A.P. Smith Mfg. Co. v. Barlow and Corporate Philanthropy
The backstory of a concocted test case
I’m working on a post on corporate philanthropy, but it occured to me that I should lay the groundwork for that post by talking about the leading “corporate social responsibility” case; i.e., A.P. Smith Mfg. Co. v. Barlow.1
It may be that living in Hollywood for the last three decades has influenced my thinking, but I love learning about the backstory to cases. I had the good fortune of contributing chapters to two collections of corporate law backstories:
Corporate Law Stories (Foundation Press 2009) (AMAZON LINK), to which I contributed a chapter on Smith v. Van Gorkom.
The Iconic Cases in Corporate Law (West Publishing 2008) (AMAZON LINK), to which I contributed a chapter on the US Supreme Court’s leading insider trading cases.
Corporate Law Backstories
Having lived in Hollywood (Or, more precisely, the Hollywood Hills) for the last 27 years, I’ve gotten to know a fair number of people in the “industry.” One of the things I find fascinating is the way showrunners and writers develop backstories that never make it on air but nevertheless are a key part of the world building process.
In my book, The Profit Motive: Defending Shareholder Value Maximization (AMAZON LINK), I had occasion to discuss the backstories to two leading cases on corporate social responsibility: Barlow and Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., cases that most Business Associations students have encountered at some point in corporate law studies.
I’ve written about Dodge here before:
Why I Still Teach Dodge v. Ford Motor Co.
I suspect most readers will be familiar with Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., possibly the most important corporate law case the Michigan Supreme Court ever decided (no offence to Michiganders in my audience; if you’re only going to have one, this is a pretty good one to have).
But Barlow in many ways is an even more fascinating case with a much more interesting backstory.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Bainbridge on Corporations to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.