The Evolution of Implied Warranties in Commercial Real Estate Leases

Landlord-tenant law has undergone a major change since it was first developed in England in the Middle Ages. During feudal times, the lease was considered a conveyance of real property. The landlord transferred possession of the property and in return the tenant paid rent. The lease covenants existed independently of each other. Thus, if the landlord breached the lease, the tenant was not relieved of his obligation to pay rent. The landlord owed no obligation to the tenant other than the assurance of quiet enjoyment of the property. The tenant bore all the risk of the physical condition of the property--caveat lessee. The tenant could provide for landlord repairs in the lease, but could not withhold rent if the landlord failed to make those repairs. Additionally, the tenant assumed primary responsibility for the condition of the premises once he took possession of the property. Thus, the landlord was not obligated to the tenant or to any third party for injuries resulting from defects in the property

Parsimonious Shifted Asymmetric Laplace Mixtures

A family of parsimonious shifted asymmetric Laplace mixture models is introduced. We extend the mixture of factor analyzers model to the shifted asymmetric Laplace distribution. Imposing constraints on the constitute parts of the resulting decomposed component scale matrices leads to a family of parsimonious models. An explicit two-stage parameter estimation procedure is described, and the Bayesian information criterion and the integrated completed likelihood are compared for model selection. This novel family of models is applied to real data, where it is compared to its Gaussian analogue within clustering and classification paradigms

The Case for a Texas Compulsory Unitization Statute.

Compulsory unitization of oil and natural gas reservoirs would substantially enhance the welfare of the United States and of Texas in particular. The present regulated free market for oil production produces both inefficiencies and inequities. Consequentially, oil exploration is discouraged, oil production is unnecessarily costly and wasteful, and the private distribution of oil revenues can be arbitrarily unfair. Compulsory unitization would remedy many of these shortcomings which result from extant structures. Unitization means the cooperative development of an entire reservoir of oil or gas. Compulsory unitization in most states also contains a variety of substantive and procedural prerequisites to unitization which unduly delay unitized operations or preclude them altogether. In many states, unitization is compelled only after a majority of rights owners\u27 petition for such action. Some states require approval by seventy-five percent of the owners overlying a reservoir. Additionally, most statutes also require a showing that unitization would produce a substantially increased recovery, or proof of unitization is cost beneficial. States place the burdens of proof on the proponents of compelled unitization. The primary virtue of unitization is the improved efficiency of oil production. This enhance efficiency is an important objective to pursue. While economic efficiency is generally a presumptively valuable end for government action, productive efficiency may be unusually important in the case of oil and gas production. Notwithstanding the importance of efficient oil and gas production, prevailing economic structures create considerable inefficiency. This system enables each individual to extract petroleum or natural gas resulting in an anarchic free-for-all which bears little resemblance to the free market of most goods. Unitization of oil fields will treat the cause of the market problem and cure the most serious inefficiencies

Fruit and vegetable consumption and bone mineral density; the Northern Ireland Young Hearts Project

BackgroundStudies examining the relation between bone mineral density (BMD) and fruit and vegetable consumption during adolescence are rare.ObjectiveOur objective was to determine whether usual fruit and vegetable intakes reported by adolescents have any influence on BMD.DesignBMD was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry at the nondominant forearm and dominant heel in a random sample of 12-y-old boys (n = 324), 12-y-old girls (n = 378), 15-y-old boys (n = 274), and 15-y-old girls (n = 369). Usual fruit and vegetable consumption was assessed by an interviewer-administered diet history method. Relations between BMD and fruit and vegetable intake were assessed by using regression modeling.ResultsUsing multiple linear regression to adjust for the potential confounding influence of physical and lifestyle factors, we observed that 12-y-old girls consuming high amounts of fruit had significantly higher heel BMD (β = 0.037; 95% CI: 0.017, 0.056) than did the moderate fruit consumers. No other associations were observed.ConclusionHigh intakes of fruit may be important for bone health in girls. It is possible that fruit's alkaline-forming properties mediate the body's acid-base balance. However, intervention studies are required to confirm the findings of this observational study