Digital Commons Network^™

Law School News: Professor Tara I. Allen Announced As Federal Public Defender 6-5-2024, Helga Melgar

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Duality In Contract And Tort, Tim Friehe, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We study situations in which a single investment serves the dual role of increasing the expected value of a contract (a reliance investment) and reducing the expected harm of a post-performance accident (a care investment). We show that failing to account for the duality of the investment leads to inefficient damages for breach of contract and inefficient standards for due care in tort. Conversely, we show that accounting for the duality yields contract damage measures and tort liability rules that provide correct incentives for efficient breach and reliance in contract and for efficient care in tort.

Washington Civil Jury Trials Via Zoom: Perspectives From The Bench, Marisa Pasnick

Washington Law Review

Many professions have felt the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, including the legal field. At the onset of COVID-19, many courthouses closed and trials halted, but as the pandemic continued, the need to resume judicial proceedings led courts to turn to virtual platforms to conduct civil jury trials. This Comment examines the response of judges in Washington State to the use of Zoom for conducting civil jury trials. Interviews with judges across Washington reveal a stark contrast in opinions among judges in different districts as well as within districts. This Comment answers the question of how judges feel about …

Veil Piercing In Singapore: A Proposed Approach, Ivan Wu Hwan Tang

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

Since 2013, the English courts have departed from the Singapore courts in their approach towards the doctrine of veil piercing. Notwithstanding this departure, as well as the general increase, over the years, in the number of cases in Singapore where veil piercing has been argued, the English approach has yet to be considered definitively by Singapore’s Court of Appeal. The other Singapore courts have thus generally also been unwilling and unable to decide on the applicability of the English approach in Singapore. Against this context, this article aims to consolidate and analyse the law on veil piercing in Singapore and …

The Effect Of Choice Of Court Agreements On Third Parties, Tiong Min Yeo

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

The effect of choice of court agreements on the exercise of jurisdiction of the Singapore court between contracting parties at common law has received clarification in Singapore law in recent years. The position is also clear under SICC Rules and the Choice of Court Agreements Act. The effect on third parties is less clear. In this article, the effect of choice of court agreements on the position of third parties under the legal regimes above will be considered, from the perspective of both conflict of laws and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act in domestic Singapore law. This article …

Leading The Way: The Ninth Circuit Orders Reconsideration Of Lead-Based Paint Hazard Regulations In A Community Voice V. Environmental Protection Agency, Bae-Corine Schulz

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Modern Energizer Bunny - Hopping Into The Nuclear Energy Revolution: The Tenth Circuit's Analysis In New Mexico Ex Rel. Balderas V. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Jack A. Mansur

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Houston, We Have A Problem: The D.C. Circuit Closes Pathway To National Judicial Review In Sierra Club V. Environmental Protection Agency, Alison O. Moyer

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Trying Out The Electronic Case Management System In The Uae And Its Compliance With Fundamental Judicial Guarantees, Abdulla A. Alkhatib

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

This study considers the Electronic Case Management System (ECMS) and the challenges it faces in achieving basic litigation guarantees, according to the legislation of the UAE, and comparing them with the practices followed by the judicial authorities. The importance of the study lies in the fact that electronic justice has replaced the traditional justice system, where all procedures from registering the case, submitting memoranda, conducting trials, issuing judgments, appealing, and implementing them are carried out through it remotely. This raised the question about the extent to which ECMS provides basic litigation guarantees, specifically the principles of equality, confrontation, defense, and …

Locke’S “Wild Indian” In United States Supreme Court Jurisprudence, Anthony W. Hobert Phd

American Indian Law Journal

This article explores the impact of John Locke’s Two Treatises on United States Indigenous property rights jurisprudence. After discussing Locke’s arguments, the article turns to the rationales of the first and last cases of the Marshall Trilogy—Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832)—arguing that, contrary to prevailing political theory, Marshall’s opinion for the Court in Johnson puts forth a fundamentally Lockean justification for the dispossession of Indigenous property. This article also provides a brief analysis of Marshall’s explicit Vattelian rationale in Worcester, commentary on recent developments regarding the precedents, and recommendations for reconciling them within contemporary …

