Law Commons^™

David D. Gregory, Timothy P. Mccormack Editor-In-Chief

Maine Law Review

The Board and Staff of the Maine Law Review dedicate this issue to the memory of Professor David Doliver Gregory, who passed away on December 9, 2000. The Maine legal community and the University of Maine School of Law mourn the loss of our beloved teacher, advocate, and friend. In the collective memory of his students, Professor Gregory will always be remembered for the Socratic genius that he employed so effectively in class; his keen wit, often accompanied by a knowing smile and a twinkle in his eyes; his passion for ferreting out seemingly elusive legal principles; and his compassion …

Remembrance Of Professor David Gregory, Timothy P. Mccormack Editor-In-Chief

Maine Law Review

The Board and Staff of the Maine Law Review dedicate this issue to the memory of Professor David Doliver Gregory, who passed away on December 9, 2000. The Maine legal community and the University of Maine School of Law mourn the loss of our beloved teacher, advocate, and friend. In the collective memory of his students, Professor Gregory will always be remembered for the Socratic genius that he employed so effectively in class; his keen wit, often accompanied by a knowing smile and a twinkle in his eyes; his passion for ferreting out seemingly elusive legal principles; and his compassion …

State V. Brackett: Does The State Have A Right Of Appeal?, Theodore A. Small

Maine Law Review

In State v. Brackett, the defendant was charged with kidnapping, gross sexual assault, burglary, and criminal threatening with the use of a dangerous weapon. The State of Maine filed an in limine motion to exclude any evidence relating to the victim's past sexual behavior, including evidence that the victim may have been a prostitute sometime prior to the incident in dispute. Although evidence of a victim's past sexual behavior is generally inadmissible. The State appealed. A divided Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, declined to rule on the merits of the appeal, holding that the appeal was …

Latent Medical Errors And Maine's Statute Of Limitations For Medical Malpractice: A Discussion Of The Issues, Kathryn M. Kendall

Maine Law Review

Each year in the United States, between 44,000 and 98,000 hospitalized patients die as a result of medical errors. Nearly a third of such errors are caused by negligence. Although most of these negligent mistakes become apparent to patients or their families shortly after they occur, a few remain undiscoverable for an extended length of time. When medical errors lead to the misdiagnosis of diseases with long latency periods, patients may be delayed in obtaining appropriate treatment. Nonetheless, in Maine, because medical malpractice actions are governed by a strict occurrence-based statute of limitations as opposed to a limitations period that …

Surrogate Mothers, Gestational Carriers, And A Pragmatic Adaptation Of The Uniform Parentage Act Of 2000, John C. Sheldon

Maine Law Review

Recent medical advances that permit human conception without intercourse, in combination with sociological changes in our country, dramatically enlarge the population of adults who can produce or raise children. The legal price for this broadening of opportunity, however, is a diminishment of certainty: We are no longer sure whom we should identify as a child's parents. These are important questions, of course, because ready answers will quickly dampen disputes about custody and will immediately establish support obligations and the children's eligibility for health insurance, for inheritance, for Workers' Compensation benefits, and for Social Security survivor benefits. But as important as …

How The Law Court Uses Duty To Limit The Scope Of Negligence Liability, Paul F. Macri

Maine Law Review

The element of duty is the least understood and most amorphous element of negligence. One reason that duty is not well understood is that duty analysis combines consideration of fact-specific issues of foreseeability of harm, relationship between the parties, and seriousness of injury with analysis of the public policy implications of finding a duty in the specific case, including the burden that will be placed on defendants by imposing a duty. This is a delicate balancing act for most courts. Over the last eleven years, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has employed duty analysis in …

Hate Speech - The United States Versus The Rest Of The World?, Kevin Boyle

Maine Law Review

The search for a commonly agreed upon international legal understanding of the meaning of free speech or freedom of expression, as an individual human right, was a major international preoccupation from the 1940s to the 1980s. During the Cold War it was, of course, also a highly ideological debate. There were three positions, broadly speaking: the Soviet Union and its allies, who had little enthusiasm for the idea at all; the United States, which believed in it—many thought—too much; and the rest, the other Western democracies and developing countries, who tried to hold the middle ground. These contrasting positions were …

Must The Interests Of The Client Always Come First?, Alan B. Morrison

Maine Law Review

The Ninth Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service was held on October 12, 2000. Alan B. Morrison, Co-Founder and Director of the Public Citizen Litigation Group, delivered the lecture. Established in 1992, the lecture honors Judge Frank M. Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, an inspiration, mentor, and friend to the University of Maine School of Law. The Board and Staff of Volume 53 are honored to continue the tradition of publishing this lecture series.

