Law Commons^™

Statutory Constraints And Constitutional Decisionmaking, Anthony O'Rourke

Journal Articles

Although constitutional scholars frequently analyze the relationships between courts and legislatures, they rarely examine the relationship between courts and statutes. This Article is the first to systematically examine how the presence or absence of a statute can influence constitutional doctrine. It analyzes pairs of cases that raise similar constitutional questions, but differ with respect to whether the court is reviewing the constitutionality of legislation. These case pairs suggest that statutes place significant constraints on constitutional decisionmaking. Specifically, in cases that involve a challenge to a statute, courts are less inclined to use doctrine to regulate the behavior of nonjudicial officials. …

Reading Statutes In The Common Law Tradition, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Journal Articles

There is wide agreement in American law and scholarship about the role the common law tradition plays in statutory interpretation. Jurists and scholars of various stripes concur that the common law points away from formalist interpretive approaches like textualism and toward a more creative, independent role for courts. They simply differ over whether the common law tradition is worth preserving. Dynamic and strongly purposive interpreters claim the Anglo-American common law heritage in support of their approach to statutory interpretation, while arguing that formalism is an unjustified break from that tradition. Formalists reply that the common law mindset and methods are …

Private Law In The Gaps, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Journal Articles

Private law subjects like tort, contract, and property are traditionally taken to be at the core of the common law tradition, yet statutes increasingly intersect with these bodies of doctrine. This Article draws on recent work in private law theory and statutory interpretation to consider afresh what courts should do with private law in statutory gaps. In particular, it focuses on statutes touching on tort law, a field at the leading edge of private law theory. This Article's analysis unsettles some conventional wisdom about the intersection of private law and statutes. Many leading tort scholars and jurists embrace a regulatory …

Time Off For Military Families: An Emerging Case Study In A Time Of War...And The Tipping Point For Future Laws Supporting Work-Life Balance?, Marcy L. Karin

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Changing Federal Statutory Proposals To Address Domestic Violence At Work: Creating A Societal Response By Making Businesses A Part Of The Solution, Marcy L. Karin

Journal Articles

Over five million acts of domestic violence are committed every year.1 The prevalence of these acts makes domestic violence “the leading cause of injury to women.”2 Detrimental wherever they occur, these acts are not limited to the privacy of one’s home. Instead, domestic violence regularly and repeatedly spills over to the “public” workplace.For example, Francescia La Rose’s former boyfriend called her supervisor and threatened to come to the office to kill La Rose if she was not fired. Her employer responded by warning La Rose to keep her personal problems out of the workplace. The next day, the ex-boyfriend walked …

Environmental Certification Systems And U.S. Environmental Law: Closer Than You May Think, Errol E. Meidinger

Journal Articles

Many industrial organizations are committing to achieve improved environmental performance through non-governmentally instituted environmental certification programs. Such programs typically define the environmental standards that firms must meet as well as the organizational mechanisms required to achieve and "certify" compliance. Well known examples include the chemical industry's "Responsible Care" program, the International Organization for Standardization's "ISO 14000" environmental management program, and the Forest Stewardship Council's well-managed forests program.

Because of their ostensibly private and voluntary nature, environmental certification programs are often presumed to be separate and distinct from law. In fact, however, they are deeply intertwined with law, and seem likely …

Shall - Take No. 2, Debra R. Cohen

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Legislative Enforcement Of Equal Protection, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

This Article explores the legislative role in enforcing the constitutional guarantee to equal protection. Part I describes the underenforcement principle that explains the restrictive judicial exercise of authority in constitutional matters. The Article then focuses on Congress' role in examining issues relating to the constitutional guarantee of equal protection that the courts have chosen to underenforce. Part II analyzes relevant constitutional provisions that may empower or limit congressional actions. Part III considers ways in which Congress can address state violations of equal protection through directives to the judiciary and through the legislative process. Part IV details how both federal and …

Congressional Committee Reports: Their Role And History, Thomas F. Broden

Journal Articles

Most lawyers have an extremely limited understanding of the function of a congressional committee report. In general, lawyers think of such reports as aids to the interpretation of statutes on the books and much has been written about this role of the committee report. This role is considered by many as the committee report's primary, if not its only, function. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the purpose of this article to explain its other, more important roles, those in the legislative process and to examine the historical development of the use of written committee reports in …