Law Commons^™

Customizing Employment Arbitration, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, Kenneth J. Martin, Randall S. Thomas

Scholarly Publications

According to the dispute resolution literature, one advantage of arbitration over litigation is that arbitration enables the parties to customize their dispute-resolution procedures. For example, parties can choose the qualifications of the arbitrator(s), the governing procedural rules, the limitation period, recoverable damages, rules for discovery and the presentation of evidence and witnesses, and the specificity of required arbitrator findings. While some scholars have questioned whether parties to arbitration agreements frequently take advantage of this customization, there is little solid empirical information about the topic.

In this Article, we study the arbitration clauses found in a random sample of 910 Chief …

The False Promise Of Risk-Reducing Incentive Pay: Evidence From Executive Pensions And Deferred Compensation, Kelli A. Alces, Brian D. Galle

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Negotiating Federalism Past The Zero-Sum Game, Erin Ryan

Scholarly Publications

Countless instances of intergovernmental bargaining offer a means of understanding the relationship between state and federal power that differs from the stylized model of “zero-sum” federalism that has come to dominate political discourse. The zero-sum model sees winner-takes-all jurisdictional competition between the federal and state governments for power, emphasizing sovereign antagonism within the federal system. Yet real-world interjurisdictional governance show that the boundary between state and federal authority is really an ongoing project of negotiation, taking place on levels both large and small. Reconceptualizing the relationship between state and federal power as one heavily mediated by negotiation reveals just how …

It's Not A Tax (Statutorily), But It Is A Tax (Constitutionally), Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Omission Suspicion: Juries, Hearsay, And Attorneys’ Strategic Choices, Justin Sevier

Scholarly Publications

Attorneys understand that presenting evidence consists of a series of strategic choices. Yet legal scholars have not studied whether jurors are sensitive to the trial strategy that underlies those choices. Do jurors question why an attorney has omitted what jurors consider the “best” evidence of some trial fact and has instead put forth weaker evidence? Do they attempt to understand the motivation behind that choice, and does that affect their legal judgments?

Six original experiments explore these questions in the context of hearsay evidence. The experiments reveal a ubiquitous finding: Jurors carefully scrutinize a party’s strategy for presenting hearsay, and …

Against Certainty, Shawn J. Bayern

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Cacophony: Federal Circuit Splits And The Fourth Amendment, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Despite their many differences, Americans have long been bound by a shared sense of constitutional commonality. Federal constitutional rights, however, can and do often vary based on geographic location, and a chief source of this variation stems from an unexpected origin: the nation's federal circuit courts of appeals. While a rich literature exists on federal circuit splits in general, this Article provides the first empirical study of federal constitutional law circuit splits. Focusing on Fourth Amendment doctrine in particular, the Article highlights the existence of over three dozen current circuit splits, which result in the unequal allocation of liberty and …

Policing Identity, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Identity has long played a critical role in policing. Learning “who” an individual is not only affords police knowledge of possible criminal history, but also of “what” an individual might have done. To date, however, these matters have eluded sustained scholarly attention, a deficit that has assumed ever greater significance as government databases have become more comprehensive and powerful. Identity evidence, in short, has and continues to suffer from an identity crisis, which this Article seeks to remedy. The Article does so by first surveying the methods historically used by police to identify individuals, from nineteenth-century efforts to measure bodies …

Preserving Fairness In Tax Administration In The Mayo Era, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

One of the dominant themes in contemporary federal taxation is bringing tax administration within the fold of general administrative law. In 2011, the United States Supreme Court unambiguously embraced this movement in the landmark case Mayo Foundation for Medical Education & Research v. United States, in which the Court held that challenges to the validity of Treasury regulations generally are governed by the Chevron standard to the same extent as are regulations issued by other administrative agencies.

There was an immediate and strong hostile reaction to Mayo in tax circles. Many fear that Mayo dramatically tips the balance in favor …

The 'No Surplusage' Canon In State-Local Tax Litigation, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

Previous installments of this column have examined numerous canons or conventions of statutory interpretation in their application to state and local tax controversies. This installment considers another canon: the precept that courts should prefer interpretations that render no part of a statute superfluous. A recent treatise phrased the principle thus:

If possible, every word and every provision [of an enactment] is to be given effect. . . . None should be ignored. None should needlessly be given an interpretation that causes it to duplicate another provision or to have no consequence.

