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Full-Text Articles in Law

Enforceability Of Mandatory Arbitration Clauses For Shareholder-Corporation Disputes, Garry D. Hartlieb Dec 2014

Enforceability Of Mandatory Arbitration Clauses For Shareholder-Corporation Disputes, Garry D. Hartlieb

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Investor litigation is an increasingly vexatious field of law. Nearly every time a significant change of control or corporate ownership occurs, plaintiffs’ attorneys file standardized complaints to set in motion class action suits. Ultimately, the settlements shareholders receive fail to achieve the practical effects that parties on both sides desire. Shareholders may receive pennies on the dollar of what they allege was lost by corporate wrongdoing, and, in some cases, shareholders may not receive monetary recovery as the settlement requires only that the corporation to make changes to its governing documents. These suits distract directors and management from the core …


From Basic To Halliburton, M. Todd Henderson, Adam C. Pritchard Dec 2014

From Basic To Halliburton, M. Todd Henderson, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

Securities fraud class actions are big business for lawyers. Since 1996, nearly 4,000 suits have been filed, with the majority resulting in companies paying substantial settlements. The top 10 settlements alone totaled about $35 billion; plaintiffs' lawyers took home billions in fees. Companies paid their own lawyers similar sums for defending them. If spending these gigantic sums on lawyers deterred corporate fraud (that is, if they helped sort cases of actual fraud from mere business reverses), then that might be money well spent. But if lawyers are paid billions without reducing the probability or magnitude of corporate fraud, then from …


Market Power Without Market Definition, Daniel A. Crane Dec 2014

Market Power Without Market Definition, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

Antitrust law has traditionally required proof of market power in most cases and has analyzed market power through a market definition/market share lens. In recent years, this indirect or structural approach to proving market power has come under attack as misguided in practice and intellectually incoherent. If market definition collapses in the courts and antitrust agencies, as it seems poised to do, this will rupture antitrust analysis and create urgent pressures for an alternative approach to proving market power through direct evidence. None of the leading theoretic approaches—such as the Lerner Index or a search for supracompetitive profits—provides a robust …


The Limits Of Enumeration, Richard A. Primus Dec 2014

The Limits Of Enumeration, Richard A. Primus

Articles

According to a well-known principle of constitutional interpretation here identified as the “internal-limits canon,” the powers of Congress must always be construed as authorizing less legislation than a general police power would. This Article argues that the internallimits canon is unsound. Whether the powers of Congress would in practice authorize any legislation that a police power would authorize is a matter of contingency: it depends on the relationship between the powers and the social world at a given time. There is no reason why, at a given time, the powers cannot turn out to authorize any legislation that a police …


The Frame Of Reference And Other Problems, Richard D. Friedman, Jeffrey L. Fisher Nov 2014

The Frame Of Reference And Other Problems, Richard D. Friedman, Jeffrey L. Fisher

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

George argues that, centuries ago, jurists did not distinguish between testimonial and nontestimonial hearsay, and so the distinction cannot be a historically well-grounded basis for modern confrontation doctrine. The argument proceeds from an inaccurate frame of reference. When the confrontation right developed, principally in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and English defendants—Raleigh among them—demanded that adverse witnesses be brought face to face with them, they were making a procedural assertion as to how witnesses must give their testimony. (Giving testimony is what witnesses in litigation do.) Rarely did they phrase this claim in terms of hearsay, for the simple reason …


Come Back To The Boat, Justice Breyer!, Richard D. Friedman Nov 2014

Come Back To The Boat, Justice Breyer!, Richard D. Friedman

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

I want to get Justice Breyer back on the right side of Confrontation Clause issues. In 1999, in Lilly v. Virginia, he wrote a farsighted concurrence, making him one of the first members of the Supreme Court to recognize the inadequacy of the then-prevailing doctrine of the Confrontation Clause. That doctrine, first announced in Ohio v. Roberts, was dependent on hearsay law and made judicial assessments of reliability determinative. In Crawford v. Washington, the Court was presented with an alternative approach, making the key inquiry whether the statement in question was testimonial in nature. During the oral …


