Email to Keenan Institute of Ethics faculty

From: RDShatt
To: pickus@duke.edu, wayne.norman@duke.edu, dan.ariely@duke.edu, eballeis@duke.edu
Sent: 11/25/2009 5:44:43 A.M. Central Standard Time

Subj: Keenan Institute of Ethics, Professor McGovern, and currency conversion

Dear Professors Pickus, Norman, Ariely, and Balliesen,

I emailed Professor Francis McGovern and a few other Duke law faculty members regarding a class action lawsuit in which Professor McGovern was retained as an expert witness.

I am a citizen activist against class action lawsuits, which was the prompt for my emails to Professor McGovern and the other law professors. (My emails are appended below.)

The reason I am emailing you is that I believe there is an important business ethics component in my stance against class action lawsuits, to wit, that they undermine business ethics. This article of mine Does the Civil Liability System Undermine Business Ethics? explicates my contention.

Based on your faculty profiles on the KIE website I think my argumentation is worthy of (i) thinking about by Professor Norman in connection with his current work "on a conception of business ethics arising out of the economic and legal theory of the firm," (ii) investigation by a behavioral economist such as Professor Ariely, and (iii) being a basis for a possible recommendation for improvement by Professor Balleisen after he completes his "history of commercial fraud in the United States, and especially organizational fraud against consumers and investors."

I hope my sending this email to you triggers an interest on your part.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Rob Shattuck

From: RDShatt
To: ________
Sent: 11/2_/2009 _______. Central Standard Time
Subj: Email to Professor McGovern

Dear Professor ________,

I am sending you this email (which concerns the below email I have sent to Professor McGovern) for the following reasons:

I am a citizen activist regarding the subject matter of my email to Professor McGovern.

I believe that Professor McGovern and other professors ought to be willing to express, for the benefit of the public, their opinions about significant policy questions in the realm of their expertise, such as that which I have inquired about of Professor McGovern in my email to him.

I have experience with an unwillingness of professors to give the public (for free) the benefit of their views on significant policy questions. (For some excruciating, lengthy detail, see this link to my blog: http://robertshattuck.blogspot.com/search/label/D1.%20WSJ%20project . )

Professor McGovern and other professors receive fees for lending their expertise in narrow ways and, by so doing, should not object, if a citizen activist such as myself, asks if they would be willing to state their views about a bigger picture of that which they have chosen to participate in and to support by their participation. (In this case, I have alleged that reprehensible skimming is going on, and, if that is a fair characterization, Professor McGovern is getting a fee out of that skimming.)

I hope Professor McGovern replies to me. He may not feel he is in a position to reply because to reply may improperly undercut what he was paid to do in the case in question.

I am writing you because you are a professorial colleague of Professor McGovern at the Duke University Law School, and the matter in question comes within your same realm of expertise as Professor McGovern's or within a pertinent realm of expertise that you have relative to legal, social, economics and/or ethics policy questions that are raised by the subject matter at hand. As a result, I do not have a hesitation to ask you as well what your views are, in the chance that you are willing to express them to me (which I will likely want to post in my blog).

I hope I hear from you in reply.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck




From: RDShatt
To: McGovern@law.duke.edu
Sent: 11/21/2009 7:54:46 A.M. Central Standard Time
Subj: Currency conversion fee litigation

Dear Professor McGovern,

Your faculty profile http://www.law.duke.edu/fac/mcgovern/ reveals very impressive work in the alternative dispute resolution arena, and you were retained as an expert in this currency conversion fee litigation http://www.ccfsettlement.com/, of which I received notice in 2007 that I was a member of the plaintiff class.

In 2007 I objected to the class action lawsuit in the form of this letter http://robertshattuck.blogspot.com/2007/11/september-2007-credit-card-currency.html that I wrote to Judge Pauley.

I understand that the litigation is now on appeal to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

I continue very perturbed about this class action litigation.

I would like to ask you, if you would, to read my letter to Judge Pauley and to make comment to me as to whether I, more as a citizen than as a class member, have legitimate grounds for my objections, and the extent to which you agree or not with my objections.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck