Law Commons^™

Radical Administrative Law, Christopher S. Havasy Assistant Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Law Review

The administrative state is under attack. Judges and scholars increasingly question why agencies should have such large powers to coerce citizens without adequate democratic accountability. Rather than refuting these critics, this Article accepts that in scrutinizing the massive powers that agencies hold over citizens, these critics have a point. However, their solution—to augment the powers of Congress or the President over agencies to instill indirect democratic accountability—is one step too quick. We should first examine whether direct democratic accountability of agencies by the citizenry is possible.

This Article excavates the nineteenth-century European intellectual history following the rise of the modern …

Res Judicata And Multiple Disability Applications: Fulfilling The Praiseworthy Intentions Of The Fourth And Sixth Courts, Amber Mae Otto

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the United States, the application process to receive disability benefits through the Social Security Administration is often a tedious, multistep procedure. The process becomes even more complex if a claimant has filed multiple disability applications covering different time periods. In that circumstance, the question arises as to whether an administrative law judge hearing a claimant’s second application must make the same findings as the administrative law judge who heard the first application. In other words, how should res judicata function in the administrative law context when a claimant has filed for disability multiple times? Currently, circuits differ on this …

Barring Judicial Review, Laura E. Dolbow -- Sharswood Fellow

Vanderbilt Law Review

Whether judicial review is available is one of the most hotly contested issues in administrative law. Recently, laws that prohibit judicial review have sparked debate in the Medicare, immigration, and patent contexts. These debates are continuing in challenges to the recently created Medicare price negotiation program. Yet despite debates about the removal of judicial review, little is known about how often, and in what contexts, Congress has expressly precluded review. This Article provides new insights about express preclusion by conducting an empirical study of the U.S. Code. It creates an original dataset of laws that expressly preclude judicial review of …

Executive Capture Of Agency Decisionmaking, Allison M. Whelan

Vanderbilt Law Review

The scientific credibility of the administrative state is under siege in the United States, risking distressful public health harms and even deaths. This Article addresses one component of this attack-—executive interference in agency scientific decisionmaking. It offers a new conceptual framework, “internalagency capture,” and policy prescription for addressing excessive overreach and interference by the executive branch in the scientific decisionmaking of federal agencies. The Article’s critiques and analysis toggle a timeline that reflects recent history and that urges forward-thinking approaches to respond to executive overreach in agency scientific decisionmaking. Taking the Trump Administration and other presidencies as test cases, it …

The Politics Of Deference, Gregory A. Elinson, Jonathan S. Gould

Vanderbilt Law Review

Like so much else in our politics, the administrative state is fiercely contested. Conservatives decry its legitimacy and seek to limit its power; liberals defend its necessity and legality. Debates have increasingly centered on the doctrine of Chevron deference, under which courts defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutory language. Given both sides’ increasingly entrenched positions, it is easy to think that conservatives have always warned of the dangers of deference, while liberals have always defended its virtues. Not so. This Article tells the political history of deference for the first time, using previously untapped primary sources including presidential …

Chevron Is A Phoenix, Lisa Schultz Bressman, Kevin M. Stack

Vanderbilt Law Review

Judicial deference to agency interpretations of their own statutes is a foundational principle of the administrative state. It recognizes that Congress has the need and desire to delegate the details of regulatory policy to agencies rather than specify those details or default to judicial determinations. It also recognizes that interpretation under regulatory statutes is intertwined with implementation of those statutes. Prior to the famous decision in Chevron, the Supreme Court had long regarded judicial deference as a foundational principle of administrative law. It grew up with the administrative state alongside other foundational administrative law principles. In Chevron, the …

Nuclear Power, Risk, And Retroactivity, Emily Hammond

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster presented a familiar scenario from a risk perception standpoint. It combined a classic" dread risk" (radioactivity), a punctuating event (the disaster itself), and resultant stigmatization (involving world wide repercussions for nuclear power). Some nuclear nations curtailed nuclear power generation, and decades-old opposition to nuclear power found a renaissance. In these circumstances, risk theory predicts a regulatory knee-jerk response, potentially resulting in inefficient overregulation. But it also suggests procedural palliatives that conveniently overlap with administrative law values, making room for the engagement of the full spectrum of stakeholders. This Article sketches the U.S. regulatory response to …

