Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Gentrification (4)
- Housing (4)
- Employment (3)
- Fifth Amendment (3)
- Litigation (3)
-
- ADA (2)
- ADAAA (2)
- Americans With Disabilities Act (2)
- Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (2)
- Arbitration (2)
- Ballot (2)
- Bill de Blasio (2)
- Bodily Function (2)
- CBA (2)
- Circuit split (2)
- Community Benefits Ordinance (2)
- Consumers (2)
- Critical Legal Geography (2)
- Development (2)
- Disabilities (2)
- Disability (2)
- Disorder (2)
- Election law (2)
- Enforcement (2)
- Ethnocracy (2)
- Fare Equity (2)
- Federal Transit Authority (2)
- First Amendment (2)
- Framers (2)
- Free Speech (2)
- Publication Year
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 30 of 139
Full-Text Articles in Law
A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley
A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley
Brooklyn Law Review
American law and American life are asymmetrical. Law divides neatly in two: public and private. But life is lived in three distinct spaces: pure public, pure private, and hybrid middle spaces that are neither state nor home. Which body of law governs the shops, gyms, and workplaces that are formally accessible to all, but functionally hostile to Black, female, poor, and other marginalized Americans? From the liberal midcentury onward, social justice advocates have treated these spaces as fundamentally public and fully remediable via public law equity commands. This article takes a broader view. It urges a tort law revival in …
Dogma, Discrimination, And Doctrinal Disarray: A New Test To Define Harm Under Title Vii, Zach Islam
Dogma, Discrimination, And Doctrinal Disarray: A New Test To Define Harm Under Title Vii, Zach Islam
Brooklyn Law Review
Historically, federal courts have used the “adverse employment action” test in Title VII disparate treatment, disparate impact, and retaliation cases to determine whether a plaintiff has suffered adequate harm. This note argues that this approach is fundamentally flawed. At the outset, the test is a judicial power grab with no support in the statutory language. What is more, it fails to uphold the plain policy purposes for Title VII by largely ignoring evidence of discriminatory acts in the workplace that Congress sought to prevent in passing the statute. Consequently, Title VII plaintiffs get the short end of the stick with …
Expert Evidence: The Gatekeeper Role Of Justice, Victor E. Schwartz
Expert Evidence: The Gatekeeper Role Of Justice, Victor E. Schwartz
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
No abstract provided.
Professor Aaron Twerski: Special Master In The 9/11 Responders' Litigation, Stephan Landsman
Professor Aaron Twerski: Special Master In The 9/11 Responders' Litigation, Stephan Landsman
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
No abstract provided.
Aaron Twerski — Practical Wisdom At Ground Zero, Anthony J. Sebok
Aaron Twerski — Practical Wisdom At Ground Zero, Anthony J. Sebok
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
This Article celebrates Professor. Aaron Twerski’s “practical wisdom” in crafting a solution (with Jim Henderson) to a problem faced by Judge Alvin Hellerstein in the so-called 9/11 First Responder cases. The problem was that Congress did not include these plaintiffs within the Victims Compensation Fund (“VCF”) despite there being every reason to suspect that the interaction of workersman’s compensation law and tort law, if left to operate on their own, would generate a politically unacceptable outcome. Despite his clear misgivings – —expressed decades earlier – —about allowing those who control the workplace to enjoy the benefits of limited liability guaranteed …
Copyrighting Compositions: How Inconsistencies Within The Circumstancial Evidence Analysis Affects Musical Composition Copyright Infringement Plaintiffs, Stephanie Stern
Copyrighting Compositions: How Inconsistencies Within The Circumstancial Evidence Analysis Affects Musical Composition Copyright Infringement Plaintiffs, Stephanie Stern
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
To resolve a musical composition copyright infringement case, courts employ the circumstantial evidence analysis. This analysis involves assessing whether the two works are substantially similar and whether the defendant had access to the plaintiff’s copyright-protected work. Despite efforts to keep pace with the rapidly changing world of music creation, these tests have fallen behind: circuits are split with respect to the way they determine substantial similarity, and courts have failed to update the access requirement in the age of the internet. Additionally, courts must adhere to the rules of either the 1909 Copyright Act or the 1976 Copyright Act, depending …
African Courts And International Human Rights Law, John Mukum Mbaku
African Courts And International Human Rights Law, John Mukum Mbaku
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and since then, the international community, with the help of the United Nations, has adopted other international human rights instruments designed to recognize and protect human rights. Since international human rights instruments do not automatically confer rights that are justiciable in domestic courts, each African country must domesticate these instruments in order to create rights that are justiciable in its domestic courts. Given the fact that many African countries have not yet domesticated the core international human rights instruments, international human rights law’s ability to positively impact …
