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Articles 1 - 22 of 22
Full-Text Articles in Law
Same-Sex Divorce, Tracy A. Thomas
Same-Sex Divorce, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
Same-sex marriage is now legal in seventeen states and sixteen countries. The question increasingly being asked is how these couples can divorce. For those who remain in their home state or in a marriage equality state, the divorce process should be the same as for any other marriage. The problem arises because people are transient; couples often relocate for jobs or family, or they initially traveled out of their home state for the marriage. “In a highly mobile society, state bans on same-sex marriage have in many cases made untying the knot far harder than tying it in the first …
Teaching Remedies As Problem-Solving: Keeping It Real, Tracy A. Thomas
Teaching Remedies As Problem-Solving: Keeping It Real, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
I began teaching Remedies as a problem-solving course over a decade ago. I was then in my third year of teaching and found that the Remedies course just wasn’t clicking. The students, mostly third-years, were bored with the Socratic method and seemingly resistant to the demands of this important course. My teaching grew more cumbersome as I waded deeper into the mire of the complexities of a transsubstantive field. Remedies class felt like a slog in the mud for all of us. After just a few years with the course, I thought there had to be a better way. I …
Back To The Future Of Abortion Regulation In The First Term, Tracy A. Thomas
Back To The Future Of Abortion Regulation In The First Term, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
Abortion and women's reproductive rights have reemerged as front-page news. As popular culture grapples with election rhetoric, states continue to engage in aggressive anti-abortion regulation of first-term abortions. In the first half of 2011, more abortion bills have passed to restrict abortion than ever before. The 162 new abortion bills passed by 19 states in the first six months of the year dwarf the average number of abortion bills for the last three decades of 15 per year. Even more, these bills propose significantly more stringent limits on abortion than in the past, including mandatory ultrasound viewings, intensive counseling, and …
Misappropriating Women's History In The Law And Politics Of Abortion, Tracy A. Thomas
Misappropriating Women's History In The Law And Politics Of Abortion, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
“Without known exception, the early American feminists condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms.” This claim about women’s history has been used by pro-life advocates for twenty years to control the political narrative of abortion. Conservatives, led by the group Feminists for Life, have used feminist icons from history to support their anti-abortion advocacy. Federal anti-abortion legislation has been named after feminist heroines, like the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnancy and Parenting Students Act (co-sponsored by Rick Santorum) and the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Act of 2011. Amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court quote women’s rights leaders in …
Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas
Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This is the introduction to the book, Feminist Legal History. This edited collection offers new visions of American legal history that reveal women’s engagement with the law over the past two centuries. It integrates the stories of women into the dominant history of the law in what has been called “engendering legal history,” (Batlan 2005) and then seeks to reconstruct the assumed contours of history. The introduction provides the context necessary to appreciate the diverse essays in the book. It starts with an overview of the existing state of women’s legal history, tracing the core events over the past two …
Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas
Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
In the mid-nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used narratives of women and their involvement with the law of domestic relations to collectivize women. This recognition of a gender class was the first step towards women’s transformation of the law. Stanton’s stories of working-class women, immigrants, Mormon polygamist wives, and privileged white women revealed common realities among women in an effort to form a collective conscious. The parable-like stories were designed to inspire a collective consciousness among women, one capable of arousing them to social and political action. For to Stanton’s consternation, women showed a lack of appreciation of their own …
Sex V. Race, Again, Tracy A. Thomas
Sex V. Race, Again, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
In this book, feminists speak out on race and gender in the 2008 presidential campaign. Who should be first? With Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as frontrunners, the 2008 Democratic primary campaign was a watershed moment in U.S. history. Offering the choice of an African American man or a white woman as the next Democratic candidate for president, the primary marked an unprecedented moment—but one that painfully echoed previous struggles for progressive change that pitted race and gender against each other. Who Should Be First? collects key feminist voices that challenge the instances of racism and sexism during the presidential …
Bailouts, Bonuses, And The Return Of Unjust Gain, Tracy A. Thomas
Bailouts, Bonuses, And The Return Of Unjust Gain, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
