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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Matter Of Facts: The Evolution Of Copyright’S Fact-Exclusion And Its Implications For Disinformation And Democracy, Jessica Silbey
A Matter Of Facts: The Evolution Of Copyright’S Fact-Exclusion And Its Implications For Disinformation And Democracy, Jessica Silbey
Faculty Scholarship
The Article begins with a puzzle: the curious absence of an express fact-exclusion from copyright protection in both the Copyright Act and its legislative history despite it being a well-founded legal principle. It traces arguments in the foundational Supreme Court case (Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service) and in the Copyright Act’s legislative history to discern a basis for the fact-exclusion. That research trail produces a legal genealogy of the fact-exclusion based in early copyright common law anchored by canonical cases, Baker v. Selden, Burrow-Giles v. Sarony, and Wheaton v. Peters. Surprisingly, none of them …
Making Meaning: Towards A Narrative Theory Of Statutory Interpretation And Judicial Justification, Randy D. Gordon
Making Meaning: Towards A Narrative Theory Of Statutory Interpretation And Judicial Justification, Randy D. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
The act of judging is complex involving finding facts, interpreting law, and then deciding a particular dispute. But these are not discreet functions: they bleed into one another and are thus interdependent. This article aims to reveal-at least in part-how judges approach this process. To do so, I look at three sets of civil RICO cases that align and diverge from civil antitrust precedents. I then posit that the judges in these cases base their decisions on assumptions about RICO's purpose. These assumptions, though often tacit and therefore not subject to direct observation, are nonetheless sometimes revealed when a judge …
Of Gangs And Gaggles: Can A Corporation Be Part Of An Association-In-Fact Rico Enterprise? Linguistic, Historical, And Rhetorical Perspectives, Randy D. Gordon
Of Gangs And Gaggles: Can A Corporation Be Part Of An Association-In-Fact Rico Enterprise? Linguistic, Historical, And Rhetorical Perspectives, Randy D. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
Over 30 years ago, courts of appeals began to hold that the RICO statute’s definition of association-in-fact enterprise is broad enough to include corporations as constituent members, even though that definition states that such an association is limited to a “group of individuals.” This Article demonstrates why these cases were wrongly decided from a variety of perspectives: linguistic, systemic and consequentialist. It also suggests a strategy for correcting this widespread interpretive error and provides evidence that the Supreme Court may be disposed to agree that the lower courts have uniformly erred.
The Warp And Woof Of Statutory Interpretation: Comparing Supreme Court Approaches In Tax Law And Workplace Law, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear
The Warp And Woof Of Statutory Interpretation: Comparing Supreme Court Approaches In Tax Law And Workplace Law, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear
Faculty Scholarship
Debates about statutory interpretation-and especially about the role of the canons of construction and legislative history-are generally framed in one-size-fits-all terms. Yet federal judges including most Supreme Court Justices-have not approached statutory interpretation from a methodologically uniform perspective. This Article presents the first in-depth examination of interpretive approaches taken in two distinct subject areas over an extended period of time. Professors Brudney and Ditslear compare how the Supreme Court has relied on legislative history and the canons of construction when construing tax statutes and workplace statutes from 1969 to 2008. The authors conclude that the Justices tend to rely on …
Liberal Justices' Reliance On Legislative History, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear
Liberal Justices' Reliance On Legislative History, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear
Faculty Scholarship
This Article presents a strong case against the conventional wisdom that legislative history is a "politicized'" resource, invoked opportunistically by federal judges. The premise that judges regularly rely on legislative history to promote their preferred policy positions-if true-should find ample support in the majority opinions of liberal Supreme Court Justices construing liberal (pro-employee) labor and civil rights statutes. By analyzing all 320-plus majority opinions in workplace law authored by eight liberal Justices from 1969-2006, the authors establish that legislative history reliance is actually associated with a constraining set of results. When the eight liberal Justices use legislative history as part …
Statutory Interpretation And The Intentional(Ist) Stance, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Daniel B. Rodriguez
Statutory Interpretation And The Intentional(Ist) Stance, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Daniel B. Rodriguez
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Lost In Translation: Social Choice Theory Is Misapplied Against Legislative Intent, Arthur Lupia, Mathew D. Mccubbins
Lost In Translation: Social Choice Theory Is Misapplied Against Legislative Intent, Arthur Lupia, Mathew D. Mccubbins
Faculty Scholarship
Several prominent scholars use results from social choice theory to conclude that legislative intent is meaningless. We disagree. We support our argument by showing that the conclusions in question are based on misapplications of the theory. Some of the conclusions in question are based on Arrow's famous General Possibility Theorem. We identify a substantial chasm between what Arrow proves and what others claim in his name. Other conclusions come from a failure to realize that applying social choice theory to questions of legislative intent entails accepting assumptions such as "legislators are omniscient" and "legislators have infinite resources for changing law …
Decline And Fall Of Legislative History - Patterns Of Supreme Court Reliance In The Burger And Rehnquist Eras, The, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear
Decline And Fall Of Legislative History - Patterns Of Supreme Court Reliance In The Burger And Rehnquist Eras, The, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear
Faculty Scholarship
Reliance on legislative history in the Court's majority opinions has fallen from nearly 50 percent during the Burger era to less than 30 percent since 1985.
Panel Iii: Congressional Control Of The Administration Of Government: Hearings, Investigators, Oversight, And Legislative History, Stephen Williams, Griffin Bell, L. Gordon Crovitz, Peter L. Strauss, Michael Davidson
Panel Iii: Congressional Control Of The Administration Of Government: Hearings, Investigators, Oversight, And Legislative History, Stephen Williams, Griffin Bell, L. Gordon Crovitz, Peter L. Strauss, Michael Davidson
Faculty Scholarship
My remarks will be the first on the panel to address the problems of legislative history. We have heard two quite illuminating discussions of congressional oversight activities, with which I largely agree philosophically. When one then reaches the questions of why is this happening, and whether anything can be done about it, the issues become more difficult. My remarks address some complications that may arise from the current distaste for legislative history that may make the oversight problem a little bit worse.