The Pro Se Gender Gap, Roger Michalski
The Pro Se Gender Gap, Roger Michalski
Brooklyn Law Review
This article is the first to identify, name, and empirically measure the pro se gender gap. Drawing on a massive dataset of all federal civil dockets spanning ten years, it finds a 2-to-1 gender imbalance. For every federal woman pro se litigant there are two males. This finding is robust and stable. It holds true for plaintiffs, defendants, and other parties. It is also true across most subject areas, time, length of litigation, and across states, districts, and circuits. The study excludes prisoner-rights and habeas petitions–including them would widen the gender gap even further. This gender gap reveals a troubling …
No Need For Speed: The Inherent Unreasonableness Of High-Speed Police Chases And A New Approach To Excessive Force Litigation, Hayley Bork
Brooklyn Law Review
High-speed police chases are a deadly tactic used and abused by the police to apprehend motorists who flee from traffic stops. Police departments around the country routinely escalate stops for mere traffic infractions into dangerous high-speed pursuits, resulting in death and injury to those involved. Moreover, Black Americans represent a disproportionate number of those stopped, chased, and killed by police, making high-speed chases, like many police-citizen encounters, highly racialized. However, for motorists injured by high-speed chases, maintaining a successful lawsuit against the responsible officers remains incredibly difficult under current excessive force jurisprudence. Although police department policies limiting when and why …
Different Countries, Same Homophobia And Transphobia: A Cross-Cultural Survey Of So-Called Conversion Therapy Practices And The Move Toward Legislative Protections For The United States Lgbtq+ Community, Samantha J. Past
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
So-called “conversion therapy” consists of dangerous practices that inflict detrimental, long-lasting effects on its victims. As a form of sexual orientation or gender identity or gender expression change efforts, conversion therapy is fostered by global homophobia and transphobia. Despite formal public rejection and scientific discreditation, conversion therapy providers across the world continue to target LGBTQ+ individuals, predominately under the guise of offering health care services or obeying religious practices. The following piece compares conversion therapy in three countries with recently introduced LGBTQ+ legislation––(1) Ghana; (2) Canada; and (3) the United States (U.S.)–––in order to identify factors furthering conversion therapy and …
Contracting Against Slavery: Corporate Accountability For Human Rights Supply Chain Violations, Alexandra Hyken
Contracting Against Slavery: Corporate Accountability For Human Rights Supply Chain Violations, Alexandra Hyken
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
The United States Supreme Court decision in Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe effectively closed the door for forced laborers in the global supply chain to sue corporations headquartered in the United States for aiding and abetting in their human trafficking under the Alien Tort Statute. At the same time, however, the European Union and Canada are passing legislative measures that increase corporate accountability for human rights supply chain violations. This note argues that, in light of the Nestlé decision, contracts can be an effective mechanism for corporate accountability in the United States and that multi-national corporations will be incentivized to …
United States V. Donziger: How The Mere Appearance Of Judicial Impropriety Harms Us All, Jackie Kushner
United States V. Donziger: How The Mere Appearance Of Judicial Impropriety Harms Us All, Jackie Kushner
Journal of Law and Policy
In 2011, environmentalist lawyer Steven Donziger was sued in a retaliatory lawsuit by the oil company Chevron, following his securement of a multibillion-dollar award against the company for its environmental harms in Ecuador. In a case rife with judicial impropriety, Donziger was ultimately charged with criminal contempt of court and his charges were prosecuted by a private attorney. These suits exemplify the growing problem of powerful corporations using legal tactics to retaliate against activists and undermine the legitimacy of the legal system. Federal judges contribute to the problem by misusing the extensive power they hold in distinguishing criminal from civil …
The Rules Of The Malpractice Game: Affidavit Of Merit Statutes, Erie, And The Cautionary Tale Of An Overbroad Application Of Rule 11, Deanna Arpi Youssoufian
The Rules Of The Malpractice Game: Affidavit Of Merit Statutes, Erie, And The Cautionary Tale Of An Overbroad Application Of Rule 11, Deanna Arpi Youssoufian
Brooklyn Law Review
In an effort to combat the rise in potentially frivolous lawsuits against professionals, including physicians, attorneys, and journalists, states have passed malpractice legislation requiring plaintiffs to file an affidavit of merit (AOM) attesting to the validity of their claims. However, these AOM statutes may conflict with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, which provides that “a pleading need not be verified or accompanied by an affidavit” unless a rule or statute states otherwise. This is a classic Erie/choice-of-law problem for federal courts sitting in diversity, which are tasked with applying federal procedural law and state substantive law, and now must …
