Law Commons^™

Seamen, Railroad Employees, And Uber Drivers: Applying The Section 1 Exemption In The Federal Arbitration Ace To Rideshare Drivers, Conor Bradley

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA or the Act) exempts “seamen, railroad employees, [and] any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” from arbitration. In 2019, the Supreme Court held in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira that this provision exempted independent contractors as well as employees. This decision expanded the reach of the section 1 exemption and may affect the relationship between ridesharing companies, such as Uber, and their drivers. Previously, ridesharing companies argued that courts must enforce the arbitration clauses in their employment contracts because their workers were independent contractors and, therefore, section 1 …

Making A Reasonable Calculation: A Strategic Amendment To The Idea, Hetali M. Lodaya

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) lays out a powerful set of protections and procedural safeguards for students with disabilities in public schools. Nevertheless, there is a persistent debate as to how far schools must go to fulfill their mandate under the IDEA. The Supreme Court recently addressed this question with its decision in Endrew F. v. Douglas Cty. School District Re-1, holding that an educational program for a student with a disability must be “reasonably calculated” to enable a child’s progress in light of their circumstances. Currently, the Act’s statutory language mandates Individual Education Program (IEP) teams …

The "Scourge" Of Armed Check Fraud: A Constitutional Framework For Prohibited Possessor Laws, Jeffrey Giancana

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Prohibited possessor statutes have been a part of American law for decades. Put simply, these laws prohibit any person who has been convicted of a felony from possessing a firearm, a prohibition that lasts for the felon’s entire life. The Supreme Court’s modern Second Amendment jurisprudence has held that the right to possess a firearm is a fundamental individual right. In light of this new paradigm, the constitutionality of such broad prohibitions must be called into question—despite the eagerness of courts across the country to dismiss such challenges by pointing to a single line in Heller. This Note challenges the …

Restoring A Willingness To Act: Identifying And Remedying The Harm To Authorized Employees Ignored Under Hoffman Plastics, Rita Trivedi

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Article provides a background for both the NLRA and the IRCA. It examines the goals and remedies of both statutes as well as the impact of the Supreme Court’s Hoffman decision on available remedies.

Part II addresses the currently-skewed remedial incentives. It considers why employers are tempted to hire unauthorized workers and commit unfair labor practices that are then inadequately remedied, which creates a situation that adversely effects the rights of authorized employees.

Part III more closely analyzes this consequential harm. This Part identifies the erosions on the NLRA’s collective nature and the impact on authorized …

No More Quid Pro Quo: Abandoning The Personal Benefit Requirement In Insider Trading Law, Shannon Seiferth

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A circuit split between the Second Circuit’s 2014 decision, United States v. Newman, and the Ninth Circuit’s 2015 decision, United States v. Salman, illustrates problems in insider trading law dating back over thirty years to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dirks v. SEC. Dirks held that when a corporate insider provides information to an outside party who then trades on the information, it must be shown that the insider received some form of a personal benefit for providing the information in order to impute liability. The courts in Newman and Salman disagreed on the sort of evidence …

Employment Arbitration Reform: Preserving The Right To Class Proceedings In Workplace Disputes, Javier J. Castro

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The recent judicial enforcement of class waivers in arbitration agreements has generated ample debate over the exact reach of these decisions and their effects on the future of collective action for consumers and employees. In AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court majority held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempted state laws prohibiting companies from incorporating class action waivers into arbitration agreements. The Court upheld such waivers on the grounds that they are consistent with the language and underlying purpose of the FAA. Most courts across the country have since reinforced the strong federal policy …

Retroactivity And Crack Sentencing Reform, Harold J. Krent

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues that the strong presumption against retroactive application of reduced punishments articulated in the Supreme Court’s recent decision, Dorsey v. United States, is neither historically grounded nor constitutionally compelled. Although not dispositive in Dorsey, the presumption may mislead legislatures in future contexts, whether addressing marijuana decriminalization or lessened punishment for file sharing, and in no way should signal to Congress that future changes should apply prospectively only. Although the Court reached the right result in applying the reduction in punishment for crack offenses to offenders whose sentences had not been finalized, the Court relied excessively on the general …

Categorically Black, White, Or Wrong: 'Misperception Discrimination' And The State Of Title Vii Protection, D. Wendy Greene

