And doesn't it sound just like our 19-and 20-year-old students who don't want to be held responsible for any of their actions or decisions?
Happy Holidays and break, everyone.
Laura

-----Original Message-----
From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Oswald, Lynda
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 7:59 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: GREAT discussion for contracts class

This is a great article, posing lots of interesting issues. One of the things that really struck me when I read the article is how there are arguments being made at both ends of the age spectrum that youth or old age should excuse certain legal actions. The elderly man being profiled in the article had refinanced his house on extremely unfavorable terms with a very young mortgage broker, which ended up in the elderly man losing his home and almost of all of his equity in it:

"Mortgage broker Alex Arleo, in an interview, said he was only 19 years old when he bought Pyle's house with no money down, and that he became a mortgage broker instead of going to college because it offered a quick route to wealth. He said that his youth should excuse his actions.
  'I don't know anything about laws or anything like that,' said Arleo, who  is now 20."


I can see the complex legal and societal issues posed by addressing the needs of elderly people who may or may not have diminished decision-making abilities but who wish to retain as much personal autonomy as possible. To see a young adult who has deliberately decided to embark on a career as a mortgage broker argue that his errors in judgment should be excused because of his youth, however, just smacks to me of the culture of victimization that seems prevalent in today's society. Surely if you are old enough to legally act as a mortgage broker, you are old enough to take legal responsibility for your actions.  Otherwise, we would need to impose a minimum age requirement for such professions -- and what age should be that be? 21? 25? 30?

I saved the article for my real estate law class this term, and I can foresee some very interesting class discussion coming out of all of it.



________________________________

From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of Marsha Hass
Sent: Mon 12/24/2007 4:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: GREAT discussion for contracts class



Should Older Individuals Be Entitled to a "Second Childhood"?


  <http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/12/24/elderly.jpg> As more individuals survive for longer periods of time, these individuals have increasingly become the victims of various scams.  Should they have a defense of "old age" just like a young individual has the defense of "minority."

This is one of the issues discussed in Charles Duhigg, Shielding Money Clashes With Elders' Free Will <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/business/24golden.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin> , NY Times, Dec. 24, 2007, from which the following excerpts are taken:

        In the last few years, thousands of older Americans * * * have filed suits against companies and salespeople who have promoted dubious offers and schemes. These suits are unusual because the victims typically do not say they were intimidated or lied to, and they concede they freely made what turned out to be unwise decisions.

        But because the plaintiffs are older, they argue, they should be less accountable for their mistakes.

        These lawsuits raise controversial questions: In the eyes of the law, should the elderly be treated like adolescents, who are not entirely responsible for their poor decisions, but are also barred from making certain choices on their own? Or should they have autonomy, and therefore be accountable for their blunders?

        "Figuring out how to protect senior citizens from victimization, even when it's caused by their own mistakes, is one of the most important issues facing us right now," said Sharon Merriman-Nai of the National Center on Elder Abuse. "If we don't solve this, millions of older people will suddenly be reliant on their families or the government."

        "But we also have to figure out how to balance our desire to protect vulnerable seniors with their rights to autonomy," Ms. Merriman-Nai said. * * *

        "There is no business on earth that can function if its customers can say, 'I'm tired of abiding by this contract, so I want out because I'm old,'"  [Terry J. Dyer] added. * * *

        "If the law says that anyone over 65 is suddenly mentally incapacitated, then older people will have trouble buying homes or cars or country club memberships or insurance policies," said Frank Keating <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/frank_keating/index.html?inline=nyt-per> , chief executive of the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade organization.

        Advocates for the elderly, however, say there has to be some kind of recognition that older consumers are more vulnerable.

        "We know that, statistically, seniors are at enormous risk for fraud," said A. Kimberley Dayton of the Center for Elder Justice and Policy at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul. "It's foolish to ignore that. But there's also a huge dilemma in determining when someone is just being eccentric, versus someone who is a victim of undue influence."

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