Protecting The Constitution While Protecting Victims: Challenges To Pro Se Cross-Examination, Katharine L. Manning
Protecting The Constitution While Protecting Victims: Challenges To Pro Se Cross-Examination, Katharine L. Manning
Brooklyn Law Review
Defendants have constitutional rights to cross-examine witnesses and to represent themselves. But when these rights are combined, they can have devastating effects on crime victims. All too often, defendants use the rights in a last-ditch effort to harass, bully, and intimidate the crime’s victims, sometimes leading to a dismissal of charges altogether, as victims withdraw their testimony to avoid personal cross-examination by the defendant. It does not have to be this way. Numerous courts have allowed standby counsel to conduct cross-examination of the victim within constitutional constraints. This article explores the limitations courts have imposed on pro se cross-examination to …
Credibility In Empirical Legal Analysis, Hillel J. Bavli
Credibility In Empirical Legal Analysis, Hillel J. Bavli
Brooklyn Law Review
Empirical analysis is central in both legal scholarship and litigation, but it is not credible. Researchers can manipulate data to arrive at any conclusion they wish to obtain. A practice known as data fishing—searching for and selectively reporting methods and results that are favorable to the researcher—entirely invalidates a study’s results by giving rise to false positives and false impressions. Nevertheless, it is prevalent in law, leading to false claims, incorrect verdicts, and destructive policy. In this article, I examine the harm that data fishing in empirical legal research causes. I then build on methods in the sciences to develop …
Third Time’S The Charm: Remedying The Lack Of Uniformity And Predictability In Trade Secret Law, Matthew D. Kasner
Third Time’S The Charm: Remedying The Lack Of Uniformity And Predictability In Trade Secret Law, Matthew D. Kasner
Brooklyn Law Review
The current legal framework governing trade secrets in the United States lacks the uniformity and predictability necessary to protect businesses. As a result, trade secret litigation has been on the rise over the course of the last decade. Whilst remote work becomes more ubiquitous, even beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, litigation will continue to increase as businesses are forced to entrust confidential information with remote workers. This note examines the current US trade secret scheme, exposes the current framework’s deficiencies, and suggests a “trade secret formalities model” to make for a more organized and efficient doctrine of law. More specifically, this …
Prosecuting The Phone Scammer When Extradition Fails And Concurrent Jurisdiction Exists, Michelle Lepkofker
Prosecuting The Phone Scammer When Extradition Fails And Concurrent Jurisdiction Exists, Michelle Lepkofker
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
Advancements in technology allow people to place phone calls half a world away via the internet. This technology has made it easier and cheaper for consumers to communicate, but it has also made it easier for scammers to reach more unsuspecting victims. In 2020, TrueCaller, an app designed to block scam phone calls, successfully blocked, and identified 31.3 billion spam calls in 20 countries. In the same year, Americans alone lost a total of USD $ 29.8 billion to scam calls. This Note argues that phone scams continue to be lucrative, in part, because criminal prosecutions of transnational crimes are …
The Debate Over Disclosure In Third-Party Litigation Finance: Balancing The Need For Transparency With Efficiency, Alec J. Manfre
The Debate Over Disclosure In Third-Party Litigation Finance: Balancing The Need For Transparency With Efficiency, Alec J. Manfre
Brooklyn Law Review
The market for third-party litigation financing (TPLF) in the United States is facing unprecedented growth and popularity. The ever-increasing complexity and cost of legal disputes, especially in the commercial context, has made third-party financing an invaluable resource for both litigants in need of capital and investors seeking to diversify their portfolios with nontraditional assets. However, as the market continues to boom, so does the risk that TPLF will be used unethically. Critics of the industry are calling on regulators at both the state and federal levels to implement comprehensive disclosure requirements for TPLF at the outset of all civil litigation …
“More Than Tangential”: When Does The Public Have A Right To Access Judicial Records?, Jordan Elias
“More Than Tangential”: When Does The Public Have A Right To Access Judicial Records?, Jordan Elias
Journal of Law and Policy
Public accountability requires open proceedings and access to documents filed with the courts. The strong policy favoring access to judicial records creates a presumption against sealing documents without a compelling reason. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that this presumption of access arises when a proceeding relates “more than tangentially” to the merits. This is a low standard under which many types of motions qualify for the compelling reasons test. With too much litigation occurring in secret, courts can use the “more than tangential” standard proactively to keep electronic case dockets available to citizens.
