Law Commons^™

Using State And Local Governments’ Purchasing Power To Combat Wage Theft, Courtlyn G. Roser-Jones

Washington and Lee Law Review

Regulatory efforts to curb wage theft are failing. And for good reason: these laws generally empower individual workers to pursue their rights when employers neglect to pay them what they are owed and deter employers with substantial penalties. But the vast majority of workers do not take formal action against their employers. So, when the penalties for committing wage theft are almost entirely triggered by claims workers do not bring, they do not deter employer behavior. Instead, because the likelihood of being penalized at all is so low, some employers make profit-maximizing decisions to commit wage theft on a large …

Another Collateral Consequence: Kicking The Victim When She’S Down, Lauren N. Hancock

Washington and Lee Law Review

Every state has a victim compensation fund that provides financial relief to victims of crime who have no other way to pay for medical expenses, funeral costs, crime scene cleanup, or other costs associated with the crime. States impose their own eligibility requirements to determine which victims can receive funding. Six states prohibit victims with certain criminal histories from obtaining compensation. This means that innocent victims of crime are left with nowhere to turn because of something that they already “paid” for. This leaves victims, who are likely already in a financially precarious situation due to their felon status, with …

Covid-19 And The Conundrum Of Mask Requirements, Robert Gatter, Seema Mohapatra

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

As states begin to loosen their COVID-19 restrictions, public debate is underway about what public health measures are appropriate. Many states have some form of mask-wearing orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection. Public health guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization has conflicted. From a public health point of view, it is not clear what the right answer is. In the absence of directives, individuals are also making their own choices about mask use. At a time when public health measures, like shelter-in-place orders and social distancing, are being used to …

Personhood: Law, Common Sense, And Humane Opportunities, Helen M. Alvaré

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

It is pointless to approach Professor Chatman’s argument on its own terms (to wit, “tak[ing] our laws seriously,” or equal application across myriad legal categories of “full personhood” rights) because these terms are neither seriously intended nor legally comprehensible. Instead, her essay is intended to create the impression that legally protecting unborn human lives against abortion opens up a Pandora’s box of legal complications so “ridiculous” and “far-fetched” that we should rather just leave things where they are under the federal Constitution post-Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This impression, in turn, is a tool to …

Under Ten Eyes, Anthony Michael Kreis

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Carliss Chatman’s If a Fetus Is a Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process and Citizenship brilliantly captures the moment America is in, where abortion rights hang in the balance as state legislators, like those in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and elsewhere clamor to embrace fetal personhood. But, as Professor Chatman illustrates, legislators have expressed no interest in the full logical extent of this policy or the rights that should attach to a fetus if their measures ultimately become effective. The article incisively demonstrates how fetal personhood is singularly focused on ending abortion in the United States and is gaining …

If A Fetus Is A Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process, And Citizenship, Carliss N. Chatman

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This Article was originally published in The Washington Post on May 17, 2019. It has been edited and updated prior to its publication in the Washington and Lee Law Review.

Alabama has joined the growing number of states determined to overturn Roe v. Wade by banning abortion from conception forward. The Alabama Human Life Protection Act subjects a doctor who performs an abortion to as many as ninety-nine years in prison. The law has no exceptions for rape or incest. It redefines an “unborn child, child or person” as “[a] human being, specifically including an unborn child in utero …

Covid-19 And The Provisional Licensing Of Qualified Medical School Graduates As Physicians, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Each level of government has its own peculiar responsibilities to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The states are responsible for licensing physicians who can treat the affected people. Each year, a large number of American and foreign medical school graduates do not find a residency position in the United States. Medical school graduates who have passed the qualifying examination have acquired a considerable amount of education and training during their medical studies, far more than physician assistants, nurses, military corpsmen and medics, and civilian paramedics or emergency medical technicians. They comprise a pool of talent that could be immensely useful in …

State Prosecutors At The Center Of Mass Imprisonment And Criminal Justice Reform, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

State prosecutors around the country have played a crucial role in mass imprisonment. Little supervision and virtually unsurpassed decision making power have provided them with unrivaled influence over the size, growth, and composition of our criminal justice system. They decide which cases to prosecute, whether to divert a case, whether to offer a plea, and what sentence to recommend. Their impact does not stop at sentencing. They weigh in on alternative dockets, supervision violations, parole release, and even clemency requests. But they are also part of a larger system that constrains them. Funding, judicial limits on their power, and legislative …

Supervisors Without Supervision: Colon, Mckenna, And The Confusing State Of Supervisory Liability In The Second Circuit, Ryan E. Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note received the 2019 Washington and Lee Law Council Law Review Award.