States, Agencies, And Legitimacy, Miriam Seifter

Vanderbilt Law Review

Scholarship on the administrative process has scarcely attended to the role that states play in federal regulation. This Article argues that it is time for that to change. An emerging, important new strand of federalism scholarship, known as "administrative federalism," now seeks to safeguard state interests in the administrative process and argues that federal agencies should consider state input when developing regulations. These ideas appear to be gaining traction in practice. States now possess privileged access to agency decisionmaking processes through a variety of formal and informal channels. And some courts have signaled support for the idea of a special …

Resolving The Alj Quandary, Kent Barnett

Vanderbilt Law Review

Federal administrative law judges ("ALJs") understand Euripides's irony all too well. They, along with Article I judges, are the demigods of federal adjudication. As both courts and ALJs have noted, the function of ALJs closely parallels that of Article III judges. ALJs hear evidence, decide factual issues, and apply legal principles in all formal administrative adjudications under the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"). Indeed, they outnumber Article III judges and decide more than two hundred and fifty thousand cases each year. But they lack the defining characteristics of Article III deities.

Article III judges are installed under the Appointments Clause, enjoy …

The Ncaa Rules Adoption, Interpretation, Enforcement, And Infractions Processes: The Laws That Regulate Them And The Nature Of Court Review, Josephine (Jo) R. Potuto

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This article takes a comprehensive look at how the NCAA is organized, describes the NCAA committee structure, and explains how the NCAA in its multitude of roles does its work. The article focuses particularly on the NCAA by law interpretation process and the policies, procedures, and scope of authority of the enforcement, infractions, and student-athlete reinstatement processes. In its description of the division of responsibility among enforcement, infractions and student-athlete reinstatement, the article emphasizes the independence of each. The article then assesses the functions and structure of the NCAA in light of the preogatives of a private, multi-state association and …

Beyond Economics: The U.S. Recognition Of International Financial Reporting Standards As An International Subdelegation Of The Sec's Rulemaking Authority, Jacob L. Barney

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A final rule promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2008 allowing foreign private securities issuers to prepare SEC-required financial disclosures under international financial reporting standards (IFRS) as promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board (LASB) is a highly significant event for U.S. and global capital markets. However, surprisingly few questions have been asked regarding the SEC's legal authority to take such an unprecedented step.

This Note assesses the recent SEC action with regard to IASB from two perspectives--traditional administrative law, with particular emphasis on delegations by government entities to private parties, and international law, with particular emphasis …

Judicial Deference And The Credibility Of Agency Commitments, Jonathan Masur

Vanderbilt Law Review

Consider the following situation: In late 2004, towards the end of President George W. Bush's first term, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration ("NHTSA"), pursuant to its congressionally delegated authority, promulgates a rule that would relax inspection and testing regimes for automobile manufacturers- thereby saving those firms substantial amounts of money-if the manufacturers independently deployed cutting-edge vehicle safety technology. The research and development of this technology will require significant up-front expenditures, and automobile manufacturers must decide whether to invest the funds necessary to bring the technology to market. However, the cost-benefit analysis is not so straightforward. The predicament, as the …

Enlarging The Administrative Polity: Administrative Law And The Changing Definition Of Pluralism, 1945-1970, Reuel E. Schiller

Vanderbilt Law Review

"The availability of judicial review," wrote Louis Jaffe in 1965, "is the necessary condition, psychologically, if not logically, of a system of administrative power which purports to be legitimate, or legally valid." In so writing, Jaffe suggested that the abstract beliefs that Americans have about the way government is supposed to work define the relationship between courts and the administrative state. It does not follow, logically, from the existence of administrative agencies that their actions must be policed by courts. In- stead, our beliefs about how public policy ought to be made and about which institutions are best at protecting …