The Singapore Convention On Mediation: A Brave New World For International Commercial Arbitration, Robert Butlien
The Singapore Convention On Mediation: A Brave New World For International Commercial Arbitration, Robert Butlien
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
Mediation is a form of alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) where a negotiation is facilitated by a neutral third party. The key feature of mediation is its voluntary nature. Whether it is used to resolve a family law, employment law, or complex international commercial dispute, mediation is always valuable due to its speed, cost, and ability to maintain relationships between parties when compared to conventional litigation. Despite these benefits, international commercial mediation in particular had previously faced one notable weakness: the lack of enforceability of mediation settlement agreements (“MSA”). The United Nation’s Convention on International Mediated Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation …
Directors’ Duty Of Care In Times Of Financial Distress Following The Global Epidemic Crisis, Leon Yehuda Anidjar
Directors’ Duty Of Care In Times Of Financial Distress Following The Global Epidemic Crisis, Leon Yehuda Anidjar
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
The global COVID-19 pandemic is causing the large-scale end of life and severe human suffering globally. This massive public health crisis created a significant economic crisis and is reflected in a recession of global production and the collapse of confidence in the functions of markets. Corporations and boards of directors around the world are required to design specific strategies to tackle the negative consequences of the crisis. This is especially true for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that suffered tremendous economic loss, and their continued existence as ongoing concern is under considerable risk. Given these uncertain financial times, this Article …
Protecting The Social Utility Of Appraisal Arbitrage: A Case For Amending Delaware Law To Strengthen The Appraisal Remedy After Dell, Thomas J. Meriam
Protecting The Social Utility Of Appraisal Arbitrage: A Case For Amending Delaware Law To Strengthen The Appraisal Remedy After Dell, Thomas J. Meriam
Brooklyn Law Review
The landscape of M&A litigation in Delaware has undergone a substantial transformation within the last decade. Almost every transaction involving the acquisition of a publicly traded company has attracted stockholder litigation. This note considers Delaware’s attempt to strike the right balance between deterring frivolous litigation and ensuring adequate stockholder protections. In particular, this note considers the social utility of Delaware’s appraisal remedy and the practice of “appraisal arbitrage.” This note puts forth reasons as to why a healthy market of appraisal arbitrage benefits all stockholders: a meaningful threat of appraisal litigation encourages better sales practices in the market for corporate …
Who Sells? Testing Amazon.Com For Product Defect Liability In Pennsylvania And Beyond, Aaron Doyer
Who Sells? Testing Amazon.Com For Product Defect Liability In Pennsylvania And Beyond, Aaron Doyer
Journal of Law and Policy
Pennsylvania, like other states, has struggled over the past few decades to apply the policy principles of product defect law—a tort characterized by strict liability. Because strict liability bypasses the traditional requirement in tort that a plaintiff prove the defendant’s negligence, and instead requires only a showing that the plaintiff was injured by a product sold in a defective condition, these inquiries raise a deceptively simple question: who sells? Recently, in a landmark case in Pennsylvania, the Third Circuit made waves by declaring Amazon.com, an enormous online marketplace, the legal “seller” of a product shipped and sold by a vendor …
A Logical And Lawful Application Of § 101 Jurisprudence: The Uspto’S 2019 Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, Dustin Luettgen
A Logical And Lawful Application Of § 101 Jurisprudence: The Uspto’S 2019 Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, Dustin Luettgen
Journal of Law and Policy
In recent years, 35 U.S.C. § 101 has been a topic of great concern within the patent bar due to uncertainty surrounding the patentability of inventions drawn to the three judicial exceptions to patent-eligible subject matter: abstract ideas, natural phenomena, and laws of nature. In response to this lingering uncertainty and in an effort to provide for the lawful and consistent application of patent law, the United States Patent and Trademark Office released guidance as to the subject matter eligibility of claims drawn to judicial exceptions. This Article provides a review of § 101 jurisprudence, summarizes the USPTO Guidance, and …