This Note analyzes two intra-Second Circuit splits that make it nearly impossible for prisoners to recover against supervisors under § 1983. First, district courts in the Second Circuit are divided as to whether the five categories of personal involvement defined in Colon v. Coughlin survive the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Personal involvement by the supervisory defendant is a necessary element to impose supervisory liability. Some district courts hold that only the first and third Colon factors survive Iqbal, while others hold that all …

If A Tree Falls In A Roadway, Is Anyone Liable?: Proposing The Duty Of Reasonable Care For Virginia’S Road-Maintaining Entities, Ian J. Mcelhaney

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note considers whether a duty for road-maintaining entities is tenable under Virginia law. It also explores the rationale for imposing differing liabilities between landowners and road-maintaining entities. Part III reviews the various duties other states use with respect to dangerous roadside trees and concludes that the duty of reasonable care is most appropriate for Virginia. Sovereign immunity is a companion issue and is addressed in Part IV. The Part provides a brief overview of the policy arguments for sovereign immunity, before reviewing immunity’s impact at the state, county, and municipal levels. The Part also addresses a government employee’s entitlement …

In Search Of A Unified Theory Of The Duties Flowing From Property Ownership In Virginia: A Response To Mcelhaney’S If A Tree Falls, E. Kyle Mcnew

Washington and Lee Law Review

In his Note, Ian McElhaney concludes that the Court got it right in Cline v. Dunlora South, LLC—that the landowner owes no duty to protect travelers on adjoining roadways from natural conditions on the landowner’s property—because the Court also got it right in Cline v. Commonwealth when it held that the Commonwealth of Virginia may have that duty instead. In the narrowest view, that is certainly a defensible position. If the case is just about natural conditions and roads, then there is intuitive appeal in saying that they are the Commonwealth’s roads; so, it is the Commonwealth’s job to make …

A Few Thoughts On “If A Tree Falls In A Roadway . . . .”, David Eggert

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Response to Ian McElhaney’s note examines (1) the background legal context that got us to where we are on falling-tree liability; (2) how this peculiar issue fits into Virginia’s general approach to the law; and (3) presents some thoughts on Mr. McElhaney’s reasoning and ultimate conclusions in urging liability for road maintainers.

Will The Supreme Court Rein In “Excessive Fines” And Forfeitures? Don’T Rely On Timbs V. Indiana, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Timbs v. Indiana buoyed the hopes of those who saw it as a powerful signal to states and municipalities to rein in excessive fines and forfeitures. One commentator deemed it “a blow to state and local governments, for whom fines and forfeitures have become an important source of funds.” That may have been an overstatement. The Court seems disinclined to fill the term proportionality with robust meaning or wrestle with Eighth Amendment challenges to fines and fees. Those steps would be required for the Excessive Fines Clause to function as an effective backstop against …

Second Thoughts About Stun Guns, Rene Reyes

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) recently declared that the Commonwealth’s statutory ban on stun guns violates the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The SJC had previously upheld the statute against constitutional challenge in Commonwealth v. Caetano, but the reasoning behind this holding was rejected in a brief per curium opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016. However, the guidance given by the Supreme Court in the Caetano litigation was far from unambiguous: it faulted the SJC’s reasoning without opining on the ultimate question of the ban’s constitutionality, thus leaving open the possibility that the statute could pass …

Is Transparency The Answer? Reconciling The Fiduciary Duties Of Public Pension Plans And Private Funds, In 2016 Private Fund Report: Public Pension Plans And Private Funds - Common Goals, Conlicting Interests (2016), Cary Martin Shelby

