Law Commons^™

An Avoidable Conundrum: How American Indian Legislation Unnecessarily Forces Tribal Governments To Choose Between Cultural Preservation And Women's Vindication, Catherine M. Redlingshafer

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note makes two arguments concerning the state of American Indian legislation, and then proposes an alternative. First, this Note argues that the recently enacted legislation regarding criminal justice in American Indian societies will work to encourage cultural assimilation and result in the loss of tribal traditions and autonomy. In effect, the legislation is putting tribes in an impossible position: it is unfairly coercing them to choose between (1) the preservation of their own culture and customs, and (2) the ability to prosecute those victimizing their members. Second, this Note argues that even if a tribe decides to risk its …

Courting Disaster: Climate Change And The Adjudication Of Catastrophe, R. Henry Weaver, Douglas A. Kysar

Notre Dame Law Review

Do we court disaster by stretching the bounds of judicial authority to address problems of massive scale and complexity? Or does disaster lie in refusing to engage the jurisgenerative potential of courts in a domain of such vast significance? This Article examines global climate change adjudication to shed light on these questions, focusing particularly on cases that seek to invoke the norm articulation and enforcement functions of courts. The attempt to configure climate-related harms within such substantive frameworks as tort and constitutional law is fraught with analytical and practical difficulties. Yet the exercise, we argue, is essential. Against the backdrop …

Flint Of Outrage, Toni M. Massaro, Ellen Elizabeth Brooks

Notre Dame Law Review

Officials replaced safe water sources with contaminated water sources for tens of thousands of people living in Flint, Michigan, from April 2014 to October 2015. Overwhelming evidence indicates that the officials knew the water was potentially harmful to residents’ health and property. This unfathomable disregard for the residents of Flint sparked national outrage and prompted criminal charges as well as multiple civil suits.

Residents’ civil claims included two strands of substantive due process: that the actions infringed residents’ fundamental liberty rights to bodily integrity and to state protection from harmful acts by third parties, and that the government actions “shocked …

Kingsley Breathes New Life Into Substantive Due Process As A Check On Abuse Of Government Power, Rosalie Berger Levinson

Notre Dame Law Review

Part I of this Article briefly summarizes the origin and judicial development of substantive due process, focusing on the lead cases that have led appellate courts to narrowly construe the substantive due process guarantee. Part II discusses the Kingsley opinion, both the majority’s analysis and the dissent’s objection to the use of an objective reasonableness test. Part III suggests how Kingsley can be used by litigators seeking to protect pretrial detainees, not only from excessive force, but also from an official’s failure to protect or failure to care for the medical and other needs of pretrial detainees. Part IV explains …

Fashion's Function In Intellectual Property Law, Christopher Buccafusco, Jeanne C. Fromer

Notre Dame Law Review

Clothing designs can be beautiful. But they are also functional. Fashion’s dual nature sits uneasily in intellectual property law, and its treatment by copyright, trademark, and design patent laws has often been perplexing. Much of this difficulty arises from an unclear understanding of the nature of functionality in fashion design. This Article proposes a robust account of fashion’s function. It argues that aspects of garment designs are functional not only when they affect the physical or technological performance of a garment but also when they affect the perception of the wearer’s body. Generally, clothes are not designed or chosen simply …

(Un)Common Law Protection Of Certification Marks, Michelle B. Smit

Notre Dame Law Review

Part I of this Note defines and examines the general principles of certification marks. From that foundation, Part II provides an overview of the case law on unregistered common law certification marks. Part III analyzes the reasons why abuses of certification marks would increase under a commonlaw regime and posits that certification marks, therefore, should only exist under federal law. Finally, Part IV proposes several adjustments that should be made to the current certification mark registration system in order to address existing shortcomings that affect both consumers and third-party businesses.

