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Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Series

1986

Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Law

Observations On Personal Injury Law, Stephen J. Werber Oct 1986

Observations On Personal Injury Law, Stephen J. Werber

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

When I originally came to Ohio in 1970, I was surprised to find that the Ohio state courts lagged considerably behind other states in the development of personal injury law and especially product liability law. Under the leadership of Chief Justice Frank Celebrezze, the court's position was re-oriented. With decisions adopting and liberally defining strict liability, the court took a major step. Shortly thereafter, the court ruled that neither the Ohio Constitution nor any Ohio legislation insulated an employer from liability to employees for intentional torts. These, and other changes, have moved Ohio to the forefront of legal development in …

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New Rules For Zoning Adult Uses: The Supreme Court's Renton Decision, Alan Weinstein Aug 1986

New Rules For Zoning Adult Uses: The Supreme Court's Renton Decision, Alan Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This term, for the third time in 10 years, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the validity of zoning that restricts the location or operation of businesses that trade in sexually oriented books, magazines, movies, or entertainment. Restrictions on such "adult businesses" raise serious constitutional issues because the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech extends to sexually oriented media so long as the material is not considered obscene. In the latest case, City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, 106 S.Ct. 925 (1986), 38 ZD 258, the Court upheld a zoning ordinance that limited the location of theaters exhibiting adult movies …

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Natural Law And Natural Laws, David F. Forte Jul 1986

Natural Law And Natural Laws, David F. Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Modern science has developed the notion of "natural laws" to describe the apparent sequential patterns of the most complex parts of the physical world. But it cannot tell us what we ought to do about arms production, or human sexuality or abortion or race, or death. Non-teleological science can no more tell us that nuclear fusion is immoral than it can tell us what is the natural purpose of the solar system. Natural Law, however, can tell us what ought to be done in light of the nature of law. If indeed the nature of law is that it is …

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The Law/Politics Distinction, The French Conseil Constitutionnel, And The U.S. Supreme Court, Michael H. Davis Jan 1986

The Law/Politics Distinction, The French Conseil Constitutionnel, And The U.S. Supreme Court, Michael H. Davis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

A dispute burns across the landscape of French constitutional law regarding the juridical nature of the French constitutional "Supreme Court", the Conseil constitutionnel: is it a court? Both French and American scholars have claimed that, despite superficial similarities between the U.S. Supreme Court and the French Conseil constitutionnel, the American system of judicial review "can have no counterpart in the French system", that French legal and political theory is inconstistent with an effective supreme court, that there is "no possibility" that the French and American systems could surmount this "major difference", and that the Conseil is simply not a "true …

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New Jews, New Destruction, Michael Henry Davis Jan 1986

New Jews, New Destruction, Michael Henry Davis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

We see in recent developments what is, essentially, a New Diaspora composed of Jews, whether in contemporary Israel or not, who share a ghetto mentality, afraid of what others might take as a sign of weakness and perhaps thinking of their Jewishness itself simply as vulnerability instead of a source of insuperable strength. Within Israel, they sometimes call themselves the "New Jews," but their attitudes betray them. Such a mind-set has been inherited from an older generation of Jews who, in their formative years, had no strong Israel to make all thoughts of Judaism as weakness seem absurd. The New …

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I Know It's Not Racism, But What Is It?, Michael H. Davis Jan 1986

I Know It's Not Racism, But What Is It?, Michael H. Davis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The author recalls the founding of the state of Israel, and discusses the influence of patriotism and Zionism.

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Ethics And The Settlement Of Civil Rights Cases: Can Attorneys Keep Their Virtue And Their Fees?, Lloyd B. Snyder Jan 1986

Ethics And The Settlement Of Civil Rights Cases: Can Attorneys Keep Their Virtue And Their Fees?, Lloyd B. Snyder

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Civil Rights Attorneys' Fees Award Act of 1976 authorizes an award of fees to the prevailing party in a civil rights action. The United State Supreme Court, in Evans v. Jeff D., has interpreted the Fees Act to authorize the parties in a civil rights action to negotiate settlement of fees and merits jointly. The Court did not determine whether joint fees-merits negotiation is ethical. The author of this article contends that joint negotiation is ethical. He further contends that it is ethical for plaintiff's attorney to reject an offer of settlement if the offer is coupled with a …

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Product Liability In The Sixth Circuit: 1984-1985, Stephen J. Werber Jan 1986

Product Liability In The Sixth Circuit: 1984-1985, Stephen J. Werber

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Sixth Circuit, as other federal courts, is deciding a growing number of product liability cases. The court has been required to carefully explore state substantive law in such complex areas as comparative fault and foreseeability. Several of the recent cases have required application of difficult facts to recognized legal principles. In the following article Professor Werber analyzes key decisions against applicable state law and suggests areas in which the court has applied that law in manners both consistent with, and contrary to, state law. Professor Werber is critical of the court's Erie determination that the Ohio Supreme Court would …

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Constraints Of Power: The Constitutional Opinions Of Judges Scalia, Bork, Posner, Easterbrook, And Winter, James G. Wilson Jan 1986

Constraints Of Power: The Constitutional Opinions Of Judges Scalia, Bork, Posner, Easterbrook, And Winter, James G. Wilson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article completes a two-part series studying the constitutional jurisprudence of Judges Antonin Scalia, Richard Posner, Robert Bork, Frank Easterbrook, and Ralph Winter Jr., five conservative academics appointed by President Reagan to the United States Court of Appeals. Judge Scalia has recently been appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In a previous article, published in the last issue of the University of Miami Law Review, I evaluated these five jurists' constitutional scholarship by contrasting their views with those of Edmund Burke, the originator of political conservative theory. That article tested Burke's wariness of political abstractions and his …

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Gates, Leon And The Compromise Of Adjudicatory Fairness: (Part Ii)-Aggressive Majoritarianism, Willful Deafness, And The New Exception To The Exclusionary Rule, Joel J. Finer Jan 1986

Gates, Leon And The Compromise Of Adjudicatory Fairness: (Part Ii)-Aggressive Majoritarianism, Willful Deafness, And The New Exception To The Exclusionary Rule, Joel J. Finer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article will offer an elaboration of the idea of judicial "aggressiveness" (which Professor Stone, by and large, leaves undefined) through examination of the majority opinion in United States v. Leon and its application in Massachusetts v. Sheppard. It will also advance the thesis that the majority in Leon exhibited a particular kind of aggressiveness--willful deafness.

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The Emasculated Role Of Judicial Precedent In The Tax Court And Internal Revenue Service, Deborah A. Geier Jan 1986

The Emasculated Role Of Judicial Precedent In The Tax Court And Internal Revenue Service, Deborah A. Geier

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article examines the Tax Court and the Internal Revenue Service. Part I discusses the structural and decision-making evolution of the Tax Court as well as the most common recommendation for change--the creation of a National Court of Tax Appeals. Part II examines the nonacquiescence practice of the Internal Revenue Service and the current state of the law with respect to intracircuit nonacquiescence. The article concludes that an expanded concept of stare decisis can alleviate many of the problems without the massive structural change entailed in the creation of a National Court of Tax Appeals.

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Terror And Terrorism: There Is A Difference, David F. Forte Jan 1986

Terror And Terrorism: There Is A Difference, David F. Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

To formulate an effective legal and moral response to terrorism, fundamental differences must be acknowledged. We must realize that all acts of terror are not legally interchangeable. We should not create legal instruments that confound essential dissimilarities. We should acknowledge that terrorism is an organized, low level attack by groups trying to destroy the Western legal and moral order. We should recognize that many such terrorist groups have been given purported legitimacy by a distorted notion of self-determination and by recognition within many international bodies. Also, we should face the fact that the effectiveness of terrorism is immeasurably enhanced by …

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