United We Stand: The Anti-Competitive Implications Of Media Ownership Of Athletic Teams In Great Britain, Jonathan E. Bush

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note analyzes the increasing integration of the sports and broadcasting industries and the British framework for evaluating the permissibility of transactions furthering such integration. In the context of the recent attempted takeover of British football club Manchester United by Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting, the Note examines how the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) was uniquely poised to fully consider the ramifications of this developing nexus of sports and media and evaluates the significance of the MMC's decision on the future of both industries.

A diverse array of domestic, international, political, and economic issues and implications face any court …

Common Misconceptions: The Function And Framework Of "Trade Or Business Within The United States", Nancy H. Kaufman

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In this Article, Professor Kaufman examines the administrative and jurisdictional functions of the Internal Revenue Code's term "trade or business within the United States" in the taxation of foreign persons' income and the existing framework established for the term's interpretation. The author contends that the courts, by relying on two common misconceptions of the term, have made the term's application unpredictable. The author further believes that defining the term according to its functions would serve United States tax policy and economic interests. This definition would focus primarily on facts indicating an ongoing commitment to participation the United States economy. The …

Case Digest, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Case Digest provides brief analyses of cases that address current transnational legal issues. The Digest includes cases that set forth new legal principles and cases that apply established legal principles to new factual situations. The cases have topical headings and references are given for further research.

EL SALVADORAN SOLDIER WHO REFUSED TO PARTICIPATE IN ASSASSINATION SCHEME GRANTED POLITICAL ASYLUM IN THE UNITED STATES BECAUSE HE DEMONSTRATED "WELL-FOUNDED FEAR" OF PERSECUTION IN EL SALVADOR, Barraza Rivera v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 913 F.2d 1443 (9th Cir. 1990).

THIRD CIRCUIT HOLDS THAT THE EQUAL ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT DOES NOT APPLY …

Case Digest, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Case Digest

Administrative Procedural Due Process Supported in Major Foreign Policy Dispute --Dresser Industries, Inc. v. Baldrige, 549 F. Supp. 108 (D.D.C. 1982).

Permanent Resident Alien Attempting to Reenter the United States is Entitled to Due Process in an Exclusionary Hearing --Landon v. Plasencia, 103 S. Ct. 321 (1982).

Alien does not Have a Fourteenth Amendment Interest in a Procedure to Stay Deportation Where the INS Established the Procedure for Administrative --Wong ChungWen v. Ferro, 543 F. Supp. 1016 (W.D.N.Y. 1982).

A Plaintiff Suing a Foreign Sovereign's Insurer is not Entitled to a Trial by Jury --Goar v. Compania Peruana …

The Civil Investigative Demand: A Constitutional Analysis And Model Proposal, Anthony J. Mcfarland

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note first traces the initial judicial reaction to administrative demands for information and administrative investigations and delineates the constitutional requirement set forth therein. The Note next examines the development of CIDs and analyzes decisions upholding their constitutionality. This Note contends that most courts either have incorrectly applied current administrative standards to the CID or have failed to apply such standards altogether. The analysis is broken down into six parts,each dealing with a separate constitutional basis for a CID challenge. Because most suits that contest CIDs are based on fourth amendment search and seizure issues, the bulk of this Note …

The Establishment Of Foreign Bank Agencies And Branches In New York, Clifford D. Harmon

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In recent years foreign banking associations have played an increasingly important role in the United States money market. While foreign banks have been operating in the United States since the 1870's, no substantial foreign banking existed in this country until the early 1970's. Since that time, however, there has been rapid expansion, and by 1978 there were 210 foreign bank facilities controlling $66 billion in assets in the United States. Most of this activity is confined to New York, Illinois, and California.

New York alone accounts for three quarters of all foreign bank assets in this country. Although this concentration …

Agencies In Conflict: Overlapping Agencies And The Legitimacy Of The Administrative Process, Louis J. Sirico Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article demonstrates how multi-agency decision making can enhance the legitimacy of the administrative system. After discussing the meaning of legitimacy in a highly stable society, it analyzes multi-agency decision making process from the perspective of the political scientist. I particularly emphasize "partisan mutual adjustment" analysis, which views the system as adjusting continually to the conduct of interacting participants. This theory comports not only with the pluralistic, pressure politics model of American government, but also with the methodology of classical economics, which celebrates the product of competing, conflicting interests.The Article concludes by demonstrating that the multi-agency process can increase legitimacy …

Recent Decisions, James A. Walker, Charles A. Daughtrey, A. Dale Wilson

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW--PRESIDENT'S ATTEMPT UNDER EXECUTIVE ORDER TO REMOVE PRESIDENTIALLY APPROVED CAB ORDER FROM SCOPE OF THE WATERMAN DOCTRINE

James A. Walker

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EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES--TRADEMARK RIGHTS--COURT OF JUSTICE PREVENTS THIRD PARTY FROM AFFIXING TRADEMARK TO GOODS SOLD UNDER ANOTHER MARK

Charles Anthony Daughtrey

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THE TREATY POWER--THE PROPERTY CLAUSE PERMITS THE TRANSFER OF UNITED STATES PROPERTY THROUGH SELF-EXECUTING TREATY

A. Dale Wilson

Recent Cases, Cornelia H. Boozman, R. Preston Bolt, Jr., Kenneth L. Stewart

Vanderbilt Law Review

Administrative Law--Ripeness--Agency Head's Informal Opinion Letters Held Unripe for Review When No Substantial Hardship Placed on Parties

Cornelia H. Boozman

The basic premise of the ripeness doctrine is that judicial machinery should operate only on concrete problems that are present or imminent, not on problems that are abstract, hypothetical,or remote... The Supreme Court articulated a more definitive standard for determining ripeness in "Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner." Espousing what it considered to be the basic rationale of the ripeness doctrine, avoidance of premature adjudication of discretionary administrative policies, the Court established a procedure for evaluating the ripeness issue in challenges to …

Case Digest, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Case Digest

1. ADMINISTRATIVE

NON-VESSEL-OPERATING COMMON CARRIERS HAVE BURDEN OF PROOF TO JUSTIFY THE REASONABLENESS OF PROPOSED RATE INCREASE IN A FEDERAL MARITIME COMMISSION PROCEEDING

2. ADMIRALTY

COMPARATIVE NEGLIGENCE STANDARD APPLICABLE TO THE CANAL ZONE COMPANY DOES NOT SUPERSEDE THE RULE OF DIVIDED DAMAGES BETWEEN VESSELS

FAILURE TO OBEY COMMANDS OF SHIP MASTER BECAUSE OF VOLUNTARY INTOXICATION CONSTITUTES WILLFUL DISOBEDIENCE

PREJUDGMENT INTEREST FROM DATE OF JUDICIAL DEMAND IS PROPER WHEN ORIGINAL ACTION AT LAW Is CHANGED TO ADMIRALTY BY WITHDRAWAL OF JURY DEMAND

THE PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE ALONE HAS STANDING TO BRING A WRONGFUL DEATH ACTION IN GENERAL MARITIME LAW

PERMITTING …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Topics Discussed in Recent Cases:

Administrative Law--Freedom of Information Act--Unclassified Documents Physically Connected with Classified Documents May Not Be Withheld Under the National Security and Foreign Affairs Secrets Exemption

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Antitrust--Treble Damage Class Actions--Privity with Defendant Required To Maintain Suit

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Constitutional Law--Equal Protection-State Probate Code Discriminating in Favor of Males Violates Equal Protection Clause

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Constitutional Law--Federal Preemption--Atomic Energy Act Requires Exclusive Federal Regulation of Radioactive Discharges from Nuclear Power Plants

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Corporations -Shareholder Suits -Shareholder May Inspect Corporate Records Only for Proper Purpose Ger-mane to his Economic Interest As Shareholder, Not Merely To Further his Own Social and …

The 1971 I.C.J. Advisory Opinion On South West Africa (Nambia), Preston Brown

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

South Africa has administered the adjoining territory of South West Africa (Namibia) for over fifty years. Initially, that administration was granted to South Africa when it was designated a mandatory by the League of Nations. Since the dissolution of the League 25 years ago, South Africa's administration of the territory and, more recently, its right to administer, have been the subject of continued and escalating controversy.