Valuation Of Intellectual Property: Placing A Dollar Value On Technology (Or, Are Real-Options Real?), Gordon V. Smith

Maine Law Review

Valuation professionals have for a long time been appraising business enterprises and their underlying assets. The “dot-com” New Economy has dramatically changed how businesses can do business and has introduced us to some new forms of intellectual property rights. Have these changes altered our valuation methodologies? Prior to the 1960s, when valuation professionals were faced with a situation in which the value of a business enterprise appeared to exceed the value of its underlying assets, the difference was ascribed to “goodwill” or “blue sky.” No real effort was made to identify the constituents of this catch-all category, it was simply …

The Perfection And Priority Rules For Security Interests In Copyrights, Patents, And Trademarks: The Current Structural Dissonance And Proposed Legislative Cures, Thomas M. Ward

Maine Law Review

The structural legal dissonance that undermines the effective financing of federal intellectual property rights (patents, trademarks registrations, copyrights, and maskworks) is rooted in the prominence of title in both the early conceptual history of personal property financing and in the language of the federal tract recording acts. While genuine ownership transfers have always represented the prototype under the federal intellectual property recording statutes, transfers intended for security were also originally included because of the early judicial thinking about the importance of title to the validity (against third parties) of a “mortgage” right in intangible personal property. As products of their …

Revised Article 9 And Intellectual Property Asset Financing, Raymond T. Nimmer

Maine Law Review

Commercial asset value today often resides primarily in information assets, rather than in the physical assets that dominated the industrial age (goods and real estate). While tangible assets continue to have value, of course, the shift toward intangibles as value is significant and has been occurring for some time. We have not yet seen its end. More important, we have not yet come to grips with its meaning, either for commercial contract law or for commercial asset-based financing. Attitudes and approaches from the commercial world before intangible assets took center stage continue to influence how modern law treats information assets. …

Editorial Board Vol. 70 No. 1 (2018), Bonnie L. Ball Jr., Editor-In-Chief

Maine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Creating Mischief: The Tenth Circuit Declares The Sec’S Administrative Law Judges Unconstitutional In Bandimere V. Securities Exchange Commission, Casey M. Olesen

Maine Law Review

Since the passage of the APA, administrative agencies’ use of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) to preside over hearings has exploded, and now far outpaces the number trials conducted before federal judges. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is one such agency that heavily utilizes ALJs to conduct their hearings. Recently, following an apparent higher percentage of SEC wins before their own ALJs as compared to before federal judges, a new constitutional challenge on the basis of the Appointments Clause has been brought before several circuits; that the SEC’s ALJs are inferior officers of the SEC, not employees, and therefore are …

Tax Increment Financing In Maine, Michael G. Walker

Maine Law Review

Tax Increment Financing ("TIF") is a statutorily authorized mechanism which enables municipalities to earmark the property tax revenue from designated areas to pay for things such as infrastructure improvement. Lately, Maine municipalities have been using TIF to refund tax revenues directly to private developers in an effort to attract new business. This Comment will begin by briefly explaining the development of TIF in the United States and how it has evolved over time. It will then summarize how TIF works in Maine and the criticism and praise it has received throughout its existence. Next, it will look at research examining …

Overawed And Overwhelmed: Juvenile Miranda Incomprehension, Sara P. Cressey

Maine Law Review

Each year approximately one million juveniles in the United States are arrested and read the Miranda warnings. Though studies have shown that the majority of those children do not understand the warnings, most of them must decide alone whether to waive their constitutional rights— and nearly all ultimately make that choice without the help of an attorney. The Supreme Court has recognized that children differ from adults in critical ways, and those differences have important implications for juveniles’ ability to meaningfully waive their Miranda rights. To ensure that juveniles’ constitutional rights are protected, the Supreme Court should take up the …