No-Injury And Piggyback Class Actions: When Product-Defect Class Actions Do Not Benefit Consumers, Philip S. Goldberg, Andrew J. Trask

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Class counsel are more frequently filing product-based class actions that, whether successful or not, offer few practical benefits to real consumers or class members. These no-benefit class actions cause the unnecessary expense of the courts’ time and resources, and they often fail to provide actual value to class members while still producing substantial attorneys’ fees. This article explores why strategic vagueness in plaintiffs’ filings and a lack of vigorous analysis by the courts have allowed no-benefit class actions to unnecessarily consume court resources. The article concludes by offering suggestions for how courts can alleviate some of this pressure, primarily by …

Judges Should Be Discerning Consensus, Not Evaluating Scientific Expertise, David S. Caudill, Harry Collins, Robert Evans

University of Cincinnati Law Review

One of the most constructive critiques of the Daubert admissibility regime is Professor Edward Cheng’s recent proposal for a new Consensus Rule in the Federal Rules of Evidence. Rejecting the notion that judges and juries have the capacity to evaluate scientific expertise, Cheng’s proposal would eliminate Daubert hearings—and judicial gatekeeping concerning expert testimony—and require judges and juries, in their verdicts, to follow consensus in the relevant scientific community. Significantly, Cheng argues that judges and juries would have an easier time identifying consensus than they have in deciding between experts who disagree.

We find Cheng’s emphasis on consensus compelling, and …

Implied Consent In Administrative Adjudication, Grace Moore

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Article III of the Constitution mandates that judges exercising the federal judicial power receive life tenure and that their pay not be diminished. Nonetheless, certain forms of adjudication have always taken place outside of Article III—in state courts, military tribunals, territorial courts, and administrative tribunals. Administrative law judges, employed by various federal administrative agencies, decide thousands of cases each year. A vast majority of the cases they decide deal with public rights, which generally include claims involving federal statutory rights or cases in which the federal government is a party. With litigant consent, however, the Supreme Court has upheld administrative …

Self-Defense And Political Rage, Erin Sheley

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article considers how American political polarization and the substantive issues driving it raise unique challenges for adjudicating self-defense claims in contexts of political protest. We live in an age where roughly a quarter of the population believes it is at least sometimes justifiable to use violence in defense of political positions, making political partisans somewhat more likely to pose a genuine threat of bodily harm to opponents. Furthermore, the psychological literature shows that people are more likely to perceive threats from people with whom they politically disagree and that juries tend to evaluate reasonableness claims according to their own …

Equity's System Of Open-Ended Wrongs And Limited Remedies, Mark P. Gergen

Texas A&M Law Review

It is well-known that equity gives courts considerable discretion to override the normal operation of legal rules to prevent an injustice in a particular case. This Article shows equity combined this discretion with limited remedies (rescission, restitution, reformation, and estoppel), and that these limited remedies strike a balance between the value of doing justice in a particular case and the cost of destabilizing the law in a way that places a heavy thumb on the scale favoring stability over justice. Henry Smith has described equity as a “second-order safety valve.” Equity’s limited remedies make it a weak “second-order safety valve.” …

Resurrection, Bassim Al Shaker

Northwestern Law Journal des Refusés

No abstract provided.

American Legal Realism Today: An Idiosyncratic Restatement, Mark Tushnet

Northwestern Law Journal des Refusés

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Caroline Faye Radell, Udhanth Mallasani

Northwestern Law Journal des Refusés

No abstract provided.

