The Law, Corporate Finance, and Management v. 1.0 This is the book The Law, Corporate Finance, and Management (v. 1.0). This book is licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/ 3.0/) license. See the license for more details, but that basically means you can share this book as long as you credit the author (but see below), don't make money from it, and do make it available to everyone else under the same terms. This book was accessible as of December 29, 2012, and it was downloaded then by Andy Schmitz (http://lardbucket.org) in an effort to preserve the availability of this book. Normally, the author and publisher would be credited here. However, the publisher has asked for the customary Creative Commons attribution to the original publisher, authors, title, and book URI to be removed. Additionally, per the publisher's request, their name has been removed in some passages. 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You can browse or download additional books there. ii Table of Contents About the Authors................................................................................................................. 1 Acknowledgments................................................................................................................. 5 Preface..................................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Introduction to Law and Legal Systems ....................................................... 8 What Is Law?................................................................................................................................................... 9 Schools of Legal Thought ............................................................................................................................ 11 Basic Concepts and Categories of US Positive Law................................................................................... 17 Sources of Law and Their Priority.............................................................................................................. 23 Legal and Political Systems of the World .................................................................................................. 32 A Sample Case............................................................................................................................................... 34 Summary and Exercises .............................................................................................................................. 40 Chapter 2: Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics ............................. 44 What Is Ethics? ............................................................................................................................................. 46 Major Ethical Perspectives.......................................................................................................................... 52 An Ethical Decision Model........................................................................................................................... 63 Corporations and Corporate Governance.................................................................................................. 66 Summary and Exercises .............................................................................................................................. 78 Chapter 3: Courts and the Legal Process ....................................................................... 83 The Relationship between State and Federal Court Systems in the United States...............................85 The Problem of Jurisdiction........................................................................................................................ 92 Motions and Discovery .............................................................................................................................. 111 The Pretrial and Trial Phase ..................................................................................................................... 114 Judgment, Appeal, and Execution ............................................................................................................ 120 When Can Someone Bring a Lawsuit?...................................................................................................... 124 Relations with Lawyers.............................................................................................................................. 127 Alternative Means of Resolving Disputes ................................................................................................ 130 Cases ............................................................................................................................................................ 133 iii Chapter 4: Constitutional Law and US Commerce ..................................................... 141 Basic Aspects of the US Constitution ....................................................................................................... 142 The Commerce Clause ............................................................................................................................... 147 Dormant Commerce Clause....................................................................................................................... 154 Preemption: The Supremacy Clause ........................................................................................................ 159 Business and the Bill of Rights.................................................................................................................. 163 Cases ............................................................................................................................................................ 173 Summary and Exercises ............................................................................................................................ 195 Chapter 5: Administrative Law ...................................................................................... 200 Administrative Agencies: Their Structure and Powers ......................................................................... 201 Controlling Administrative Agencies....................................................................................................... 209 The Administrative Procedure Act .......................................................................................................... 212 Administrative Burdens on Business Operations ................................................................................... 215 The Scope of Judicial Review .................................................................................................................... 219 Cases ............................................................................................................................................................ 224 Summary and Exercises ............................................................................................................................ 231 Chapter 6: Criminal Law.................................................................................................. 236 The Nature of Criminal Law...................................................................................................................... 237 Types of Crimes .......................................................................................................................................... 240 The Nature of a Criminal Act .................................................................................................................... 250 Responsibility ............................................................................................................................................. 254 Procedure.................................................................................................................................................... 257 Constitutional Rights of the Accused....................................................................................................... 260 Cases ............................................................................................................................................................ 264 Summary and Exercises ............................................................................................................................ 271 Chapter 7: Introduction to Tort Law............................................................................. 276 Purpose of Tort Laws ................................................................................................................................. 277 Intentional Torts........................................................................................................................................ 283 Negligence .................................................................................................................................................. 292 Strict Liability............................................................................................................................................. 300 Cases ...........................................................................................................................................................