The Scope Of Precedent, Randy J. Kozel Nov 2014

The Scope Of Precedent, Randy J. Kozel

Michigan Law Review

The scope of Supreme Court precedent is capacious. Justices of the Court commonly defer to sweeping rationales and elaborate doctrinal frameworks articulated by their predecessors. This practice infuses judicial precedent with the prescriptive power of enacted constitutional and statutory text. The lower federal courts follow suit, regularly abiding by the Supreme Court’s broad pronouncements. These phenomena cannot be explained by—and, indeed, oftentimes subvert—the classic distinction between binding holdings and dispensable dicta. This Article connects the scope of precedent with recurring and foundational debates about the proper ends of judicial interpretation. A precedent’s forward- looking effect should not depend on the …


Miller V. Alabama: Something Unconsitutional Now Was Equally Unconstitutional Then, W. Patrick Conlon Oct 2014

Miller V. Alabama: Something Unconsitutional Now Was Equally Unconstitutional Then, W. Patrick Conlon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

In June 2012, the United States Supreme Court found mandatory life-without-parole sentences against juvenile offenders unconstitutional in Miller v. Alabama. The Court determined that because children possess “immaturity, impetuosity, and [fail] to appreciate risks and consequences,” they are fundamentally different than adults. Although Miller invalidated every juvenile mandatory life-without-parole (JMLWOP) statute across the United States, there is no clear indication regarding whether Miller retroactively applies to juveniles sentenced to mandatory life-without-parole before the Court’s ruling. As a result, states are split on whether to apply Miller retroactively. Fifteen states have yet to decide whether Miller applies retroactively, while several other …


Substantive Habeas, Kimberly A. Thomas Oct 2014

Substantive Habeas, Kimberly A. Thomas

Articles

Substantive Habeas identifies the US. Supreme Court's recent shift in its habeas jurisprudence from procedure to the substance of habeas review and explores the implications of this change. For decades, the US. Supreme Court has attempted to control the flood of habeas corpus petitions by imposing procedural requirements on prisoners seeking to challenge constitutional error in their cases. These restrictive procedural rules have remained at the center of habeas decision making until recently. Over the past few years, instead of further constraining the procedural gateway for habeas cases, the Supreme Court has shifted its focus to the substance of habeas. …


Employment Arbitration Reform: Preserving The Right To Class Proceedings In Workplace Disputes, Javier J. Castro Sep 2014

Employment Arbitration Reform: Preserving The Right To Class Proceedings In Workplace Disputes, Javier J. Castro

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The recent judicial enforcement of class waivers in arbitration agreements has generated ample debate over the exact reach of these decisions and their effects on the future of collective action for consumers and employees. In AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court majority held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempted state laws prohibiting companies from incorporating class action waivers into arbitration agreements. The Court upheld such waivers on the grounds that they are consistent with the language and underlying purpose of the FAA. Most courts across the country have since reinforced the strong federal policy …


Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action And The Geography Of Educational Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin Jul 2014

Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action And The Geography Of Educational Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Ultimately, I argue that one important response to the demise of race-based affirmative action should be to incorporate the experience of segregation into diversity strategies. A college applicant who has thrived despite exposure to poverty in his school or neighborhood deserves special consideration. Those blessed to come of age in poverty-free havens do not. I conclude that use of place, rather than race, in diversity programming will better approximate the structural disadvantages many children of color actually endure, while enhancing the possibility that we might one day move past the racial resentment that affirmative action engenders. While I propose substituting …


