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Full-Text Articles in Law
Sovereign Immunity And Interstate Government Tort, Louise Weinberg
Sovereign Immunity And Interstate Government Tort, Louise Weinberg
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This paper argues that the Supreme Court made a serious mistake last term, when, in a case of interstate government tort, it tore up useful options that should be available to each state for the rare cases in which they would be of service. In seeking to insulate a state from liability when its employee intrudes on a sister state’s territory and causes injury there, the Court stripped every state of power, in cases of interstate government tort, to try injuries occurring on its own territory to its own residents—an unprecedented disregard of a state’s acknowledged traditional interests. Indeed, the …
It Is Time For Washington State To Take A Stand Against Holmes's Bad Man: The Value Of Punitive Damages In Deterring Big Business And International Tortfeasors, Jackson Pahlke
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In Washington State, tortfeasors get a break when they commit intentional torts. Instead of receiving more punishment for their planned bad act, intentional tortfeasors are punished as if they committed a mere accident. The trend does not stop in Washington State—nationwide, punitive damage legislation inadequately deters intentional wrongdoers through caps and outright bans on punitive damages. Despite Washington State’s one hundred and twenty-five year ban on punitive damages, it is in a unique and powerful position to change the way courts across the country deal with intentional tortfeasors. Since Washington has never had a comprehensive punitive damages framework, and has …
Too Many Cooks In The Climate Change Kitchen: The Case For An Administrative Remedy For Damages Caused By Increased Greenhouse Gas Concentrations, Benjamin Reese
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Recent federal and state court decisions have made clear that federal common law claims against emitters of greenhouse gases are not sustainable; however, those same courts seem to have given state common law tort claims the green light, at least if the claims are brought in the state where the polluters are located. This Note contends that such suits are not an adequate remedy for those injured by climate change because they will face nearly insurmountable barriers in state court, and because there are major policy-level drawbacks to relying on state tort law rather than a federal solution. This Note …
Copyright And The Vagueness Doctrine, Bradley E. Abruzzi
Copyright And The Vagueness Doctrine, Bradley E. Abruzzi
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Constitution's void-for-vagueness doctrine is itself vaguely stated. The doctrine does little to describe at what point vague laws-other than those that are entirely standardless-become unconstitutionally vague. Rather than explore this territory, the Supreme Court has identified three collateral factors that affect its inclination to invalidate a law for vagueness: (1) whether the law burdens the exercise of constitutional rights, (2) whether the law is punitive in nature, and (3) whether the law overlays a defendant-protective scienter requirement. Measured against these factors, copyright law does not meet the vagueness doctrine's minimum requirement of fair notice to the public. Copyright, by …
Unfit For Prime Time: Why Cable Television Regulations Cannot Perform Trinko's 'Antitrust Function', Keith Klovers
Unfit For Prime Time: Why Cable Television Regulations Cannot Perform Trinko's 'Antitrust Function', Keith Klovers
Michigan Law Review
Until recently, regulation and antitrust law operated in tandem to safeguard competition in regulated industries. In three recent decisions-Trinko, Credit Suisse, and Linkline-the Supreme Court limited the operation of the antitrust laws when regulation "performs the antitrust function." This Note argues that cable programming regulations-which are in some respects factually similar to the telecommunications regulations at issue in Trinko and Linkline-do not perform the antitrust function because they cannot deter anticompetitive conduct. As a result, Trinko and its siblings should not foreclose antitrust claims for damages that arise out of certain cable programming disputes.
Section 1983 And Implied Rights Of Action: Rights, Remedies, And Realism, Michael A. Mazzuchi
Section 1983 And Implied Rights Of Action: Rights, Remedies, And Realism, Michael A. Mazzuchi
Michigan Law Review
This Note criticizes the Court's current reconciliation of the implied right of action and section 1983 inquiries, and argues that the availability of lawsuits under section 1983 should be the same as under an implied right of action test. Part I, by offering a working definition of rights, suggests an approach to identifying statutorily created rights. Part II discusses the evolution of the Court's implied right of action ' jurisprudence, and explores several explanations for the Court's hesitancy to create implied rights of action. Part III examines the influence of the Court's implied right of action test on its jurisprudence …
Backing Off Bivens And The Ramifications Of This Retreat For The Vindication Of First Amendment Rights, Joan Steinman
Backing Off Bivens And The Ramifications Of This Retreat For The Vindication Of First Amendment Rights, Joan Steinman
Michigan Law Review
In Part I of this Article, Chappell and Bush are analyzed against the backdrop of the preceding Bivens cases. The analysis explains how these cases presented situations that were similar to one another but unlike any the Supreme Court previously had faced in Bivens cases. It demonstrates how the Court departed from the line of analysis that its previous Bivens cases had established, in a way that makes it more difficult for at least some plaintiffs seeking vindication of their constitutional rights to succeed in having a money damage remedy implied directly under the Constitution. The Article then argues that …
Longshoreman-Shipowner-Stevedore: The Circle Of Liability, Harney B. Stover, Jr.
Longshoreman-Shipowner-Stevedore: The Circle Of Liability, Harney B. Stover, Jr.
Michigan Law Review
It is universally recognized that in the past two decades the United States Supreme Court has substantially revised the law under which seamen, longshoremen and harbor workers (or their survivors) may recover damages for personal injury and death. One of the more recent and most authoritative texts in the field of admiralty and maritime law devotes an entire chapter, 147 pages in length, to the subject of the rights of seamen and maritime workers (or their survivors) of recovery for injury and death. The introduction to that chapter likens the Court's rewriting of the law in this field to a …