The most recent development in this confused situation is the advisory opinion that was rendered in June, 1971, by the International Court of Justice. That opinion was requested by the Security Council of the …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Administrative Law--Judicial Review of SEC Decisions--No-Action Letter Under Commission's Proxy Rules Procedures Has Sufficient Finality and Formality to be Reviewable

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Creditors' Rights--Section 77 Railroad Reorganization--Federal Priority Under Section 191 Denied; Interline Balance Claims Granted Priority Under Equitable Six-Months Rule

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Criminal Procedure --Breach of the Peace--State Peace Bond Statute Establishes Criminal Proceedings and Must Satisfy Requirements of Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses

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Criminal Procedure--Presumption of Innocence--Cautionary Instruction to Jury that Presumption of Innocence is Not Intended To Aid the Guilty To Escape is Not Misleading or Erroneous

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Landlord and Tenant Law--Warranty of Habitability Implied by Law …

Internationally Uniform Probate Law--A Method For Improving Administration Of Multinational Estates, John G. Webb, Iii

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The need to coordinate succession laws of different nations was recognized as early as 1893 at the first Hague Conference where attempts were begun to coordinate the laws of succession on death through multilateral conventions. Notwithstanding so early an effort, however, the administration of multinational estates has remained plagued by diversity of national laws governing succession on death. The resulting confusion and inefficiency of administration has often frustrated the testamentary intentions of decedents of many nationalities. While no viable uniformity has been attained among nations, the need for consistency increases. Half a million United States civilian citizens live abroad, and …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Accountants--Auditors--Compliance with General Accounting Principles Not a Complete Defense To Criminal Fraud

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Administrative Law--Standing to Challenge Administrative Actions--Anyone Arguably Protected by Statute May Sue

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Constitutional Law--Abortion--Standard Excepting Abortions Done as "Necessary for the Preservation of the Mother's Life or Health" Held Unconstitutionally Vague

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Constitutional Law--Civil Rights--Discrimination by a Third Party in Connection with the Rental of Property Entitles the Injured Party to a Private Right of Damages Under Section 1982

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Constitutional Law--Double Jeopardy--Benton v. Maryland Applies Retroactively to State Criminal Convictions

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Copyright--Unfair Competition--Unauthorized Reproduction of Another's Recording for Resale Violates State Unfair Competition Doctrine

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The Local Administrative Agencies, Maurice H. Merrill

Vanderbilt Law Review

We have become accustomed to the concept, once thoroughly horrendous to most lawyers, that the dispensation of justice may, be properly entrusted to those tribunals which, for want of a better term, we label administrative. In past years they were considered the illicit offspring of miscegenatious commingling of powers which,constitutionally, should have been kept in rigid segregation. In the last half century, this habit of thought has all but disappeared; our concern has been rather with the full acknowledgment and acceptance of these agencies into the family of makers and appliers of the law. We have undertaken to nurture and …

The Role Of Law In The Negotiated Settlement Of International Disputes, James K. Irvin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

One of the chief functions of any legal system is to provide the machinery for settling disputes between members of the society which the system serves. No legal system can be expected to solve all such disputes, but law can create an atmosphere in which the parties themselves may effect, without bloodshed, the resolution, minimization or avoidance of disputes. The disputants may choose an arbiter or conciliator to reach a settlement for them, or they may bargain and compromise until they find a common basis for an agreement ending the dispute. The latter process, called negotiation, is the most effective …