The Quixotic Search For Race-Neutral Alternatives, Michael E. Rosman Jul 2014

The Quixotic Search For Race-Neutral Alternatives, Michael E. Rosman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court has stated that the narrow-tailoring inquiry of the Equal Protection Clause’s strict scrutiny analysis of racially disparate treatment by state actors requires courts to consider whether the defendant seriously considered race-neutral alternatives before adopting the race-conscious program at issue. This article briefly examines what that means in the context of race-conscious admissions programs at colleges and universities. Part I sets forth the basic concepts that the Supreme Court uses to analyze race-conscious decision-making by governmental actors and describes the role of “race-neutral alternatives” in that scheme. Part II examines the nature of “race-neutral alternatives” and identifies its …


Gideon V. Wainwright--From A 1963 Perspective, Jerold H. Israel Jul 2014

Gideon V. Wainwright--From A 1963 Perspective, Jerold H. Israel

Articles

Gideon v. Wainwright is more than a “landmark” Supreme Court ruling in the field of constitutional criminal procedure. As evidenced by the range of celebrators of Gideon’s Fiftieth Anniversary (extending far beyond the legal academy) and Gideon’s inclusion in the basic coverage of high school government courses, Gideon today is an icon of the American justice system. I have no quarrel with that iconic status, but I certainly did not see any such potential in Gideon when I analyzed the Court’s ruling shortly after it was announced in March of 1963. I had previously agreed to write an article for …


Bottlenecks And Antidiscrimination Theory, Samuel R. Bagenstos Jun 2014

Bottlenecks And Antidiscrimination Theory, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Reviews

In American antidiscrimination theory, two positions have competed for primacy. One, anticlassification, sees the proper goal of antidiscrimination law as being essentially individualistic. The problem with discrimination, in this view, is that it classifies individuals on the basis of an irrelevant or arbitrary characteristic—and that it, as a result, denies them opportunities for which they are otherwise individually qualified. The other position, antisubordination, sees the proper goal of antidiscrimination law as being more group oriented. The problem with discrimination, in this view, is that it helps constitute a social system in which particular groups are systematically subject to disadvantage and …


The Bond Court's Institutional Truce, Monica Hakimi Jun 2014

The Bond Court's Institutional Truce, Monica Hakimi

Articles

As many readers are aware, Bond v. United States is a quirky case. The federal government prosecuted under the implementing legislation for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) a betrayed wife who used chemical agents to try to harm her husband’s lover. The wife argued that, as applied to her, the implementing legislation violated the Tenth Amendment. She thus raised difficult questions about the scope of the treaty power and of Congress’s authority to implement treaties through the Necessary and Proper Clause. The Bond Court avoided those questions with a clear statement rule: “we can insist on a clear indication that …


Pay-For-Delay Settlements In The Wake Of Actavis, Michael L. Fialkoff May 2014

Pay-For-Delay Settlements In The Wake Of Actavis, Michael L. Fialkoff

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

“Pay-for-delay” settlements, also known as reverse payments, arise when a generic manufacturer pursues FDA approval of a generic version of a brand-name drug. If a patent protects the brand-name drug, the generic manufacturer has the option of contesting the validity of the patent or arguing that its product does not infringe the patent covering the brand-name drug. If the generic manufacturer prevails on either of these claims, the FDA will approve its generic version for sale. Approval of a generic version of a brand-name drug reduces the profitability of the brand-name drug by forcing the brand-name manufacturer to price its …


Dismissing Deterrence, Ellen D. Katz Apr 2014

Dismissing Deterrence, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

The proposed Voting Rights Amendment Act of 20144 (VRAA)[...]’s new criteria defining when jurisdictions become subject to preclearance are acutely responsive to the concerns articulated in Shelby County[ v. Holder]. The result is a preclearance regime that, if enacted, would operate in fewer places and demand less from those it regulates. This new regime, however, would not only be more targeted and less powerful, but, curiously, more vulnerable to challenge. In fact, the regime would be more vulnerable precisely because it is so responsive to Shelby County. Some background will help us see why.


