Sunday, January 29, 2006

Philosophy through corporations

One of the cases we covered in Corporations last week was a Delaware (a corporation in Delaware, whodathunkit?) case, MM Companies, Inc. v. Liquid Audio, Inc., 813 A.2d 1118 (Delaware, 2003).

I won't bore you with the details of the case. Instead, I'll relate part of the ruling the Court delivered: "One of the most venerable precepts of Delaware's common law corporate jurisprudence is the principle that 'inequitable action does not become permissible simply because it is legally possible.'"

If we expand that away from a strictly corporate setting, it sounds like a pretty good overarching philosophy, don't you think? Imagine in politics, punishing politicians for obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit. Or education, or medicine.

Perhaps a good way to restate the ruling is "integrity, doing what you know is right, is more important than doing all you can without breaking any laws."

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