Honest Copying Practices, Joseph P. Fishman

Notre Dame Law Review

One of intellectual property theory’s operating assumptions is that creating is hard while copying is easy. But it is not always so. Copies, though outwardly identical, can come from different processes, from cheap digital duplication to laborious handmade re-creation. Policymakers around the world face a choice whether such distinctions should affect liability. The two branches of intellectual property that condition liability on actual copying, copyright and trade secrecy, give different answers. Both in the United States and elsewhere, trade secrecy regimes distinguish between copying methods deemed illegitimate and those deemed legitimate, what international treaties call “honest commercial practices.” Copyright regimes, …

The Privatized American Family, Maxine Eichner

Notre Dame Law Review

Part I of this Article describes the privatized-family model that dominates U.S. law and policy today, as well as the negative effects this model is having in the contemporary United States. Part II turns to U.S. history, investigating the national conversation regarding the appropriate relationship among the government-market-family triad. As historian Robert Self put it, competing narratives of the place of families are “deeply etched in competing narratives of national identity,” and are fundamental to our social contract. Part II first considers the narratives that supported the rise of the twentieth-century welfare state, which regulated the market to support families. …

Advocating A Carryover Tax Basis Regime, Richard Schmalbeck, Jay A. Soled, Kathleen Delaney Thomas

Notre Dame Law Review

For close to a century, an important (but unfortunate) feature of the Internal Revenue Code has been a rule that the tax basis of any inherited asset is made equal to its fair market value at the time of the decedent’s death. Notwithstanding the substantial revenue losses associated with this rule, Congress has retained it for reasons of administrative convenience.

But from three different vantage points, pressure has been mounting to change what is commonly referred to as the “step-up in basis rule.” First, politicians and commentators have historically tied the step-up in basis rule to the estate tax on …

In Defense Of The Fee Simple, Katrina M. Wyman

Notre Dame Law Review

Prominent economically oriented legal academics are currently arguing that the fee simple, the dominant form of private landownership in the United States, is an inefficient way for society to allocate land. They maintain that the fee simple blocks transfers of land to higher value uses because it provides property owners with a perpetual monopoly. The critics propose that landownership be reformulated to enable private actors to forcibly purchase land from other private owners, similar to the way that governments can expropriate land for public uses using eminent domain. While recognizing the significance of the critique, this Article takes issue with …

A Textual Analysis Of Whistleblower Protections Under The Dodd-Frank Act, Brent T. Murphy

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note endorses the reasoning of the Fifth Circuit in Asadi v. G.E. Energy (USA), L.L.C., and argues that the plain language of Dodd-Frank limits its whistleblower protections to individuals who provide information to the SEC. This Note argues that the reasoning of the Second Circuit in Berman v. Neo@Ogilvy LLC relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell is inapposite, and that the Second Circuit introduced ambiguity where no ambiguity previously existed and improperly extended Chevron deference to the SEC.

Justice Scalia, Implied Rights Of Action, And Historical Practice, Anthony J. Bellia

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay examines a specific area that Justice Scalia influenced through the methods of interpretation that he applied—namely, the question of “implied rights of action.”

The idea that federal courts historically applied common law causes of action to remedy federal statutory violations without congressional authorization is a myth. From the first, federal courts heard only those causes of action that Congress had authorized them to hear. And there is reason to think that early federal courts would not have been understood to have power to define their own causes of action had Congress not provided this authorization from the start. …

Boyle As Constitutional Preemption, Bradford R. Clark

Notre Dame Law Review

Justice Scalia’s opinion for the Court in Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. arguably departed from his usual preferences by recognizing a government contractor defense as a matter of federal common law. This Essay offers an alternative rationale for the decision in Boyle grounded in constitutional preemption, and explains why this approach is more consistent with Justice Scalia’s broader methodological and constitutional commitments.

Reviewability And The "Law Of Rules": An Essay In Honor Of Justice Scalia, Adrian Vermeule

Notre Dame Law Review

Justice Scalia developed a consistent approach to questions of reviewability: roughly, the idea that “general programs” and “general policies” are to be excluded from judicial review, and even general and legally binding agency rules may or may not be reviewable before enforcement. On this approach, the proper business of courts is to review specific applications of agency rules to particular parties.

Compensatory Damages Are Not For Everyone: Section 1997e(E) Of The Prison Litigation Reform Act And The Overlooked Amendment, Eleanor M. Levine

Notre Dame Law Review

Since the 2013 Amendment was passed, courts have continued to split regarding how to interpret § 1997e(e), but they have failed to consider whether the 2013 Amendment alters the meaning or clarifies Congress’s intentions with respect to § 1997e(e). This Note argues that the 2013 Amendment changes the plain meaning of § 1997e(e) such that it could lead to different outcomes in cases on both sides of the circuit split, ultimately concluding that it shows Congress intended the more restrictive interpretive approach to prevail. This Note further illustrates how the 2013 Amendment fails to adhere to the goals of either …

Keynote Address: Two Challenges For The Judge As Umpire: Statutory Ambiguity And Constitutional Exceptions, Brett M. Kavanaugh

Notre Dame Law Review

Justice Scalia believed in the rule of law as a law of rules. He wanted judges to be umpires, which ordinarily entails judges applying a settled legal principle to a particular set of facts. I agree with that vision of the judiciary. But there are two major impediments in current jurisprudence to achieving that vision of the judge as umpire. The first is the ambiguity trigger in statutory interpretation. The second is the amorphous tests employed in cases involving claimed constitutional exceptions. We should identify and study these issues. Inspired by Justice Scalia’s longstanding efforts to improve the law, we …

Justice Scalia And Class Actions: A Loving Critique, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Notre Dame Law Review

I am not sure any other Justice of the Supreme Court in American history has done more to hinder the class action lawsuit than Justice Scalia did. Under the auspices of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), the Justice authored two majority opinions giving a green light to corporations that want to opt out of class-wide liability entirely so long as they do so using arbitration contracts. It is very hard to square these opinions with either the text or the history of the FAA.

In Part I of this Essay, I review the Justice’s class action opinions; I give special …

Originalism And Stare Decisis, Amy Coney Barrett

Notre Dame Law Review

The question whether stare decisis is compatible with originalism has occupied both originalists and their critics. In this Essay, I explore what light Justice Scalia’s approach to precedent casts on that question. I argue that while he did treat stare decisis as a pragmatic exception to originalism, that exception was not nearly so gaping as his “fainthearted” quip suggests. In fact, a survey of his opinions regarding precedent suggests new lines of inquiry for originalists grappling with the role of stare decisis in constitutional adjudication.

Justice Scalia And Sherman Act Textualism, Alan J. Meese

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay offers a defense of Justice Scalia’s approach to the Sherman Act.

Justice Scalia's Unfinished Business In Statutory Interpretation: Where Textualism's Formalism Gave Up, Abbe R. Gluck

Notre Dame Law Review

Justice Scalia, in the end, was no interpretive formalist. He would not be pleased to hear this claim, but the fact is that formalism has not succeeded in statutory interpretation, and in fact, the textualism that Justice Scalia deserves so much credit for creating never really embraced formalism at all.

Textualism lacks all the conditions necessary for formalism. It does not have a defined set of predictable rules ordered to ensure objective application. Instead, we have more than one hundred interpretive presumptions—the presumptions favored by textualists—with no defined method of choosing among them. These doctrines of the field are not …

The More? Uniform Code Of Military Justice (And A Practical Way To Make It Better), Sean Patrick Flynn

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note offers suggestions for the successful transition of the military sentencing system, in light of the responses to the federal sentencing system. It goes on to argue that ,because sentencing guidelines are detrimental to the defendant, the military sentencing process should offer a guaranteed, but waivable, two days of preparation to the defendant post-conviction and presentencing.

Free Will's Enormous Cost: Why Retribution, Grounded In Free Will, Is An Invalid And Impractical Penal Goal, Matthew D. Moyer

Notre Dame Law Review

The lack of free will in human experience causes clear problems for criminal punishment. Free will is a central assumption of retribution; without the free choice to tear the moral fabric of society, one’s actions cannot warrant that she receives punishment. For its invalidity and cost, retribution should not be used as a penological goal in the creation of laws or sentencing. Utilitarian goals, aimed at the social good, should be used in retribution’s place.