Putting The Notice Back Into Pleading, Robin Effron
Putting The Notice Back Into Pleading, Robin Effron
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
How Much Do Expert Opinions Matter? An Empirical Investigation Of Selection Bias, Adversarial Bias, And Judicial Deference In Chinese Medical, Chunyan Ding
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
This article investigates the nature of the operation and the role of expert opinions in Chinese medical negligence litigation, drawing on content analysis of 3,619 medical negligence cases and an in-depth survey of judges with experience of adjudicating medical negligence cases. It offers three major findings: first, that both parties to medical negligence disputes show significant selection bias of medical opinions, as do courts when selecting court-appointed experts; second, expert opinions in medical negligence litigation demonstrate substantial adversarial bias; third, courts display very strong judicial deference to expert opinions in determining medical negligence liability. This article fills the methodological gap …
“Fair Enough”? Revising The Yellowstone Injunction To Fit New York’S Commercial Leasing Landscape And Promote Judicial Economy, Gabriel W. Block
“Fair Enough”? Revising The Yellowstone Injunction To Fit New York’S Commercial Leasing Landscape And Promote Judicial Economy, Gabriel W. Block
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The Yellowstone injunction is an equitable remedy that tolls any applicable cure period and gives tenants a better opportunity to maintain their leasehold when they have defaulted under their lease. The remedy is available to commercial tenants in New York City and to commercial and residential tenants throughout the State. This Note examines the Yellowstone injunction in the context of New York City’s commercial tenants, who employ it most frequently and benefit most from its protections. This Note examines the development and application of the Yellowstone injunction and proposes changing the doctrine to exclude cases of monetary defaults and expired …
Between Scylla And Charybdis: Maritime Liens And The Bankruptcy Code, Ian T. Kitts
Between Scylla And Charybdis: Maritime Liens And The Bankruptcy Code, Ian T. Kitts
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Federal courts have had trouble fitting maritime law into the bankruptcy scheme created by the Bankruptcy Code (the Code). Particularly troublesome have been vessel-arrest proceedings that are underway when the vessel’s owner files for bankruptcy. Prior to the enactment of the Code, courts applied the doctrine of custodia legis to decide whether the admiralty or the bankruptcy court would administer the vessel. Since the Code was enacted, courts have generally held that the bankruptcy court gained control. A recent Ninth Circuit decision, however, split with other circuits and seems to have revived custodia legis. This Note argues that the Ninth …
Increasing Lapses In Data Security: The Need For A Common Answer To What Constitutes Standing In A Data Breach Context, Aaron Benjamin Edelman
Increasing Lapses In Data Security: The Need For A Common Answer To What Constitutes Standing In A Data Breach Context, Aaron Benjamin Edelman
Journal of Law and Policy
As the number of data breaches continues to rise in the United States, so does the amount of data breach litigation. Many potential plaintiffs who suffered as victims of data breaches, however, find themselves in limbo regarding the issue of standing before a court because of a significant split on standing determinations amongst the federal circuit courts. Thus, while victims of data breaches oftentimes have their personal information fall into the hands of nefarious characters who intend to use the information to a victim’s detriment, that may not be enough to provide victims a right to sue in federal court …
Protecting Health Information In Utero: A Radical Proposal, Luke Isaac Haqq
Protecting Health Information In Utero: A Radical Proposal, Luke Isaac Haqq
Journal of Law and Policy
This Article introduces an underappreciated space in which protected health information (“PHI”) remains largely unprotected, a fact that will become only more problematic as clinical medicine increasingly turns to genomics. The past decade has seen significant advances in the prevention of birth defects, especially with the introduction of clinical preconception, prenatal, and neonatal genomic sequencing. Parental access to the results of embryonic and fetal clinical sequencing is critical to reproductive autonomy; results can provide parents with important considerations in determining whether to seek or avoid conception, as well as in deciding whether to carry a pregnancy to term. The information …