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article exposes an inconspicuous, categorically wrong movement within antidiscrimination law. A band of federal courts have denied Title VII protection to individuals who allege “categorical discrimination”: invidious, differential treatment on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, or sex. Per these courts, a plaintiff who self-identifies as Christian but is misperceived as Muslim cannot assert an actionable claim under Title VII if she suffers an adverse employment action as a result of this misperception and related animus. Though Title VII expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, courts have held that such a plaintiff’s claim of “misperception …

To Skin A Cat: Qui Tam Actions As A State Legislative Response To Concepcion, Janet Cooper Alexander

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court's decision in Concepcion is widely regarded as heralding the demise of small-claims class actions whenever contracts of adhesion are involved in the transaction-which means for virtually all consumer and employment claims. Amending the Federal Arbitration Act to overturn Concepcion would be a relatively simple exercise in legislative drafting, but in the current political climate such efforts are unlikely to succeed. Thus far, proposed federal corrective legislation has failed to pass, and federal agency regulation of class waivers has been lacking. State legislatures might have the political ability to pass corrective legislation, but virtually all state limitations on …

Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing Of The Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution, David Korn, David Rosenberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion entrenched a potent structural and systemic bias in favor of defendants. The bias arises from the parties' divergent stakes in the outcome of the common question litigation in individual arbitrations: each plaintiff will only invest to maximize the value of his or her own claim, but the defendant has an incentive to protect its entire exposure and thus will have a classwide incentive to invest more in contesting common questions. …

Model-Based Pricing In Hurricane Insurance: A Case Study For Judicial Reform Of The Mccarran-Freguson Act, Benjamin Holland Able

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The McCarran-Ferguson Act (MFA) exempts various aspects of state insurance operations from federal antitrust enforcement. This exemption is a source of longstanding controversy, due in part to its potentially harmful effect on consumers in product pricing. In hurricane insurance, there is a burgeoning debate concerning insurers' use of predictive computer models rather than shared loss data to set premiums for the industry. By using these models in hurricane-prone states, insurers have increased the price of hurricane insurance dramatically. Where these new prediction methods are used, MFA exemption may facilitate supracompetitive pricing in ways its architects could not have foreseen. This …

Collateral Review Of Career Offender Sentences: The Case For Coram Nobis, Douglas J. Bench Jr.

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Occasionally, criminals correctly interpret the law while courts err. Litigation pursuant to the federal Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) includes numerous examples. The ACCA imposes harsher sentences upon felons in possession of firearms with prior "violent felony" convictions. Over time, courts defined "violent" so contrary to its common meaning that it eventually came to encompass driving under the influence, unwanted touching, and the failure to report to correctional facilities. However, in a series of recent decisions, the Supreme Court has attempted to clarify the meaning of violent in the context of the ACCA and, in the process, excluded such offenses. …

Duty Of Fair Representation Jurisprudential Reform: The Need To Adjudicate Disputes In Internal Union Review Tribunals And The Forgotten Remedy Of Re-Arbitration, Mitchell H. Rubinstein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

One of the best kept secrets in American labor law is that duty of fair representation jurisprudence simply does not work. It does not work for plaintiff union members because they must satisfy a close-to-impossible burden of proof and have a short statute of limitations window in which to assert their claim. It does not work for defendant unions because they are often forced to file pointless grievances in order to avoid the cost of litigation. It does not work for defendant employers because they are often brought into these lawsuits because they have the "deep pockets."

This Article makes …

From "Navigable Waters" To "Constitutional Waters": The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation, Mark Squillace

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Wetlands regulation in the United States has a tumultuous history. The early European settlers viewed wetlands as obstacles to development, and they drained and filled wetlands and swamps at an astounding rate, often with government support, straight through the middle of the twentieth century. As evidence of the ecological significance of wetlands emerged over the last several decades, programs to protect and restore wetlands became prominent. Most notable among these is the permitting program under section 404 of the Clean Water Act. That provision prohibits dredging or filling of "navigable waters, " defined by law to mean "waters of the …

Three Steps And You're Out: The Misuse Of The Sequential Evaluation Process In Child Ssi Disability Determinations, Frank S. Bloch

