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Full-Text Articles in Law

“Unmistakably Clear” Coercion: Finding A Balance Between Judicial Review Of The Spending Power And Optimal Federalism, Dale B. Thompson Aug 2013

“Unmistakably Clear” Coercion: Finding A Balance Between Judicial Review Of The Spending Power And Optimal Federalism, Dale B. Thompson

San Diego Law Review

This Article proposes a new tier of scrutiny, “unmistakably clear,” for conducting judicial review of congressional authority under the Spending Clause. Under this standard, a condition would be unconstitutional only if it is unmistakably clear that it is coercive. In order to develop this proposal, this Article traces the debate over the spending power from the Federalist Papers up through the decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, finding strong arguments for granting significant deference to Congress’s Spending Clause authority. Careful analysis of the opinions in the case yields not only the name for the new standard of …


Joyless Life And Lifeless Joy: The Recovery Of Hedonic Damages By Plaintiffs In A Persistent Vegetative State, Alexandra Preece Aug 2013

Joyless Life And Lifeless Joy: The Recovery Of Hedonic Damages By Plaintiffs In A Persistent Vegetative State, Alexandra Preece

San Diego Law Review

This Comment focuses on the potential injustice to patients in a persistent vegetative state and the proper manner in which to handle these cases. Based on tort principles underlying the justification for the award of damages to plaintiffs, including deterrence and compensation, plaintiffs in a persistent vegetative state should be entitled to damages for loss of enjoyment of life. To allow for these awards, courts must separate loss of enjoyment of life from pain and suffering, thereby allowing vegetative plaintiffs who cannot prove that they are in pain to recover hedonic damages from their wrongdoers. Part II discusses the effects …


Reasonable Persons, Reasonable Circumstances, Christopher Jackson Aug 2013

Reasonable Persons, Reasonable Circumstances, Christopher Jackson

San Diego Law Review

The reasonable person test is a common thread that runs through the fabric of Anglo-American law. It has become such a common trope in legal discourse that it scarcely receives much attention in its own right. This Article analyzes one facet of the test that will yield significant benefits in understanding the subject as a whole: how we ought to go about determining which circumstances are relevant to the reasonable person inquiry. The Article will argue that the circumstances that ought to be part of the test will vary based on one’s underlying theoretical commitments: the reasonable person test is …


The Role Of The Federal Judge In The Constitutional Structure: An Originalist Perspective, Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain Aug 2013

The Role Of The Federal Judge In The Constitutional Structure: An Originalist Perspective, Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain

San Diego Law Review

Join me now in examining some of the structural features of our Constitution. And let’s do so by focusing upon cases that have come before my court—the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the second highest federal court in the land, inferior only to the Supreme Court of the United States. My goal is to present, in modest outline, an originalist perspective on the federal judge’s role, particularly my role as a circuit judge, in the constitutional order.


Holmes, Cardozo, And The Legal Realists: Early Incarnations Of Legal Pragmatism And Enterprise Liability, Edmund Ursin Aug 2013

Holmes, Cardozo, And The Legal Realists: Early Incarnations Of Legal Pragmatism And Enterprise Liability, Edmund Ursin

San Diego Law Review

The theory of enterprise liability is associated with the tort lawmaking of the liberal California Supreme Court of the 1960s and 1970s. Legal pragmatism, in turn, is associated with the conservative jurist Richard Posner. This Article explains that early incarnations of each can be found in the works of four giants in American law: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Judge—later Justice—Benjamin Cardozo, and the Legal Realists Leon Green and Karl Llewellyn. As will be seen, these scholars and judges shared a common view of the lawmaking role of courts. Stated simply, this shared view was that judges are lawmakers and policy …


Is Freedom Of Expression A Universal Right?, Larry Alexander Aug 2013

Is Freedom Of Expression A Universal Right?, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

The title of my Essay asks a question. If one were to go by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights —or by John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice and other quotidian works of liberal political and moral philosophy—the answer to the question is a resounding “yes.” Indeed, in the constellation of cherished liberal rights, freedom of expression is surely one of the brightest, if not the brightest, of its stars.


