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From: FAC2476@UOFT01.BITNET (Dave Massey (419) 537-4614)
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Date: 5 Feb 90 16:29:13 GMT
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RE:   "OLD CASES"

Dear John:

  I am a lawyer, and a professor of business law, so I am more than a
little biased on this issue, but I think you are missing an important
fact.  I also note that you are writing from Yale, which explains your
orientation.  This is not to disparage Yale, certainly it is one of
the finest institutions in the world.  However, Yale is famous for
its qualitative approach to business studies.  This is in sharp
contrast, for example, to Harvard, which is quantitative. (I make no
value judgment as to which is better, I merely state the fact.)

  Personnel Management and/or Administration is not Management as I
understand the term.  It is something which touches Management, but
encompasses much more.  Among that "much more" is a healthy dose of
law.  OSHA, ERISA, EPA, Taft-Hartley, Norris LaGuardia, Wagner.
Do any of these sound familiar?  If you are a Personnel major, and
not Management in the traditional sense, these names and acronyms
should be like old friends to you.

  But Laws do not exist as statutes alone.   The life of law is in
its application and interpretation.  And, of course, who applies and
interprets law?  COURTS!  How or when do they do so?  IN COURT CASES.
Now, one could attempt to understand the law by simply looking at the
statutes, but that would be like trying to learn to fly by looking at
an airplane.  In order to fly that plane, you must be familiar with
its operation.

In order to make a personnel program fly, you must understand the life
of the laws governing personnel.  Without that understanding, your
personnel department will become the Exxon Valdiz of your corporation.
One acquires this understanding by examining how the courts apply laws
to real situations.

  Now, you might say, if all that is so, then why don't we just look
at current cases and not all those archaic ones.  Back to the airplane
analogy.  You don't begin designing airplanes by examining a B-1 or
a Concorde.  If you can't get past the fundamentals, advanced design
is unthinkable.  The law is that way.  It didn't spring fully developed
from the brow of William Rehnquist last term.  It represents a long
history of accretion.  To understand fully the cases from the last
term, you must see how we got to those cases in the first place.

  So, get thee to Kitty Hawk, Personnel Administrator.

Dave Massey
Adjunct Assistant Professor
  of Legal Studies
University of Toledo
College of Business