Law Commons^™

Are Housekeepers Like Judges?, Stephen P. Garvey

Stephen P. Garvey

Professor Greenawalt proposes that we look at interpretation "from the bottom up." By taking a close look at informal relationships between an authority and his or her agent, and how the agent "faithfully performs" instructions within such relationships, he hopes to gain insight into the problems surrounding the interpretation of legal directives. The analysis of "faithful performance" in informal contexts which Professor Greenawalt presents in From the Bottom Up is the first step in a larger project. His next step is to see what lessons the interpretation of instructions in informal contexts has for law. This Comment tries to contribute …

Introduction To The Micro-­‐‑Symposium On Scalia & Garner's “Reading Law”:The Textualist Technician, Karen Petroski

All Faculty Scholarship

Recently, the Green Bag issued a call for short (1,000 words) essays on Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, by Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner. We sought “[a]ny theoretical, empirical, or practical commentary that will help readers better understand the book.” The result is this micro-symposium. Our call drew dozens of micro-essays, some thought-provoking, some chuckle-prompting, and some both. Blessed with an abundance of good work but cursed by a shortage of space, we were compelled to select a small set – representative and excellent – of those essays to publish in the Green Bag and its sibling publication, …

Protecting Whistleblower Protections In The Dodd-Frank Act, Samuel C. Leifer

Michigan Law Review

In 2008, the United States fell into its worst economic recession in over seventy years. In response, Congress enacted the near-comprehensive Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Section 922 of Dodd–Frank, in particular, includes specific provisions designed to incentivize and protect corporate whistleblowers. These provisions demonstrated Congress’s belief that a comprehensive and robust whistleblower protection scheme was essential to preventing many of the abuses that caused the financial crisis. Unfortunately, this section’s inconsistent language has produced conflicting decisions within the federal judiciary. In accordance with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”)’s own reading of Section 922, several district …

Calling On U.S. Courts To Adopt Canada's Unified Approach To Statutory Interpretation, Amir Pichhadze

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Benevolent Maleficence:How A Well-Intentioned Legislature And A Deferential Court Combined To Stunt The Development Of Massachusetts Product Liability Law, Philip E. Cleary

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Massachusetts product liability law is unusual. Unlike most states, Massachusetts does not recognize strict tort liability in the product area. Rather, "strict product liability" is limited to breaches of warranty under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. the Massachusetts Legislature amended Article 2 in several ways to provide a "strict liability" remedy that is, in the words of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, "congruent in nearly all respects with the principles" of strict tort liability. The court has construed the amendments to the UCC as precluding the adoption of strict tort liability in Massachusetts. In most ways, Massachusetts product …

Enacted Legislative Findings And The Deference Problem, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

The constitutionality of federal legislation sometimes turns on the presence and sufficiency of congressional findings of predicate facts, such as the effects of conduct on interstate commerce, state discrimination justifying the abrogation of sovereign immunity, or market failures justifying intrusions on free speech. Sometimes a congressional committee makes these findings in legislative history. Other times, Congress recites its findings in a statutory preamble, thus enacting its findings as law. Surprisingly, the Supreme Court has not distinguished between enacted and unenacted findings in deciding how much deference to accord congressional findings. This is striking because the difference between enactedness and unenactedness …

The Search For Legislative Intent, Larry Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Designing A Flexible World For The Many: "Essential Functions" And Title I Of The Americans With Disabilities Act, Michael J. Powers

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores how courts interpret the meaning of “essential functions” under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To be protected under the ADA, a plaintiff must be able to perform the “essential functions” of her job with or without a reasonable accommodation. In general, courts follow one of two approaches when interpreting this phrase. The first approach narrowly focuses on the employer’s judgment regarding which functions are essential. The second approach considers the employer’s judgment, but looks beyond to consider the broader employment relationship. This Note argues that these different approaches have led to varying levels of …

Missing The Forest For The Trees: Why Supplemental Needs Trusts Should Be Exempt From Medicaid Determinations, Jeffrey R. Grimyser

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Supplemental needs trusts are trusts designed to assist individuals with disabilities by paying for services and items that Medicaid will not pay for. Federal law, however, is unclear as to whether using one of these trusts automatically disqualifies someone from receiving Medicaid, thereby causing the circuit courts to split on their interpretation. Some circuits have held that the Medicaid statute allows states to enact laws prohibiting the use of these trusts while receiving Medicaid benefits based on the federal law’s statutory language. While other circuits have ruled that individuals can simultaneously receive Medicaid benefits and use supplemental needs trusts given …

Overrides: The Super-Study, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Overrides should be of interest to a far larger group of scholars than statutory interpretation enthusiasts. We have, in overrides, open inter branch encounters between Congress and the Courts far more typically found in the shadows of everyday Washington politics. Interestingly, Christiansen and Eskridge posit the court-congress relationship as more triadic than dyadic given the role played by agencies. One of their more interesting conclusions is that agencie are the big winners in the override game: agencies were present in seventy percent of the override cases and the agency view prevailed with Congress and against the Supreme Court in three-quarters …

Bond V. United States: Concurring In The Judgment, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Bond v. United States presented the deep constitutional question of whether a treaty can increase the legislative power of Congress. Unfortunately, a majority of the Court managed to sidestep the constitutional issue by dodgy statutory interpretation. But the other three Justices—Scalia, Thomas, and Alito—all wrote important concurrences in the judgment, grappling with the constitutional issues presented. In particular, Justice Scalia’s opinion (joined by Justice Thomas), is a masterpiece, eloquently demonstrating that Missouri v. Holland is wrong and should be overruled: a treaty cannot increase the legislative power of Congress.

Elementary Statutory Interpretation: Rethinking Legislative Intent And History, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article argues that theorists and practitioners of statutory interpretation should rethink two very basic concepts—legislative intent and legislative history. Textualists urge that to look to legislative history is to seek an intent that does not exist. This article argues we should put this objection to bed because, even if groups do not have minds, they have the functional equivalent of intent: they plan by using internal sequential procedures allowing them to project their collective actions forward in time. What we should mean by legislative “intent” is legislative “context.” For a group, context includes how groups act—their procedures. Once one …

The Tempting Of Antitrust: Robert Bork And The Goals Of Antitrust Policy, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

Of all Robert Bork’s many important contributions to antitrust law, none was more significant than his identification of economic efficiency, disguised as consumer welfare, as the sole normative objective of U.S. antitrust law. The Supreme Court relied primarily on Bork’s argument that Congress intended the Sherman Act to advance consumer welfare in making its landmark statement in Reiter v. Sonotone that “Congress designed the Sherman Act as a ‘consumer welfare prescription.’” This singular normative vision proved foundational to the reorientation of antitrust law away from an interventionist, populist, Brandeisian, and vaguely Jeffersonian conception of antitrust law as a constraint on …

The Mask Of Virtue: Theories Of Aretaic Legislation In A Public Choice Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan