Law Commons^™

Correctional Discharge Planning & The Missing Linkages, D'Andre D. Lampkin

D'Andre Devon Lampkin

This research project explores correctional rehabilitation and disconnects between correctional facilities and linkage to follow up mental health treatment. One of the components to releasing inmates is providing them with services that help reintroduce them into society. For the mentally ill, linkage to mental health services after spending any amount of time in a correctional facility is heavily dependent on follow through by the former inmate and the expediency and capacity of the mental health departments’ outpatient facilities within the community the former inmate is released into.

What Should Law Enforcement Role Be In Addressing Quality Of Life Issues Associated With Section 8 Housing?, D'Andre D. Lampkin

D'Andre Devon Lampkin

The purpose of this research project is to discuss the challenges law enforcement face when attempting to address quality of life issues for residents residing in and around Section 8 federal housing. The paper introduces readers to the purpose of Section 8 housing, the process in which residents choose subsidized housing, and the legal challenges presented when law enforcement agencies are assisting city government to address quality of life issues. For purposes of this research project, studies were sampled to illustrate where law enforcement participation worked and where law enforcement participation leads to unintended legal ramifications.

Advocacy For Marriage Equality: The Power Of A Broad Historical Narrative During A Transitional Period In Civil Rights, Charles R. Calleros

Charles R. Calleros

Previous civil rights movements in the United States define broad historical patterns that form a narrative helpful to a proper understanding of new controversies. In essence, as a society we often could benefit from a reminder that our actions today will form the history for future generations, who will judge us with benefit of hindsight and a broader perspective. With each new civil rights controversy, we owe it to ourselves and to the victims of discrimination to ask whether we are once again in a period of transition, where conventional mores will soon sound as jarring as Justice Bradley’s concurrence …

Admissibility Of Scientific Evidence Under Daubert: The Fatal Flaws Of ‘Falsifiability’ And ‘Falsification’, Barbara P. Billauer Esq

barbara p billauer esq

Abstract: The Daubert mantra demands that judges, acting as gatekeepers, prevent para, pseudo or ‘bad’ science from infiltrating the courtroom. To do so, the Judges must first determine what “science” is? And then, what ‘good science’ is? It is submitted that Daubert is seriously polluted with the notions of Karl Popper who sets ‘falsifiability’ and ‘falsification’ as the demarcation line for that determination. This inapt philosophy has intractably infected case law, leading to bad decisions immortalized as stare decisis. Among other problems, is the intolerance of Popper’s system for multiple causation, a key component of toxic- torts. Thus, the primary …

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …

Joinder Of Unrelated Infringers As Defendants In Patent Litigation Under The Jurisprudence Of The United States District Court For Eastern District Of Texas—A Critical Review, Ping-Hsun Chen

Ping-Hsun Chen

On September 16, 2011, the American patent system started a new era because of the enactment of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”). 35 U.S.C. § 299 was enacted to limit district court’s power to permit joinder of unrelated infringers as defendants in a single lawsuit. Before that, district courts apply Rule 20 of the Federal Civil Procedure. The Eastern District of Texas had permitted joinder only because the same patent was infringed. By introducing § 299, Congress intended to abrogate such approach. Later, the Federal Circuit in In re EMC limited the practice of Rule 20 and required a …

Experts, Statistics, Science & Bad Science, Curtis E.A. Karnow

Curtis E.A. Karnow

Articles, books, and other online resources relating to expert testimony with a specific focus on problems with peer review, bad science, and statistics

Dismissing Provenance: The Use Of Procedural Defenses To Bar Claims In Nazi-Looted Art And Securitized Mortgage Litigation, Christian J. Bromley

Christian J Bromley

The litigation surrounding an estimated 650,000 works looted by the Nazis in the Second World War and the millions of securitized mortgages foreclosed in the wake of the Great Recession converge on a fundamental legal principle: who really holds rightful title? Seemingly worlds apart, these separate yet remarkably similar forms of property challenge the American judiciary to allocate property rights between adversaries steadfast in their contention of rightful ownership. The legal fulcrum in this allocation often rests not on the equity or righteousness of either parties’ claim—whether museum versus heir or bank versus former homeowner—but instead on procedural defenses that …