No Need For Cities To Despair After Bank Of America Corporation V. City Of Miami: How Patent Law Can Assist In Proving Predatory Loans Directly Cause Municipal Blight Under The Fair Housing Act, Jesse D.H. Snyder

Maine Law Review

Lack of sanguinity for cities was manifest after the Supreme Court’s May 1, 2017, opinion in Bank of America Corporation v. City of Miami. Although Bank of America recognized that cities have Article III standing to sue for economic injuries suffered from predatory lending, the Supreme Court rejected the Eleventh Circuit’s more lenient causation standard, favoring proof of “some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged.” Doubtless the result could have been worse for cities suing on the premise that racially discriminatory lending caused municipal blight. The courthouse doors could have closed if the Court had …

Dawn Of The Debt: The Increasing Problem Of Creditors Infecting The Discharge Injunction With Zombie Debt, Micah A. Smart

Maine Law Review

The discharge injunction is an integral aspect of the “fresh start” that bankruptcy affords to many debtors. But there has been a growing threat to the viability of the bankruptcy discharge: zombie debt! Just when honest but unfortunate debtors think they have finally laid their overdue financial obligations to rest and moved on with their lives, zombie debt comes back to life in form of outdated and misleading credit reports that some debt collectors have been using to coerce payment on debts that should have died years prior. This Article discusses the motivation behind these questionable collection tactics and potential …

“Frankly Unthinkable”: The Constitutional Failings Of President Trump’S Proposed Muslim Registry, A. Reid Monroe-Sheridan

Maine Law Review

On several occasions during the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump endorsed the creation of a mandatory government registry for Muslims in the United States— not just visitors from abroad, but American citizens as well. This astonishing proposal has received little attention in legal scholarship to date, even though Trump has refused to renounce the idea following his election to the presidency. In this Article, I attempt to address President Trump’ s proposal in several ways. First, I aim to provide a thorough analysis demonstrating unequivocally that such a “ Muslim registry,” with the characteristics President Trump has endorsed, would violate …

American Lobster Claws Threatened By Eu Invasive Species Laws:How The Eu Invasive Species Act Applies Non-Uniformly To Aquatic Species., Joseph D. Foltz

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In 2014 the European Union enacted the “Prevention and Management of the Introduction and Spread of Invasive Alien Species Act” (Act) as a way to restrict the transportation and consumption of non-native animal and plant species that harmed native animal and plant species. As a result of this Act, thirty-seven species were deemed “invasive alien species” and were placed on a “list of Union concern” which restricted their importation and movement within the EU. Two species on this list include the Virile Crayfish (Orconectes virilis) and the Pond Slider (Trachemys scripta). On February 29, 2016, Sweden (a European Union member) …

Toward Distributive Justice In Offshore Natural Resources Development: Iceland And Norway In The Jan Mayen, Anita L. Parlow

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

As pressures of globalization and advances in technology accelerate, more and more remote, coastal, and small communities are left financially stranded and disempowered. Many communities located at the historic periphery of global markets and trade routes are, often paradoxically, marginalized from the benefits of globalized trade, even while their more accessible natural resources have moved far closer to the center of global markets. The powerful political institutions of nation states combined with growing transnational businesses are driving a combination of boosts in national economies, explosions in technology, and fewer international restrictions on capital. This three-pronged dynamic is reshaping the structure …

The Iwt And The Unwc: Commonalities And Differences, Waseem Ahmad Qureshi

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Amid global water scarcity and a surge in population, leading nations have started racing to occupy freshwater resources around the world. While there remains no international agreement applying universally worldwide, almost all major international watercourses and powerful nations remain out of the scope of any sort of legal obligation. Bilateral and multilateral treaties have become the governing legal framework to regulate freshwater utilization. In this context, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UNWC) and the Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers (DALTA) play a significant role, serving not only as …

Race To Extinction: Shark Conservation Under International And European Law And Its Limits, Ilja Richard Pavone

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the existing (global and regional) legal standards on shark conservation from over-exploitation. First, an analysis of the current international legal framework (law of the sea, sustainable fisheries management, wildlife law) applicable to shark protection is provided (Part I). Next the paper explores the evolution of the European Union (EU) policy on shark finning, since the EU − in line with the United States (Shark Conservation Act) − opted for a strict fins-attached policy, or Fins-Naturally Attached (FNA), The new policy eliminated the major pitfall of its previous regulation, based on a fin-to-carcass …