Decoding Dobbs: A Typology To Better Understand The Roberts Court's Jurisprudence, Katie Yoder

Honors Projects

The U.S. Supreme Court first recognized Substantive Due Process (“SDP”) in the early twentieth century. In Lochner v. New York, the Court established that there are certain unenumerated rights that are implied by the Fourteenth Amendment.Though SDP originated in a case about worker’s rights and liberties, it quickly became relevant to many cases surrounding personal intimate decisions involving health, safety, marriage, sexual activity, and reproduction.Over the past 60 years, the Court relied upon SDP to justify expanding a fundamental right to privacy, liberty, and the right to medical decision making. Specifically, the court applied these concepts to allow for freedoms …

Unintended Consequences: The New Test For Interlocutory Mandatory Injunctions, Jeff Berryman

Brooklyn Law Review

Interlocutory mandatory injunctions can be an important remedy during the pendency of a trial. With its decision in R. v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp, the Supreme Court of Canada revised its test for an interlocutory mandatory injunction, holding that it should require a higher threshold and be therefore harder to obtain than an interlocutory prohibitive injunction. This higher threshold requires that the applicant demonstrate a strong prima facie case that it will succeed at trial based on law and evidence. This change adds uncertainty to the process, ultimately complicating and adding costs to litigation.

Nationwide Injunctions And The Administrative State, Russell L. Weaver

Brooklyn Law Review

Where an administrative regulation is deemed by a court to be illegal, unconstitutional, or otherwise invalid, courts sometimes issue nationwide injunctions. In other words, instead of holding that the regulation cannot be applied to the individuals before the court, the court prohibits the agency from applying the regulation anywhere in the country, including to others not before the court. This article explores the debate surrounding the appropriateness of nationwide injunctions. While at first glance such injunctions may seem to make sense, they can have serious consequences, including risk of abuse and forum shopping, amplification of erroneous decisions, and the negative …

Nonparty Litigation Holds: Clear To Implement. Complex To Lift., Alexis Bianco-Burrill

Brooklyn Law Review

Legal holds have long been used by parties, and nonparties alike, as a fundamental tool to preserve information that could be needed in litigation. There are a breadth of statutes, case law, and scholarly work clarifying when a party has the duty to preserve documents and therefore issues legal holds under federal law, as well as when nonparties share this same duty. Although the question of when to issue a legal hold has a clear answer, the problem of when a nonparty can lift a litigation hold is much more complex. Often, nonparties who have been requested to preserve documents …

Summary Eviction Proceedings As A Debt Collection Tool: How Landlords Use Serial Eviction Filings To Collect Rent, Grace Vetromile

Brooklyn Law Review

This note explores how landlords use housing court as a debt collection tool, impacting the rights of tenants and their ability to fairly adjudicate claims in summary eviction proceedings. Disparities in the number of evictions that are filed, as compared to evictions that are ultimately executed, indicate that landlords do not always use eviction proceedings to kick out a tenant, but rather as a method of debt collection. Using these proceedings in this manner affects a tenant’s ability to defend against eviction, even when the tenant has meritorious claims that their landlord did not provide a habitable apartment. This note …

Governance And Islam In East Africa: Muslims And The State In Kenya And Tanzania, Farouk Topan, Kai Kresse, Erin E. Stiles, Hassan Mwakimako

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Explores the relationship between Muslim communities and the State in East Africa in political, institutional and legal contexts

• Focuses on the relationship between Muslims and the State in Kenya and Tanzania
• Asks which factors, both within and outside the Muslim community, shape and affect this relationship in contemporary times
• Presents 13 case studies exploring governance issues within and across the categories of politics, institutions and law in Kenya and Tanzania
• Identifies cross-cutting issues of governance and Muslim communities which are relevant beyond East Africa

Recent studies of Muslims in Kenya and Tanzania have tended either to examine governance of Muslims …

Murder And A Mother’S Love: Understanding Maternal Altruistic Filicide And Reshaping The Legal System’S Approach To Mentally Ill Mothers Who Kill Their Children, Morgan Woodbridge