Making The Right Call For Confrontation At Felony Sentencing, Shaakirrah R. Sanders Apr 2014

Making The Right Call For Confrontation At Felony Sentencing, Shaakirrah R. Sanders

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Felony sentencing courts have discretion to increase punishment based on un-cross-examined testimonial statements about several categories of uncharged, dismissed, or otherwise unproven criminal conduct. Denying defendants an opportunity to cross-examine these categories of sentencing evidence undermines a core principle of natural law as adopted in the Sixth Amendment: those accused of felony crimes have the right to confront adversarial witnesses. This Article contributes to the scholarship surrounding confrontation rights at felony sentencing by cautioning against continued adherence to the most historic Supreme Court case on this issue, Williams v. New York. This Article does so for reasons beyond the unacknowledged …


The Two Faces Of Janus: The Jurisprudential Past And New Beginning Of Rule 10b-5, John Patrick Clayton Apr 2014

The Two Faces Of Janus: The Jurisprudential Past And New Beginning Of Rule 10b-5, John Patrick Clayton

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and its implementing Rule 10b-5 are the primary antifraud provisions for both private and public enforcement of the federal securities laws. Neither the statute nor the rule expressly provides for a private right of action, but federal courts have long recognized such an implied right, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has supported the implied private right of action as a “necessary supplement” to its own efforts. However, after a decade of applying an expansive interpretation to Section 10(b), in the early 1970s the U.S. Supreme Court began to narrowly interpret this implied …


The Tools Of Political Dissent: A First Amendment Guide To Gun Registries, Thomas E. Kadri Apr 2014

The Tools Of Political Dissent: A First Amendment Guide To Gun Registries, Thomas E. Kadri

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

On December 23, 2012, a newspaper in upstate New York published a provocative map. On it appeared the names and addresses of thousands of gun owners in nearby counties, all precisely pinpointed for the world to browse. The source of this information: publicly available data drawn from the state’s gun registry. Legislators were quick to respond. Within a month, a new law offered gun owners the chance to permanently remove their identities from the registry with a simple call to their county clerk. The map raised interesting questions about broadcasting personal information, but a more fundamental question remains: Are these …


Some Kind Of Judge: Henry Friendly And The Law Of Federal Courts, Aaron P. Brecher Apr 2014

Some Kind Of Judge: Henry Friendly And The Law Of Federal Courts, Aaron P. Brecher

Michigan Law Review

Uberfans of the federal judiciary owe a lot to David Dorsen. His illuminating biography of Judge Henry Friendly is a fitting tribute to the contributions of a jurist that many consider to be among the finest judges never to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Judicial biography is a difficult genre to do well, and most authors choose to focus on Supreme Court justices. But Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of His Era is an excellent source of information on Friendly’s life and, far more important, his views on the law and his relationships with some of the most fascinating figures …


The Puzzling Presumption Of Reviewability, Nicholas Bagley Mar 2014

The Puzzling Presumption Of Reviewability, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

The presumption in favor of judicial review of agency action is a cornerstone of administrative law, accepted by courts and commentators alike as both legally appropriate and obviously desirable. Yet the presumption is puzzling. As with any canon of statutory construction that serves a substantive end, it should find a source in history, positive law, the Constitution, or sound policy considerations. None of these, however, offers a plausible justification for the presumption. As for history, the sort of judicial review that the presumption favors - appellate-style arbitrariness review - was not only unheard of prior to the twentieth century, but …


Enacted Legislative Findings And The Deference Problem, Daniel A. Crane Mar 2014

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 Puzzling Presumption Of Reviewability, Nicholas Bagley Mar 2014

The Puzzling Presumption Of Reviewability, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

The presumption in favor of judicial review of agency action is a cornerstone of administrative law, accepted by courts and commentators alike as both legally appropriate and obviously desirable. Yet the presumption is puzzling. As with any canon of statutory construction that serves a substantive end, it should find a source in history, positive law, the Constitution, or sound policy considerations. None of these, however, offers a plausible justification for the presumption. As for history, the sort of judicial review that the presumption favors - appellate-style arbitrariness review - was not only unheard of prior to the twentieth century, but …