Avoiding Septic Shock: How Climate Change Can Cause Septic System Failure And Whether New England States Are Prepared, Elena Mihaly

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Climate change poses a number of difficult challenges to New England's infrastructure. The most commonly discussed impacts include flooding of roads, bridges, and culverts, or water damage to buildings and electric utilities. A less discussed, but equally alarming challenge to infrastructure is how climate change is impacting onsite wastewater treatment systems, more commonly known as septic systems. Almost half of homes in New England depend on septic systems to dispose of wastewater. When functioning properly, these systems filter out harmful bacteria and pathogens to ensure nearby groundwater and surface waters are safe for human health and the environment. But rising …

Editorial Board Vol. 23, Nos. 1 (2017-2018), Isaac P. Mcmahan Editor-In-Chief

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Context, Integration And The Big Three Questions: An Approach To Teaching Transactional Law, Andrew M. Kaufman

Faculty Publications

I have been mentoring fledgling transactional lawyers in both law
school and law firm settings for a long time. Over the years, I have
recognized that the most significant challenge to their development and
success usually is not their mastery of the substantive laws and regulations
applicable to their transactions. Rather, most often their biggest hurdle is
their lack of transactional context. Without context for the material being
studied or applied, appropriately integrated into the transaction being
examined, the student or young lawyer is easily lost in a morass of
confusion and left to struggle with any number of issues, …

Maine Law Magazine - Issue No. 94, University Of Maine School Of Law

Maine Law Magazine

• PLUS Program
  Introducing diverse voices to legal careers
• Clerkships
  The Class of 2018 enjoys a stellar clerkship year
• Rural Law
  Tackling Maine's rural law crisis
• Journey to Laredo
  Students provide legal aid to immigrants
• Alumni at Work
  Graduates make their marks as entrepreneurs
• Student Spotlight
  Nicholas Mazuroski 2L and Julia Teitel 3L

The "Publicization" Of Private Space, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recently, many urban areas have moved away from the creation of publicly owned open spaces and toward privately owned public open spaces, or POPOS. These POPOS take many forms: concrete plazas that separate a building from the sidewalk; glass-windowed atriums in downtown office buildings; rooftop terraces and gardens; and grass-covered spaces that appear to be traditional parks. This Article considers the nature of POPOS and examines whether they live up to expectations about the role that public space should play and the value it should provide to communities. This is especially important because in embracing POPOS, cities have made a …

Legal Deserts: A Multi-State Perspective On Rural Access To Justice (Forthcoming), Danielle M. Conway

Faculty Publications

Rural America faces an increasingly dire access to justice crisis, which serves to exacerbate the already disproportionate share of social problems afflicting rural areas. One critical aspect of that crisis is the dearth of information and research regarding the extent of the problem and its impacts. This article begins to address that gap by providing surveys of rural access to justice in six geographically, demographically, and economically varied states: California, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In addition to providing insights about the distinct rural challenges confronting each of these states, the legal resources available, and existing policy responses, …

Food Federalism: States, Local Governments, And The Fight For Food Sovereignty, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recently, a number of states have sought to withdraw or restrain local power. In this Article, which is part of the “Re-Thinking State Relevance” symposium hosted by the Ohio State Law Journal, I write about a state taking the opposite approach, and attempting to affirmatively endow its local governments with additional powers. The state is Maine, and the context is control over local food production and sales. This Article begins by addressing the emergence of the sustainable local foods movement broadly, and reasons for the growth of this movement. It then focuses more pointedly on the food sovereignty movement, considering …

Environmens Rea, Anthony Moffa

Faculty Publications

Many policymakers remain blind to the moral implications of environmental harm caused by government action (or inaction) and have not adequately considered how criminal law deals with similar immoral behavior in other contexts. Building from Lisa Heinzerling’s thought-provoking essay Knowing Killing and Environmental Law, this article considers the possibility of criminal culpability for environmental policy decisions and the implications of that potential culpability for decision-making and communication. It builds from the premise that morality and law universally condemn the knowing killing of other human beings. It matters not that the identities of the dead are unknown. What matters from the …