Beyond The Text: Justice Scalia's Originalism In Practice, Michael D. Ramsey

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay considers the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s contributions to constitutional originalism as a practical methodology. Justice Scalia was the leading judicial theorist and advocate of originalism of his era, and his legacy has widely been assessed in those terms. He was also, along with Justice Clarence Thomas, the leading judicial practitioner of originalism of his era. This latter role has received less comprehensive attention. Although there are of course countless articles analyzing and critiquing his originalist methodology in particular cases, or seeking to demonstrate that certain of his opinions are inconsistent with his theoretical commitments, relatively few articles have …

The Limits Of Reading Law In The Affordable Care Act Cases, Kevin C. Walsh

Notre Dame Law Review

Justice Scalia’s leadership moved the law of interpretation closer to the central case of statutory interpretation appropriate for our constitutional order. He thereby lawfully improved that law over the course of his judicial tenure even though—over time—this involved transforming rather than simply transmitting the law of interpretation that had been handed down to him.

Did Justice Scalia Have A Theory Of Interpretation?, Gary Lawson

Notre Dame Law Review

It seems beyond bizarre to ask whether Justice Scalia had a theory of textual interpretation. If he did not have such a theory, what were he and his critics talking about for the past three decades? The answer is that they were talking about part of a theory of textual interpretation but not an actual, complete theory. A complete theory of textual interpretation must prescribe principles of admissibility (what counts towards meaning), significance (how much does the admissible evidence count), standards of proof (how much evidence do you need for a justified conclusion), burdens of proof (does inertia lie with …

Raising Walls Against Overlapping Rights: Preemption And The Right Of Publicity, Rebecca Tushnet

Notre Dame Law Review

By comparing how preemption and First Amendment law have used purposive approaches to limit the right of publicity, we can see something about how boundary work in intellectual property law (IP) is done—badly, usually, with justifications that aren’t consistent or that assume that other regimes work differently than they actually do. One improvement would be to embrace categorical approaches, rather than unpredictable case-by-case balancing; both preemption and First Amendment doctrines can lend themselves to this approach. Another improvement would be to think of the First Amendment as an intellectual property regime of its own, one with general preemptive power.

Spill Your (Trade) Secrets: Knowledge Networks As Innovation Drivers, Laura G. Pedraza-Fariña

Notre Dame Law Review

Theories of intellectual property take the individual inventor or the firm as the unit of innovation. But studies in economic sociology show that in complex fields where knowledge is rapidly advancing and widely dispersed among different firms, the locus of innovation is neither an individual nor a single firm. Rather, innovative ideas originate in the informal networks of learning and collaboration that cut across firms.

Understanding innovation in this subset of industries as emerging out of networks of informal information-sharing across firms challenges traditional utilitarian theories of trade secret law—which assume trade secret protection is needed to prevent excessive private, …

Risk Regulation And Innovation: The Case Of Rights-Encumbered Biomedical Data Silos, Arti K. Rai

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article discusses whether, and how, risk and social regulation can promote socially valuable innovation. The focus is on regulation as a force for creating a data infrastructure for future innovation. This Article briefly summarizes the history of overlapping and adjacent intellectual property rights in biomedical innovation. It then discusses the manner in which the Supreme Court’s reaction to such rights concentration may exacerbate legally-encumbered diagnostic data silos. It will go on to outlines the basic history of biopharmaceutical trial data silos as well as the core legal and policy arguments in favor of increasing access to the aggregated data …

Trademarks And Digital Goods, Mark P. Mckenna, Lucas S. Osborn

Notre Dame Law Review

This article argues that the question of whether we should treat digital files as relevant goods is irreducibly one of policy, and it should not be reduced to mere formalism. Digital files should be treated as goods only when consumers’ interactions with the files sufficiently resemble their interactions with physical goods that they warrant the same treatment. In particular, this article argues that digital files should be treated as goods only when the origin of the files as such (not the content of those files) is material to consumers. That may turn out to be relatively rare. Indeed, this article …

The Demise Of The Functionality Doctrine In Design Patent Law, Perry J. Saidman

Notre Dame Law Review

The doctrine of functionality, in both the validity and infringement contexts, has outlived its usefulness, and analyzing it is a waste of litigants’ and judicial resources.