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program provides cash benefits to financially needy persons who are 65 years of age or older, blind, or disabled. It also provides cash benefits to children with disabilities under the age of 18. This Article examines three sets of regulatory efforts to implement special disability standards for children, based first on the original SSI legislation, then on a seminal Supreme Court decision, and finally on amendments to the Social Security Act overruling the Court's decision, and shows how the "sequential evaluation process," which has been useful for adjudicating adult disability claims, has been a …

Ghost Workers In An Interconnected World: Going Beyond The Dichotomies Of Domestic Immigration And Labor Laws, Ruben J. Garcia

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Beginning with the September 11, 2001 ("9/11 ") terrorist attacks, the labor movement's plans to organize immigrant workers and achieve immigration reform have met serious challenges. After 9/11, the political climate surrounding immigrants put the AFL-CIO s hopes for legislative reform on hold, because of socially perceived connections between immigrants and terrorism. Then, in a March 2002 decision titled Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, the U.S. Supreme Court held that undocumented immigrant workers could not collect back pay under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when their rights to join unions are violated. According to the Court, back pay …

Constitutional Doctrine As Paring Tool: The Struggle For "Relevant" Evidence In University Of Alabama V. Garrett, Pamela Brandwein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines the difficulties involved in translating the social model of disability into the idiom of constitutional law. The immediate focus is University of Alabama v. Garrett. Both parts of this Article consider how disability rights claims collide with a discourse of legitimacy in constitutional law. Part I focuses on the arguments presented in several major Briefs filed in support of Garrett. Constitutional doctrines are conceived as paring tools and it is shown how the Court used these doctrines to easily pare down the body of evidence Garrett's lawyers sought to claim as relevant in justifying the ADA …

The Imperial Sovereign: Sovereign Immunity & The Ada, Judith Olans Brown, Wendy E. Parmet

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Professors Brown and Parmet examine the impact of the Supreme Court's resurrection of state sovereign immunity on the rights of individuals protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act in light of the recent decision, Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett. Placing Garrett within the context of the Rehnquist Court's evolving reallocation of state and federal authority, they argue that the Court has relied upon a mythic and dangerous notion of sovereignty that is foreign to the Framers' understanding. Brown and Parmet go on to show that, by determining that federalism compels constraining congressional power to …

Envisioning A Future For Age And Disability Discrimination Claims, Alison Barnes

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article considers the reasons for reinterpretations of age and disability and examines the fundamental reasons for changes in the implementation of both the ADA and ADEA. Part I presents the basic structure and relevant requirements of the two statutes and comments on the reasons their legislative purposes are not often seen as overlapping. Part II discusses the recent Supreme Court decisions that have undermined the purposes and implementation of both the ADA and ADEA and chilled causes of action based on the ADA and ADEA. Part III projects the current problems with anti-discrimination causes into the future, when older …

The Emerging Role Of The Quid Pro Quo Requirement In Public Corruption .Prosecutions Under The Hobbs Act, Peter D. Hardy

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note discusses the quid pro quo requirement under the Hobbs Act, a federal criminal statute which applies to bribery by public officials. The author first describes two recent decisions by the Supreme Court, McCormick v. United States and Evans v. United States, which established slightly different versions of a quid pro quo requirement in public corruption prosecutions under the Hobbs Act. The author then explains that the lower federal courts interpreting McCormick and Evans have molded the quid pro quo requirement so that a prosecutor must prove in all public corruption cases under the Hobbs Act that the …

Public Official's Qualified Immunity In Section 1983 Actions Under Harlow V. Fitzgerald And Its Progeny: A Critical Analysis, Stephen J. Shapiro

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Article discusses the development of immunities in section 1983 actions. Part II examines the application of Harlow and its progeny to a variety of situations. This discussion shows that broadened qualified immunity produces anomalous results under some circumstances by granting immunity to officials who have acted in a clearly culpable manner. Part III discusses the appropriateness of the Harlow standard and determines that it is neither supported by the legislative history of section 1983 nor by legitimate policy concerns. Finally, Part IV proposes several solutions that would protect deserving public officials from personal damage liability without …

