Hunter College
of the
City University of New York
Department of Economics
695 Park Avenue, New
York, NY 10021
Syllabus
Business Law II (ECO 380) Spring
2002 Saturday mornings
Instructor:
Dean
L. Surkin, Esq., Adjunct Assistant Professor
Rosen
Seymour Shapss Martin & Company, LLP
757
Third Avenue
New
York, NY 10017-2049
Phone:
(212) 303-1887; Fax: (914) 206-3711
Internet:
dsurkin@optonline.net; dsurkin@rssmcpa.com
Web
site: www.surkinlaw.com
Office
hours:
By
appointment, during regular business hours
Required
and Recommended Materials:
Required Textbook: Mallor,
Barnes, Bowers, Phillips, & Langvardt, Contemporary
Business Law and the Legal Environment, Publisher: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Course Description
This course is a continuation of Business Law I, concentrating on the law of agency and business entities.
Prerequisite
The prerequisite for this course is ECO 280, ECO
220 or MATH 150. Students who have
not attained a grade of C or higher in the prerequisite course will be dropped
from this course by the Registrar’s Office.
Course Objectives
To teach substantive business law, how to analyze a business situation, how to recognize business law issues, how to learn the applicable business law for a situation the student has never before encountered, and ultimately to learn the political and social shaping of the law. Students will address ethical issues in law as they relate to each topic.
Procedure for students
with disabilities who wish to obtain accommodations or auxiliary aids for this
course
I have a policy to try to accommodate any disabled student. Please schedule an appointment with me and a department representative, if needed, to arrange accommodations and auxiliary aids.
Course requirements and grading
Exams: There will be a midterm and a final. The
midterm will likely be in-class (but may be take-home) and the final will be in
class. All exams are open book, and all students will be on the honor system,
particularly for the take-home midterm, if any ( no student may share notes
after the exam has been handed out). Any take-home exam will likely comprise
essay/computational problems, and any in-class exam will be multiple choice.
Components of the final grade: Each exam will be
40% of the final grade, and class participation will be 20% of the grade. See
below for a discussion of class participation. Penalties for late work: The
only assignment to which this applies is the midterm; you will lose points for
late work. (10 points per day)
The midterm must be handed to me or delivered to
my office to be timely. If you put it in my on-campus mail box, I may not get
it until next week, since I am adjunct faculty. Therefore, you will be
penalized for seven days lateness.
Attendance policy: Class attendance is vital to
understand the course work. If you must miss a class, you don't have to tell
me – just have a classmate tape the lecture, or loan you notes (make sure you
have a friend who takes good notes).
Class participation: The burden of learning is
yours. If you have ever tried to teach something, you will understand this
little gem of philosophy. I use a modified Socratic method, combined with some
lecturing. The Socratic method means that I ask you questions, and you answer
them. Based upon your answers, I ask different questions. Ideally, my questions
will guide you to an understanding of the topic. For this to work, you must do all assigned reading before the class session, and work out
all the assigned problems, if any. Do not hand in the homework, but use your
answers as a guide to the class dialogues. I will call on you each, in turn.
You will learn best if you are prepared. Your
answer does not have to be right. I recognize effort. I do not expect you
to know the correct answers, and in fact, we will have the best dialogues if
your answer is a well thought-out wrong answer. You have to pay close attention
to my dialogues with other students, and not doze off when I have not called on
you: you will also learn well if you can follow another student’s mistakes and
determine what he or she did wrong, and why. You will get a good grade for
class participation if you try. You will get a bad grade if you are unprepared.
Course Schedule
Because the Socratic method takes varying amounts of time depending upon class size or student enthusiasm, I cannot tell you exactly when we will cover each of the units below. My goal is to do about one chapter per week,.
Assignments:
Agency
Chapter 34, The Agency
Relationship
Chapter 35, Third Party
Relations of the Principal and Agent
Business Organizations
Chapter 36, Introduction to Forms of Business and
Formation of Partnership
Chapter 37, Operation of
Partnerships and Related Forms
Chapter 38, Partners’ Dissociation and Partnerships’ Dissolution and Winding Up
Chapter 39, Limited
Partnerships, Limited Liability Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability
Companies
Chapter 40, History and
Nature of Corporations
Chapter 41, Organization, Financial Structure and Dissolution of Corporations
Chapter 42, Management of
Corporations
film: Roger & Me
Chapter 43, Shareholders’ Rights and Liabilities
Chapter 44, Securities Regulation
Chapter 45, Legal Responsibilities of Accountants
Breaking news: the Enron case
Chapters 46 et seq.,
as time permits
Estates
Chapter 26, Estates and Trusts, as time permits