House Swaps: A Strategic Bankruptcy Solution To The Foreclosure Crisis, Lynn M. Lopucki Mar 2014

House Swaps: A Strategic Bankruptcy Solution To The Foreclosure Crisis, Lynn M. Lopucki

Michigan Law Review

Since the price peak in 2006, home values have fallen more than 30 percent, leaving millions of Americans with negative equity in their homes. Until the Supreme Court’s 1993 decision in Nobelman v. American Savings Bank, the bankruptcy system would have provided many such homeowners with a remedy. They could have filed bankruptcy, discharged the negative equity, committed to pay the mortgage holders the full values of their homes, and retained those homes. In Nobelman, however, the Court misinterpreted reasonably clear statutory language and invented legislative history to resolve a three-to-one split of circuits in favor of the minority view …


Confrontation And The Re-Privatization Of Domestic Violence, Deborah Tuerkheimer Jan 2014

Confrontation And The Re-Privatization Of Domestic Violence, Deborah Tuerkheimer

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

When the Supreme Court transformed the right of confrontation in Crawford v. Washington, the prosecution of domestic violence predictably suffered as a result. But commentators at the time did not anticipate how the Court’s subsequent Confrontation Clause cases would utterly misconceive the nature of domestic violence, producing a flawed understanding of what constitutes a “testimonial” statement. Although the Court’s definition was especially problematic in the domestic violence context, its overly rigid approach finally became intolerable in Michigan v. Bryant, a 2011 case that did not involve domestic violence. In Bryant, the Court resurrected a public–private divide that …


The Crawford Debacle, George Fisher Jan 2014

The Crawford Debacle, George Fisher

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

First a toast—to my colleague Jeff Fisher and his Crawford compatriot, Richard Friedman, on the tenth anniversary of their triumph: What they achieved in Crawford is every lawyer’s dream. By dint of sheer vision and lawyerly craft, they toppled what many saw as a flawed confrontation-law regime and put in its place one that promised greater justice. For that, much applause is due. Still there’s no denying their doctrine’s a muddle, if not as conceived, then as realized. Consider the count: Four justices almost agree on Crawford’s contours but patch over the issues that divide them. A fifth justice …


Crawford V. Washington: The Next Ten Years, Jeffrey L. Fisher Jan 2014

Crawford V. Washington: The Next Ten Years, Jeffrey L. Fisher

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Imagine a world . . . in which the Supreme Court got it right the first time. That is, imagine that when the Supreme Court first incorporated the Confrontation Clause against the states, the Court did so by way of the testimonial approach. It’s not that hard to envision. In Douglas v. Alabama—issued in 1965, on the same day the Court ruled that the Confrontation Clause applies to the states—the Court held that a nontestifying witness’s custodial confession could not be introduced against the defendant because, while “not technically testimony,” the confession was “the equivalent in the jury’s mind …


Gideon V. Wainwright A Half Century Later, Yale Kamisar Jan 2014

Gideon V. Wainwright A Half Century Later, Yale Kamisar

Reviews

When he was nearing the end of his distinguished career, one of my former law professors observed that a dramatic story of a specific case "has the same advantages that a play or a novel has over a general discussion of ethics or political theory." Ms. Houppert illustrates this point in her very first chapter.


Thinking Hard About 'Race-Neutral' Admissions, Richard H. Sander, Aaron Danielson Jan 2014

Thinking Hard About 'Race-Neutral' Admissions, Richard H. Sander, Aaron Danielson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Our exploration is organized as follows. In Part I, we sympathetically consider the very difficult dilemmas facing higher education leaders. Understanding the often irreconcilable pressures that constrain university administrators is essential if we are to envision the plausible policies they might undertake. In Part II, we draw on a range of data to illustrate some of the “properties” of admissions systems and, in particular, the ways in which race, SES, and academic preparation interact dynamically both within individual schools and across the educational spectrum. Partly because the questions we examine here have been so little studied, ideal data does not …