In March 2009, ailing insurance giant triggered a national outcry when it paid out $165 million in government bailout funds for employee bonus incentives. President Obama called the bonus payments an “outrage” and promised that his administration would “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the taxpayers whole.” One possible answer lies with the remedy of restitution. Restitution, based on unjust enrichment, provides a common law solution that just might work. Unjust enrichment is a remedy directed at the defendant that requires the wrongdoer to return all ill-gotten gains. The goal is to return the defendant …
The New Face Of Women's Legal History: An Introduction To The Symposium, Tracy A. Thomas
The New Face Of Women's Legal History: An Introduction To The Symposium, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
Women’s legal history is developing as a new and exciting field that provides alternative perspectives on legal issues both past and present. Feminist legal history seeks to examine the ways in which law historically has informed women’s rights and how feminist discourse has shaped the law. This short essay quickly traces the development of women's legal history as a field, and then introduces the papers from a symposium at the University of Akron School of Law. The Akron Constitutional Law Center oranized a conference in October 2007 entitled “The New Face of Women’s Legal History” to showcase many of the …
Ebay Rx, Tracy A. Thomas
Ebay Rx, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
From a remedial perspective, the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C reopened the age-old question of what it means to award equitable relief. In eBay, the Court rejected a permanent injunction issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to protect a business-method patent that defendant eBay had infringed on its successful auction website. This essay diagnoses the remedial problem in eBay as the improper use of presumptions for equitable relief that effectively prioritizes selected legal rights. It offers a prescriptive cure for the problem in the traditional balancing of the …
The Continued Vitality Of Prophylactic Relief, Tracy A. Thomas
The Continued Vitality Of Prophylactic Relief, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
The categorization of a separate type of “prophylactic” injunction and its continued prevalence in the courts provides a framework by which to evaluate the legitimacy of broad injunctions. Such broad injunctive relief has been conventionally theorized as simple judicial activism, and has been attacked accordingly. The theory of prophylaxis provides an alternative narrative by which to evaluate injunctive relief in order to retain valuable and effective judicial remedies. Rather than striking down all broad injunctive relief as the dominant discourse demands, the concept of the prophylactic injunction provides language through which jurists and lawyers can navigate the real issues of …
Proportionality And The Supreme Court's Jurisprudence Of Remedies, Tracy A. Thomas
Proportionality And The Supreme Court's Jurisprudence Of Remedies, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
The evolution of the Supreme Court’s remedial jurisprudence evinces a quest for the ultimate judicial measure of appropriate relief, emerging as a norm of remedial proportionality. The Court’s decisions since 2000 on punitive damages, injunctions, and remedial legislation, all mandate a strict balance and precise measurement in the formulation of civil remedies. These cases have often fallen below the radar of general interest or have been ignored for their remedial significance. However, these cases demonstrate, somewhat surprisingly, the manner in which the Court has ventured into the arena of common-law remedies to unexpectedly alter the foundational principles of crafting remedies. …
Restriction Of Tort Remedies And The Constraints Of Due Process: The Right To An Adequate Remedy, Tracy A. Thomas
Restriction Of Tort Remedies And The Constraints Of Due Process: The Right To An Adequate Remedy, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
In the recent proliferation of tort reform statutes, the dangerous clause of remedial jurisdiction stripping has sneaked into the law. Reminiscent of federal statutes in other areas of the law, these jurisdictional provisions strip courts of all power to award punitive or non-pecuniary damages in excess of legislative limits. Many states have acted to restrict frivolous claims and excessive recoveries by cabining “McTorts” and “runaway juries.” Regardless of the merits of these policy questions, the use of the simple expedient of remedial jurisdiction to accomplish these purposes raises significant concerns. By arbitrarily restricting an individual’s right to a meaningful remedy, …
Elizabeth Cady Stanton On The Federal Marriage Amendment: A Letter To The President, Tracy A. Thomas
Elizabeth Cady Stanton On The Federal Marriage Amendment: A Letter To The President, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This essay written from a historical, first-person perspective explores the parallels between the current movement for a Federal Marriage Amendment and that of the nineteenth century through the lens of feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Using the archival sources of Stanton’s articles and speeches from 1880 to 1902, the paper identifies her key arguments opposing a constitutional standard of marriage. The paper then juxtaposes Stanton’s arguments against the 2004 Federal Marriage Amendment to reveal the continued relevance and import of her insights. Stanton’s analytical platform attacked the core pretexts of federalism and gender that fueled the proposed marriage amendment in her …
Bush V. Gore And The Distortion Of Common Law Remedies, Tracy A. Thomas
Bush V. Gore And The Distortion Of Common Law Remedies, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
The book The Final Arbiter addresses the legal and political consequences of the Bush v. Gore decision. This article presented as Chapter 4 addresses the lasting impact of Bush v. Gore on the law of remedies. While others have focused on what the Court should or could have done in the case, this article focuses on what the Court actually did by analyzing the text of the decision and the remedial platform that formed the Court's consensus. The Court in Bush adopted a new model of prophylactic relief that provided too much, not too little relief. Yet this prophylactic remedy …