Hedge Fund Manager Registration Under The Dodd-Frank Act, Wulf A. Kaal Jun 2013

Hedge Fund Manager Registration Under The Dodd-Frank Act, Wulf A. Kaal

San Diego Law Review

Part I of this Article introduces the issue of hedge fund registration and the tension between regulators and the hedge fund industry regarding the appropriate level of regulatory oversight. After a short introduction of historical attempts to register hedge fund managers, Part II describes the legal requirements in the Dodd-Frank Act pertaining to hedge fund managers. Over fifty years of low-level regulatory oversight for the hedge fund industry came to an end with the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act. Part III outlines the methodological approach of the survey study. It introduces the survey instrument, data sources, sampling, coding, and coding …


The Spatial: A Forgotten Dimension Of Property, Paul Babie Jun 2013

The Spatial: A Forgotten Dimension Of Property, Paul Babie

San Diego Law Review

This Article explores, such a spatial turn in the case of property theory requires further elaboration and exploration. First, analytically, the spatial turn can be used to reassemble what we already know about property to recognize expressly the spatial dimension of property, thus revealing what has always been there but which has rarely been named and discussed: property emerges from, exists in, and is replicated through space. Second, and equally important, normatively, revealing the spatial dimension adds context to the social understanding of property and thereby allows us to see and encourage further exploration of the role of property as …


A Class Act? Social Class Affirmative Action And Higher Education, Maimon Schwarzschild Jun 2013

A Class Act? Social Class Affirmative Action And Higher Education, Maimon Schwarzschild

San Diego Law Review

Comparing class preferences with racial preferences helps to point up some of the reasons for the allure of class preferences but also points up some of the problems. A crucial consideration is the question of who is to receive class preference. For example, what about immigrants and their children? In general, social class is difficult to define, and this very difficulty would confer great discretion and power on faculties and academic administrators who undertake to bestow class preferences: discretion that would be open to abuse for political, ideological, and other ends. Finally, there is the question of whether preferential treatment …


Disparate Impact: Fairness Or Efficiency?, Larry Alexander Mar 2013

Disparate Impact: Fairness Or Efficiency?, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

Here is a stylized, simplified account of the disparate impact branch of discrimination law. Employer (E) uses certain criteria—which I shall call “the test”—to determine whom to employ. Those who qualify under the test may be disproportionately of a certain race, sex, national origin, or religion. I shall call those races, sexes, et cetera, that are disproportionately qualified under the test “the preferred,” and those races, sexes, et cetera, that are disproportionately unqualified under the test “the dispreferred.” In a disparate impact discrimination case—and again, I am simplifying somewhat, though immaterially—an employee candidate (C) who is both a member of …


Left To Their Own (Security) Devices: The Need For The California Legislature To Define Deeds Of Trust And Update California Civil Code Section 2932.5 In Accordance With The Modern Lien Theory, Joahua Norton Mar 2013

Left To Their Own (Security) Devices: The Need For The California Legislature To Define Deeds Of Trust And Update California Civil Code Section 2932.5 In Accordance With The Modern Lien Theory, Joahua Norton

San Diego Law Review

This Comment introduces how deeds of trust were developed to allow the lender to avoid the judicial process by engaging in a nonjudicial foreclosure. This Part also explains that the confusion in the courts arose because deeds of trust are not defined in the statutes that govern them. Part III describes the early understanding of deeds of trust in California common law under the title theory and how California courts have increasingly rejected the title theory in favor of the lien theory. Part IV introduces the rise of a private alternative to public recording of assignments of deeds of trust …


Rights Come With Responsibilities: Personal Jurisdiction In The Age Of Corporate Personhood, Roger M. Michalski Mar 2013

Rights Come With Responsibilities: Personal Jurisdiction In The Age Of Corporate Personhood, Roger M. Michalski

San Diego Law Review

This Article aims to reconnect corporate rights and obligations. It argues that courts must consider the availability and exercise of corporate rights when determining whether the corporation is amenable to suit in the forum. To make this novel argument, this Article begins by documenting the rise of corporate personhood, recently culminating in Citizens United v. FEC. Part II shows how the evolution of corporations now allows for the treatment of corporations as entities that can have political rights and political obligations. Part III argues that personal jurisdiction doctrine and scholarship has not acknowledged the rise of corporate personhood. Consequently, it …