Journal of Law and Policy

Every year, thousands of children are killed by their parents. Some of these killings are committed by mentally ill mothers who believe that death is in their children's best interest. This category of killings is called maternal altruistic filicide. Numerous studies have found that mothers who commit altruistic filicide are severely mentally ill and have histories of psychiatric illness, trauma, and suicidality. Despite this, mothers who commit altruistic filicide are often railroaded through the criminal legal system without access to adequate mental health care. Traditional legal procedures designed to assist the mentally ill, such as the insanity defense or the …

“A Tale Of National Disgrace”: Applying The Doctrine Of Unconscionability To Establish The Impermissibility Of Secret Non-Prosecution Agreements, Denna Fraley

Journal of Law and Policy

Crime victims are directly harmed by crime and therefore have a stake in, and should be treated as individual participants in the criminal justice process. In recognition of this, Congress passed the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (“CVRA”) in 2004 to enumerate specific rights afforded to crime victims, including the rights to confer with the prosecutor in the case, to be heard at public court proceedings involving a plea or sentencing, to be informed in a timely manner of a plea bargain or deferred prosecution agreement, and to be treated with fairness and respect. Whether the CVRA extends these rights to …

Virtual Justice: A Complex Portrait Of Canadian Self-Represented Litigant Experiences With Virtual Hearings, Jennifer Leitch, Dayna Cornwall, David Lundgren

National Self Represented Litigants Project

“Virtual Justice: A complex portrait of Canadian self-represented litigant experiences with virtual hearings” is the result of a year-long project generously funded through a grant from the McLachlin Fund, with the goal of understanding the experiences of Canadian self-represented litigants (SRLs) with virtual hearings since the onset of the pandemic, when such processes began to dramatically increase and become much more common.

Using a survey and focus groups, we gathered data from many SRLs with experiences across jurisdictions and types of legal matter. The results reflect the fact that SRLs’ experiences with virtual hearings are, in fact, quite varied. Approximately …

Nato Allies On The Brink Of War: The Cause For Implement-Ing A Dispute Resolution Mechanism Within The North Atlantic Treaty, Samantha Solomotis

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

NATO is the largest peacekeeping military alliance in the world and is not yet done growing. Recent events in Ukraine have reinforced the importance of NATO as a defensive alliance. New threats, both internal and external, are emerging. Intra-alliance conflicts over ideological agreements, border disputes, and member contributions put the fate of the organization at risk. To retain its strength as it grows, NATO must develop stronger cohesion between member states to ensure effectiveness and prevent dissolution. This Note uses the recently reignited conflict between Greece and Turkey—NATO members and belligerent neighbors—to demonstrate the pressing need and peacekeeping utility of …

A Qualitative Exploration Of Social Capital And Its Influence On Baccalaureate Degree Completion Of First-Generation African American Men At The University Of Louisville., Joseph Marshall Goodman Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative dissertation was designed to examine influences which various forms of social capital have on post-secondary degree attainment of first-generation individuals who self-identify as African American men. Additionally, the sample population consisted of Black men who successfully matriculated to earn baccalaureate credentials across differing academic disciplines at a public historically White institution located in the mid-south region of the United States. The research data was extracted from one-on-one, semi-structured interviews using authentic dialogue through open-ended questions. Theoretical paradigms of the study involved a phenomenological approach and an ontological philosophical assumption, integrated with critical theory, critical race theory and social …

Amendment 80 And The Effects On Arkansas Supreme Court Elections, Sydney Kincaid

Political Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 2001, Amendment 80 was implemented into the Arkansas Constitution. One part of this Amendment was changing statewide judicial elections from being partisan to nonpartisan. This research project seeks to analyze the impact of Amendment 80 on Arkansas Supreme Court elections. The research considers how three components of elections have been impacted by the Amendment which are diversity of candidates, level of competition, and voter turnout. Data collection was conducted for all Arkansas Supreme Court elections from 2002-2022. The information that was collected includes election records as well as descriptive characteristics of candidates including race, gender, raw vote, opposed versus …