervision, and some confusion among nonprofit counselors and the organizations they advise. It offers some suggestions for new lines and for redelineating authority along historical lines

Reasonable Behavior at the CFPB

The article focuses on deception in the marketplace and the role of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). It cites the novel The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair which portrays the truth in mortgage and purchase agreement. It states that CFPB was tasked to improve honesty and the quality of information in the marketplace

Substance Abuse at UCC Drafting Sessions

A few substance abusers start down the road to addiction with a single reckless experiment. Such was the case of Professor Doe , a consumer law specialist of my acquaintance. The entanglement of Professor Doe in the UCC drafting process began when he accepted what seemed like the harmless invitation of a friend to attend a single National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws ( NCCUSL ) drafting session in1990. Session after session followed. Soon he found himself in a descending spiral-attending study groups, legislative task forces, and conference programs being held in strange cities to debate a new or revised provision of some new or revised Article of the Uniform Commercial Code ( UCC ). In retrospect, it is apparent that Doe attended far more sessions than he ever thought he would-and far more than many Code experts and others in the legal profession now believe are prudent to maintain professional health and respectability.3 Doe conceded that each and every moment of these meetings was not glamorous or stimulating, but the cumulative effect was intoxicating. He was drawn into the orbit of the private legislatures, where he felt as though he had the power of a senator, or, at least, a senator\u27s aide. Doe experienced sensory highs as a result of his attendance at these sessions, but these sensations diminished in intensity as time passed. He told friends that with each new Revision project it became necessary to go deeper and deeper into his subject matter in pursuit of satiation. This became physically exhausting: the circulation of one revised draft after another-often with new alternative comments to previously redrafted alternative provisions, followed by debate that could last for a great many minutes, took its numbing toll. Doe exhausted more and more of his resources in efforts to replicate his initial ecstasy

Late Charges, Regular Billing, and Reasonable Consumers: A Rationale for a Late Payment Act

This article considers the reasonable behavior of consumers in relation to law and the policies that tolerate the assessment of late payment penalties, fees, and surcharges. Attention is trained principally on the inadequately-regulated cycle of creditor billing and debtor repayment practices, setting aside the problem of the magnitude of late fees. It is apparent from this study that the problems associated with late fee billing cycles cut a wide swath of recurring debt repayment—telephone, electricity, and water bills, for example—and, more importantly, this article argues that the variety of different demands on consumers interacts to magnify consumer difficulties. The article then identifies some common deficiencies in legal regimes that aid and abet those who send out bills, with attention to information-processing and other cognitive difficulties that arise from the late payment regime. It evaluates existing statutory and common-law causes of action through which consumers might hope to recover from billers who intentionally or recklessly diminish the likelihood that deadlines will be met, and, in light of deficiencies, proposes a Late Payment Act which could be adopted on a state- or nationwide basis to address key shortcomings

Forcing function control of Faraday wave instabilities in viscous shallow fluids

We investigate the relationship between the linear surface wave instabilities of a shallow viscous fluid layer and the shape of the periodic, parametric-forcing function (describing the vertical acceleration of the fluid container) that excites them. We find numerically that the envelope of the resonance tongues can only develop multiple minima when the forcing function has more than two local extrema per cycle. With this insight, we construct a multi-frequency forcing function that generates at onset a non-trivial harmonic instability which is distinct from a subharmonic response to any of its frequency components. We measure the corresponding surface patterns experimentally and verify that small changes in the forcing waveform cause a transition, through a bicritical point, from the predicted harmonic short-wavelength pattern to a much larger standard subharmonic pattern. Using a formulation valid in the lubrication regime (thin viscous fluid layer) and a WKB method to find its analytic solutions, we explore the origin of the observed relation between the forcing function shape and the resonance tongue structure. In particular, we show that for square and triangular forcing functions the envelope of these tongues has only one minimum, as in the usual sinusoidal case.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

Emigration of doctors, military and alternative service service Some proposals based on a survey of medical students

In the face of a critical shortage of skilled medical personnel, especially in the rural areas of South Africa, and high rates of emigration of doctors, a survey was conducted in 1989 of white male medical stl!dents at the University of the Witwatersrand to assess their intentions to emigrate, their reasons for emigrating and their attitudes to alternative civilian service. Ninety-five per cent of respondents still had military service obligations; 39% said they were considering emigrating. Military service was ranked as the first or second most important reason by 59% of those intending to emigrate and 47% said they would remain in South Africa if alternative service were available. The majority of those willing to do alternative service were also willing to do this in rural areas. The introduction of the option of alternative service would reduce emigration, increase the provision of medical care in rural areas, and acknowledge the right of individuals to serve the country in a non-militar: capacity