Hackers Lend Hand To Consortium Defendants, Anthony Longo

Anthony Longo

Mr. Longo analyzes how the Ashley Madison hack impacts the defense of consortium claims in Illinois

The Forms Had A Function: Rule 84 And The Appendix Of Forms As Guardians Of The Liberal Ethos In Civil Procedure, A. Benjamin Spencer

A. Benjamin Spencer

The Official Forms appended to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are a seeming anachronism, more appropriate for a much simpler time that hardly characterizes modern day federal civil litigation. Perhaps the form for a negligence complaint is the most striking in this regard, offering only that at a certain time and place “the defendant negligently drove a motor vehicle against the plaintiff,” causing harm. Not only does such a complaint fail to typify the negligence claims one might find on any federal docket, but it neither seems to reflect the much greater complexity that characterizes modern litigation and life …

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

The Signing Of Court Processes: The Legal Issues Arising And Its Effects On The Administration Of Justice In Nigeria, Oluwaseun Viyon Ojo

Oluwaseun Viyon Ojo

The signing of court processes by a person not known to law has significantly dominated the arena of legal discourse among the legal practitioners and major stakeholders in the legal community. The question of whether a person not known to law (in the light of the Legal Practitioners Act) can validly sign any court process to be adopted in any legal proceeding has generated intense debate and discussions from every angle. The main thrust of the issue relates essentially to whether the ends of justice are better realised where the courts hold that the absence of a named legal practitioner …

Contracts Of Individuals Who Are Incompetent Without Guardianship And The Interpretation Of Article 428 Of The Italian Civil Code: Is The Court Of Cassation Wrong?, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

This paper aims at demonstrating that excessive protection of incompetent people can produce unintended negative consequences. Both in the Italian system, which is examined here in depth, and in American common law, a contract can be annulled if there is bad faith of behalf of the party who is not incompetent. However, a party in bad faith could offer an incompetent person a contract that does not produce a prejudice and could, in fact, be beneficial for the incompetent party. If the contract can be annulled, and if the prejudice occasionally occurs, the incompetent party can request a contract annulment. …

Defensa Posesoria Extrajudicial ¿El Artículo 920°, 921° Del C. C. Y El Artículo 603° Del C. P. C. Es Suficiente?, Ronald Benjamin Jallurana Añamuro

RONALD Benjamín Jallurana Añamuro

En rigor, es necesario delinear la naturaleza jurídica de la posesión para fortalecer la defensa posesoria extrajudicial.

The Forgotten Rule Of Professional Conduct: Representing A Client With Diminished Capacity, Barry Kozak

Barry Kozak

All attorneys who maintain client-lawyer relationships must continually, or at least periodically, assess each client’s mental capacity. Under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, this assessment is a two-step process. First, the attorney must ensure that an individual has enough mental capacity to establish or maintain a normal client-lawyer relationship, and second, the attorney must ensure that the individual has enough mental capacity to legally-bind him or herself in the desired transaction or intended course of action. If the attorney determines that at any point in time, a particular client has diminished capacity, then Model Rule 1.14 requires the …

Nailing Down The Deadlines: A Modified Peremption Scheme For Claims Against Design Professionals, Alex T. Robertson

Alex T Robertson

In Louisiana construction cases, the timeliness of a third party claim for indemnity is contingent on both the profession of the defendant and where the plaintiff files the suit.[1] This moving target effect has roots in Louisiana’s adoption of a single peremptive statute for construction cases in lieu of the previously controlling liberative prescription statutes.[2] Louisiana instituted peremption to create a shorter and fixed period of time for the possibility of a design professional to be sued from a design, which has several positive consequences--judicial efficiency, higher quality of evidence in construction cases, positive economic impact and heightened creativity in …

Comentario Al Reglamento Sobre El Sistema De Resolución De Controversias En Materia De Consumo, Gabriel Martinez Medrano

Gabriel Martinez Medrano

Comentario crítico del decreto 202/2015 (Argentina) que reglamenta el Sistema de resolucion de controversias en materia de consumo. Se critica la falta de mecanismos para la ejecución de acuerdos conciliatorios y resoluciones administrativas que reconocen derecho a los consumidores.

