Law Commons^™

Federal Courts’ Recalcitrance In Refusing To Certify State Law Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Issues, Christopher French

Journal Articles

Over 2,000 COVID-19 business interruption insurance cases have been filed in state and federal courts the past two years with most of the cases filed in or removed to federal courts. The cases are governed by state law. Rather than certify the novel state law issues presented in the cases to the respective state supreme courts that ultimately will determine the law applicable in the cases, each of the eight federal circuit courts to issue decisions on the merits in such cases to date has done so by making an Erie guess regarding how the controlling state supreme courts would …

Certification Comes Of Age: Reflections On The Past, Present And Future Of Cooperative Judicial Federalism, Kenneth Ripple

Journal Articles

In 1995, the American Judicature Society (AJS) undertook a comprehensive survey of certification. This Article uses the AJS’s survey as a starting point to examine the development of certification over the past twenty-five years. Were the fears of its critics well founded, or have the federal and state judiciaries adapted to mitigate the shortcomings of certification? Has certification been a useful tool in allowing for development of state law by the state judiciary, or has it been an imposition on the judiciary of a coequal sovereign?

Beyond these questions, this Article also will look at how certification has expanded beyond …

Distinguishing Certification From Abstention In Diversity Cases: Postponement Versus Abdication Of The Duty To Exercise Jurisdiction, Deborah Challener

Journal Articles

This Article argues that a federal court does not abdicate its duty to exercise its jurisdiction when it certifies a question in a diversity case; instead, the court merely postpones the exercise of its jurisdiction. Thus, federal courts need not limit certification in diversity cases to exceptional circumstances.

"Private" Environmental Regulation, Human Rights, And Community, Errol E. Meidinger

Journal Articles

Private organizations have recently established numerous programs aimed at improving the environmental performance of industry. Many of the new programs seek to define and enforce standards for environmental management, and to make it difficult for producers not to participate in them. They claim, explicitly and implicitly, to promote the public interest. They take on functions generally performed by government regulatory programs, and may change or even displace government programs. Private programs thus have the potential to significantly reshape domestic and international policy institutions.

This paper describes three major private environmental regulatory programs applicable to forestry and discusses their implications for …