The Beecher Sisters As Nineteenth-Century Feminist Icons Of The Sameness-Difference Debate, Tracy A. Thomas
The Beecher Sisters As Nineteenth-Century Feminist Icons Of The Sameness-Difference Debate, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This essay reviews the recent book, The Beecher Sisters by Barbara White, through the lens of feminist theory. It argues that each of the three great women chronicled in the book – Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Isabella Beecher Hooker – serve as icons for each of the distinct strands of modern feminist thought. Barbara White, a professor emeritus of women’s studies at the University of New Hampshire, has given the field of women’s legal history a boost with her interdisciplinary contribution to the social and legal history of women. In The Beecher Sisters, White introduces us to each …
The Prophylactic Remedy: Normative Principles And Definitional Parameters Of Broad Injunctive Relief, Tracy A. Thomas
The Prophylactic Remedy: Normative Principles And Definitional Parameters Of Broad Injunctive Relief, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This article is the first complete normative and descriptive treatment of the modern civil rights remedy -- the prophylactic injunction. The prophylactic remedy is a public law injunction that uniquely restricts legal conduct that is affiliated with, but distinct from, the illegal wrong. The United States Supreme Court has utilized prophylactic remedies for over forty years, and has used the prophylactic paradigm to shape its jurisprudence on Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Prophylaxis, however, remains an ambiguous concept in the eyes of most scholars and lawyers. This article attempts to fill the academic void by exploring the doctrinal and …
Ubi Jus, Ibi Remedium: The Fundamental Right To A Remedy, Tracy A. Thomas
Ubi Jus, Ibi Remedium: The Fundamental Right To A Remedy, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This essay is part of a symposium comprised of international remedies scholars addressing the topic of equitable relief in the fifty years since Brown v. Board of Education. It may be true as other scholars have argued that since the time of Brown, institutional defendants have won at the expense of plaintiffs. Defendants have learned that delay and defiance work. The U.S. Supreme Court has adopted a standard for ordering equitable relief that significantly defers to defendant wrongdoers at the plaintiffs' expense. Epithets of "activist courts" and "judicial legislation" have colored the existing scholarship and portrayed remedial action as illegitimate …
Justice Scalia Reinvents Restitution, Tracy A. Thomas
Justice Scalia Reinvents Restitution, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This essay criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court’s re-conceptualization of equitable restitution in the case of Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co. v. Knudson, 534 U.S. 204 (2002). In Great-West, a divided Court in an opinion by Justice Scalia held that “equitable relief” authorized by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) does not include claims for specific performance or restitution seeking money for breach of contract. Instead, the Court held that with respect to restitution, the term “equitable relief” includes only those restitutionary remedies which were historically available in courts of equity. This Article levels two criticisms at …
Understanding Prophylactic Remedies Through The Looking Glass Of Bush V. Gore, Tracy A. Thomas
Understanding Prophylactic Remedies Through The Looking Glass Of Bush V. Gore, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This is not just another article about Bush v. Gore. Rather, this article does something that no article has done: it analyzes the impact of the textual decision in Bush v. Gore on the law of remedies. Through an examination of Bush v. Gore, this article seeks to advance a new understanding of prophylactic remedies and their proper use by the courts. This examination provides not only a clearer understanding of the Bush decision, but more importantly, develops a better understanding of prophylactic remedies and how they can legitimately be used to provide meaning and redress for legal rights. This …
Congress' Section 5 Power And Remedial Rights, Tracy A. Thomas
Congress' Section 5 Power And Remedial Rights, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
There has been continual conflict between the legislative and judicial branches regarding the authority of Congress to enact remedies for the violation of constitutional rights. Armed with the assumption that it has unlimited authority to define remedies, Congress has sought to enact legislation to alter constitutional remedies imposed by the courts. At the same time, the Supreme Court has narrowly interpreted the scope of Congress' so-called “remedial” or enforcement power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The legal question explored in this article is how to balance this conflict of power and resolve the respective roles of each branch …
The New Marital Property Of Employee Stock Options, Tracy A. Thomas
The New Marital Property Of Employee Stock Options, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
One of the most valuable assets in a dissolution case today is an employee stock option (ESO). An ESO is a contractual right granted to an employee to purchase the stock of her corporate employer during a designated period of time at a predetermined price. The law, however, has failed to keep up with this modern form of employee compensation and indeed has struggled to understand this new form of property in the context of dividing and distributing marital property. Only fourteen state supreme courts to date have spoken on any aspect of this complex issue, and of these, only …