Crowdsourcing (Bankruptcy) Fee Control, Matthew Bruckner

Matthew Adam Bruckner

In this article, I explore how crowdsourcing can help reduce the cost of professional representation in corporate bankruptcy cases. The cost of professional representation in bankruptcy cases is currently a hot topic, with oral argument haven taken place before the U.S. Supreme Court in Baker Botts L.L.P. v. Asarco, L.L.C. in February 2015, which case addressed various issues raised in my article. In brief, the fees of lawyers, investment bankers, and other bankruptcy professionals has been spiraling out of control because chapter 11’s existing fee control system is broken. That system can neither identify nor control professional overcharging, which empirical …

The Brazilian Appellate Procedure Through Common Law Lenses: How American Standards Of Review May Help Improve Brazilian Civil Procedure, Cesar Zucatti Pritsch

Cesar Zucatti Pritsch

In this article, we address a flaw in Brazilian civil procedure observed in our practice as a Federal Labor Judge in Brazil, an issue that may be addressed by limiting appellate review in a similar fashion as the American courts do, using standards of appellate review.

In Brazil, appellate courts tend to ignore the lower court’s decisions, replacing them for the ruling they would have made had they been the original decision makers. A simple disagreement with the lower court’s findings of fact or discretionary rulings, no matter how reasonable, is sufficient grounds for reversal.

The lack of standards of …

When Peace Is Not The Goal Of A Class Action Settlement, D. Theodore Rave

D. Theodore Rave

On the conventional account, a class action settlement is a vehicle through which the defendant buys peace from the class action lawyer. That single transaction will preclude future litigation by all class members. But peace, at least through preclusion, may not always be the goal. In a recent Fair Credit Reporting Action (FCRA) case, In re Trans Union Privacy Litigation, the parties agreed to a class action settlement that did not preclude individual claims. The 190 million class members surrendered only their rights to participate in a future class or aggregate action; they remained free to march right back into …

Jones, Lackey, And Teague, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

In a recent, high-profile ruling, a federal court finally recognized that a substantial delay in executing a death row inmate violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. Courts have repeatedly rejected these so-called “Lackey claims,” making the federal court’s decision in Jones v. Chappell all the more important. And yet it was deeply flawed. This paper focuses on one of the major flaws in the Jones decision that largely escaped attention: the application of the non-retroactivity rule from Teague v. Lane. By comprehensively addressing the merits of the Teague bar as applied to Lackey claims, and making …

Minding The Specter Of Csr-Reporting Liability, David L. Wallace, Stephane Brabant

David L Wallace

With CSR programs the new normal, consumers and investors increasingly factoring CSR performance into their decision-making, and companies eager to display "good corporate citizenship," strict CSR due diligence is required to proactively manage legal risks. More than ever, words must match deeds.

Everything Is Presumed In Texas, Benjamin Walther

Benjamin Walther

As this Article will reveal, the Fifth Circuit has traditionally been loath to apply the presumption against preemption in most cases. Texas courts, on the other hand, have consistently employed a particularly strong application of the presumption to all types of preemption cases. This inconsistency between these two jurisdictions creates an incentive for forum shopping. Generally, the courts rely on a defendant’s ability to remove a case to the federal courts to counteract the plaintiff’s exclusive power to decide the forum. This ability, however, is not available to a defendant within the context of preemption cases. As such, there is …

Free Expression, In-Group Bias, And The Court's Conservatives: A Critique Of The Epstein-Parker-Segal Study, Todd E. Pettys