Books and Chapters

Public pension plans manage over $3 trillion in assets on behalf of millions of state and local government workers across the country. The trustees of such plans (“Trustees”) invest the bulk of these assets into a variety of equities and bonds, with the hopes of earning sufficient returns to finance the retirement of these countless public sector workers. In recent years however, Trustees have grown more creative in selecting their underlying investment allocations. Alternative investments, such as hedge funds and private equity funds for example provide unique opportunities for Trustees to maximize returns, protect against declining markets, and to diversify …

"Was The Deal Worth It?": The Dilemma Of States With Ineffective Economic Incentives Programs, Randle B. Pollard

Scholarly Articles

Federal subsidies to state and local governments have been substantially reduced due to public opinion prioritizing the reduction of the federal deficit, the recent "fiscal cliff" legislation, and the federal budget "sequester cuts." In addition, in many states, revenue collection from individual and corporate income tax is below prerecession levels. To address the reduction in federal funding and reduced revenue collections, state and local governments will increasingly rely on economic incentive programs to grow their economies through increased job creation and private capital investment within their jurisdictions. These economic incentive programs are no longer comprised of simple tax reductions for …

Feeling Insecure—A State View Of Whether Investors In Municipal General Obligation Bonds Have A Mere Promise To Pay Or A Binding Obligation, Randle B. Pollard

Scholarly Articles

The City of Detroit's filing for municipal bankruptcy in July, 2013, has added to a continuing controversy of whether general obligation bondholders have a secured lien. The City of Detroit claimed its general obligation bondholders did not have a fully secured lien because the law of the state of Michigan did not create a statutory lien. Without the creation of a lien by state law, during the insolvency or bankruptcy of municipalities, general obligation bondholders will potentially have a mere promise to pay versus a binding obligation to pay, and therefore, will not have a secured lien. Treating otherwise secured …

Untangling The Circuit Splits Regarding Cell Tower Siting Policy And 47 U.S.C. § 332(C)(7): When Is A Denial Of One Effectively A Prohibition On All? , Lucas R. White

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ordinances Targeting The Homeless: Constitutional Or Cost-Effective?, Ellen M. Marks

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Public Pension Crisis , Jack M. Beermann

Washington and Lee Law Review

Unfunded employee pension obligations will present a serious fiscal problem to state and local governments in the not-toodistant future. This Article takes a look at the causes and potential cures for the public pension mess, mainly through the lens of legal doctrines that limit public employers’ ability to avoid obligations. As far as the causes are concerned, this Article examines the political environment within which public pension promises are made and funded, as an attempt to understand how this occurred. The Article then turns to ask if states could implement meaningful reforms without violating either state or federal law. In …

Just A Little Bit Of History Repeating: The California Model Of Marijuana Legalization And How It Might Affect Racial And Ethnic Minorities, Thomas J. Moran

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Conceiving Plan B: A Proposal To Resolve The Conflict Between Women And Conscientiously Objecting Pharmacists Over Access To Emergency Contraceptives, Joshua T. Shaw

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Imminently Eminent: A Game Theoretic Analysis Of Takings Since Kelo V. City Of New London, Alex Hornaday

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Better Course In The Post-Lapides Circuit Split: Eschewing The Waiver-By-Removal Rule In State Sovereignty Jurisprudence, Matthew Mcdermott

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Collision Of The Takings And State Sovereign Immunity Doctrines, Eric Berger

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

New Federalism's Unanswered Question: Who Should Prosecute State And Local Officials For Political Corruption?, George D. Brown

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pleading To Stay In State Court: Forum Control, Federal Removal Jurisdiction, And The Amount In Controversy Requirement, Russell D. Jessee

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Remedies For The Misappropriation Of Intellectual Property By State And Municipal Governments Before And After Seminole Tribe: The Eleventh Amendment And Other Immunity Doctrines, Paul J. Heald, Michael L. Wells

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Case Comments S. Sovereign Immunity Goldstar (Panama) S.A. V. United States

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Material Burden Test: The Better Method Of Determining Takings Issues Arising Under Section 621(A)(2) Of The Cable Communications Policy Act Of 1984

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.