Hard-Core Pornography: A Proposal For A Per Se Rule, Bruce A. Taylor

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Article discusses the history and pervasiveness of the pornography problem. Part II explains the current legal test for obscenity, as evolved from Miller v. California, with an emphasis on terms commonly used in the definition of obscenity. Part III examines the problems in applying Miller that suggest that the application of a per se hard-core pornography rule may be appropriate. Finally, Part IV presents a proposal for a per se hard-core pornography rule, similar to child pornography laws existing in many jurisdictions and upheld by the Supreme Court in New York v. Ferber. This Article concludes …

At-Large Elections And Vote Dilution: An Empirical Study, Richard A. Walawender

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The 1982 amendments to the Act, however, have remained a subject of controversy. Opponents of the Act misperceive municipal at-large electoral systems, believing they provide as much minority representation as single-member district systems. This Note addresses that misperception with data showing that at large schemes provide significantly less minority representation than other schemes. The various standards used by federal courts in reviewing the constitutionality of at-large election systems are outlined in Part I. Part II sets forth an analysis of Congress's response to the judicial ambivalence toward at-large elections- the 1982 amendments to section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. …

The Bottom Line Limitation To The Rule Of Griggs V. Duke Power Company, James P. Scanlan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this article analyzes the background to the Teal decision and the treatment by the majority and dissent of the issue known in employment discrimination law as the "bottom line" limitation to the disparate impact theory of employment discrimination. Part II explains why, for reasons beyond those considered by the Teal majority, not only was the Court's rejection of the bottom line theory manifestly correct, but a contrary result would have had grievous consequences. Part III then argues for a similar rejection of the bottom line limitation in those situations where most observers have taken for granted that …

The Canons Of Indian Treaty And Statutory Construction: A Proposal For Codification, Jill De La Hunt

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that the canons of construction should play a central role in the interpretation of Indian treaties and statutes. The Note proposes revitalization of the canons through congressional action codifying the rules of construction into federal law. Part I traces the historical development of the canons to further the federal-Indian trust relationship. Part II analyzes recent Supreme Court decisions that demonstrate decreased use of the canons. Part III argues that strong canons of construction are necessary to the development of self-determining Indian tribes and proposes federal legislation to ensure the continued vitality and importance of the canons of …

Affirmative Duty And Constitutional Tort, Michael Wells, Thomas A. Eaton

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues that the Bowers principle is wrong. It examines the issues of doctrine and policy that bear on the affirmative duty question in constitutional tort and contends that affirmative duties may be imposed even though constitutional rights are generally negative in character, as a matter of federal constitutional common law. It ·develops a foundation in doctrine and policy, so far lacking in the opinions, to support these duties and to place proper limits upon them.

Part I identifies issues of tort policy that arise in affirmative duty cases, while Part II addresses the distinctive problems that come up …

The Privacy Protection Act Of 1980: Curbing Unrestricted Third-Party Searches In The Wake Of Zurcher V. Stanford Daily, Jose M. Sariego

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article analyzes the Privacy Protection Act as a response to Zurcher. Part I discusses the Zurcher decision and its effect on First and Fourth Amendment rights, as well as its impact on state testimonial privileges. Part II critically examines key features of the statute, focusing on the parties and materials protected, the police practices regulated, the remedies provided for violations, and the Act's constitutional underpinnings. Part II also offers suggestions for remedying the problems the Act currently presents. The article concludes that the Privacy Protection Act, while a necessary first step to minimizing the impact of Zurcher, is …

National League Of Cities V. Usery: Its Implications For The Equal Pay Act And The Age Discrimination In Employment Act, Ellen B. Spellman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In National League of Cities v. Usery, the Supreme Court invalidated the application of the FLSA minimum wage and maximum hours provisions to certain essential state government activities as an unconstitutional intrusion on state sovereignty. This article will explore the implications of that decision with respect to the application of the EPA and the ADEA to state and local governments.

Part I contains a brief discussion of the Fair Labor Standards Act and Amendments. Part II discusses National League with reference to traditional commerce clause interpretation. Part III analyzes the difficulties of applying the decision, particularly the problem of …

Emerging Standards For Implied Actions Under Federal Statutes, Gary W. Klotz

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article will examine the theoretical basis for finding implied causes of action in legislation and the development of the implication doctrine in the federal courts. In particular, the Cort v. Ash case will be discussed, both in terms of the standards articulated by the Supreme Court in dicta and the potential impact of Cort on the law of implied remedies.