Todd E. Pettys

In a recent, widely publicized study, a prestigious team of political scientists concluded that there is strong evidence of ideological in-group bias among the Supreme Court’s members in First Amendment free-expression cases, with the current four most conservative justices being the Roberts Court’s worst offenders. Beneath the surface of the authors’ conclusions, however, one finds a surprisingly sizable combination of coding errors, superficial case readings, and questionable judgments about litigants’ ideological affiliations. Many of those problems likely flow either from shortcomings that reportedly afflict the Supreme Court Database (the data set that nearly always provides the starting point for empirical …

Complexity In Litigation: A Differential Diagnosis, Curtis E.A. Karnow

Curtis E.A. Karnow

This note examines complex litigation with the goal of providing practical options for its management. It is written from a judge’s perspective. I review the definition of a “complex” case and explain its emphasis on the need for a judge to manage the case, with a focus on enabling settlement. I address a series of specific characteristics or aspects of complex cases, explaining how these affect the progress of the case. Then the note explores the many tools and techniques judges have to manage and ameliorate difficult aspects of complex cases. {Pre-print. Final article as published differs substantially and is …

Preparing For Your Rule 26(F) Conference When Esi Is Involved - And Isn't Esi Always Involved?, Amii N. Castle

Amii n Castle

In most civil cases filed today, discovery is likely to include electronically stored information (“ESI”). This article details the steps counsel must take when a lawsuit filed, and the article gives particularized instruction on ESI at each juncture. The article discusses the following steps: At Step One, the judge issues an initial scheduling order, which puts into motion several deadlines: the Rule 26(f) conference, the date to submit the parties’ planning report, and the Rule 16 Conference. Step Two directs attorneys to talk to their own clients about ESI that is relevant to the case. Questions are suggested, such as: …

The Curious, Perjurious Requirements Of Illinois Supreme Court Rule 12(B)(3)., Wm. Dennis Huber

Wm. Dennis Huber

A 2010 survey of Illinois Civil Procedure discussed recent amendments to the Illinois Supreme Court Rules that apply to civil practice issues.1 The survey began with Notices of Appeal and a substantial part of the survey of Notices of Appeal was devoted to Secura Insurance Co. v. Illinois Farmers Insurance Co.2 The purpose of this Article is to examine in greater depth the requirements of filing notices of appeal under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 12(b)(3) and the corresponding proof of service of Rule 373.

Illinois Supreme Court Rule 12(b)(3) has what can only be called “curious, perjurious requirements.” They are …

Art-Iculating The Analysis: Systemizing The Decision To Use Visuals As Legal Reasoning, Ruth Anne Robbins, Steve Johansen

Ruth Anne Robbins

This Article first assumes that visuals belong and are ethically permitted in legal documents -- something explored by other authors -- and then begins to answer the questions of effective inclusion. The article explores the specific use of analytical visuals, which are those that do not attempt to prove what happened in a legal dispute, but instead help explain how the dispute should be resolved under the legal standards. Thus, the included analytical visual, when used effectively, creates a stronger understanding of the abstract legal analysis. The article suggests a taxonomy for categories of analytical visuals. It also acknowledges that …

Anexo: El Desempeño Como Litigante De La Fne Una Mirada Cuantitativa, Diego G. Pardow

Diego G. Pardow

Technical annex to "El Desempeño como Litigante de la FNE Una Mirada Cuantitativa"

Work Made For Hire – Analyzing The Multifactor Balancing Test, Ryan G. Vacca

Ryan G. Vacca

Authorship, and hence, initial ownership of copyrighted works is oftentimes controlled by the 1976 Copyright Act’s work made for hire doctrine. This doctrine states that works created by employees within the scope of their employment result in the employer owning the copyright. One key determination in this analysis is whether the hired party is an employee or independent contractor. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court, in CCNV v. Reid, answered the question of how employees are distinguished from independent contractors by setting forth a list of factors courts should consider. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not give further guidance on …