Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%

Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.

COURT WATCH

By Rupert M. Barkoff
January 04, 2006

Procedural Matters Rule in Several Recent Franchisor-Franchisee Disputes

Bring back the days when the reported decisions were filled with cases concerning disputes over the quality of the franchise system and whether the parties had complied with their respective obligations to make the franchise relationship work. A seagull's view of the recent decisions involving franchise relationships suggests that even though most of the text of a franchise agreement is devoted to describing the parties' rights and obligations relating to the granting, construction, and operation of the franchise, when the franchise relationship becomes fractured, the field of battle more often than not moves not to the substantive relationship of the parties, but to what might be termed the legalese portions of the franchise agreement and procedural matters ' arbitration, jurisdiction, statutes of limitations, whether preliminary injunctions should be granted, choice of forum, and choice of state law ' to name only a few of these non-substantive issues. The meat of the franchise relationship becomes secondary. The cynic in our audience might say that the sideshows at the circus have moved to center ring.

Read These Next
Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It Image

Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?

Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough Image

There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.

The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year Later Image

The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.

A Lawyer's System for Active Reading Image

Active reading comprises many daily tasks lawyers engage in, including highlighting, annotating, note taking, comparing and searching texts. It demands more than flipping or turning pages.

Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent Trolls Image

With trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.