The first part below describes the canon generally. The …

Tefra: No Fix Possible, Just Get Rid Of It!, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Strengthening Investment In Public Corporations Through The Uncorporation, Kelli A. Alces

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Citizen Petition Procedures: Lessons From An Analysis Of The Nafta Environmental Commission, David L. Markell, John H. Knox

Scholarly Publications

The NAFTA Environmental Commission’s citizen petition process is an important experiment in “new governance” because of its emphasis on citizen participation, accountability, and transparency as strategies to enhance government legitimacy and improve government performance. Its focus on promoting compliance and enforcement adds to its importance for those interested in those central aspects of the regulatory process. The procedure has had a rocky start in many respects, although there are signs that in some cases it has had a positive impact.

This Article sets forth what we perceive to be the promise of the process, the pitfalls that have undermined its …

Fundraising And Optimal Policy Rules, Murat C. Mungan, Bariş K. Yörük

Scholarly Publications

This paper develops a simple spatial model of fundraising, in which charities select a target population to solicit donations. First, we show that in a competitive charity market without any intervention, the number of charities in the market and/or the overall net funds raised by charities may be sub-optimal. Next, we analyze whether a social planner can prevent such shortcomings and show that a regulatory mechanism can be designed to achieve socially desirable outcomes. In contrast to the previous literature, our model does not necessarily produce monopoly as the optimal market structure. We show that if fixed costs associated with …

Home Concrete: After The Cheering, Problems, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Constitution-Making, David Landau

Scholarly Publications

In this short invited contribution, I argue that scholars and policy-makers need to shift focus from the moment at which the break with the old regime occurs towards the moment at which new constitutional orders are constructed. The constitution-making process in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, for example, is likely to determine in large measure what these new regimes are likely to look like. In particular, I draw off of a case study of the 2009 military coup in Honduras, which was provoked by ex-President Zelaya’s attempt to call a constituent assembly, to make two points. First, both constitutional …

Brady, Trust, And Error, Samuel R. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Climate Change And The Roles Of Land Use And Energy Law: An Introduction, David Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Fracturing Regulation Applied, Hannah J. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Re-Focusing On Philanthropy: Revising And Re-Orienting The Standard Model, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

This paper undertakes a detailed analysis of today's standard theory of the philanthropic sector to provide a new model that is both more accurate in its details and more comprehensive in its scope. The standard theory sees the philanthropic sector as subordinate and supplementary to our capitalist market economy and liberal democratic polity. That approach has a fundamental short-coming: its explanation of both the state and philanthropy as adjuncts to the market fails to appreciate the ways in which all three sectors support and supplement each other. The standard model's primary focus on the market ignores how the demands that …

Implications Of Libel Doctrine For Nondefamatory Falsehoods Under The First Amendement, Nat Stern

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Obamacare And The 'What Is A Tax?' Issue – Part Ii, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

We are engaged in a two-part exploration. The previous installment of our column reviewed the perennial question of whether a given state or local exaction should be classified as a tax or something else. It rehearsed the contexts in which the issue has arisen in state and local tax controversies, the practical stakes involved in those controversies, and the criteria courts have developed to distinguish between truces and other types of governmental levies.

The previous installment also said that a new source of guidance as to the “what constitutes a tax?” question is developing: litigation over the individual mandate and …

Waiving Innocence, Samuel R. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Obamacare And The 'What Is A Tax?' Issue – Part I, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

One of the hardiest perennials in the garden of state and local tax issues is the question whether particular revenue measures should be classified as taxes or some other type of exaction. The issue has been dispositive in numerous state and local tax cases and, befitting that significance, has been the topic of many reports in this journal.

Given the frequency of the decisions and commentary, authorities cited on the issue constantly evolve. State courts, omnivorous in their search for precedents and rationales, often cite federal cases. Recognizing this, a recent article in State Tax Notes examined decisions of the …

Grassroots Originalism: Rethinking The Politics Of Judicial Philosophy, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

How has originalism become so politically successful? In answering this question, leading scholarship has focused on the ways in which political leaders, judges, and lawyers have cultivated popular support for originalism. In one account, legal academics, politicians, and judges have explained the legal merits of originalism as a method of interpretation: its political neutrality and its democratic legitimacy. In a second version, political leaders—in particular, the Reagan Administration and the judges it nominated—made apparent that originalism would often produce outcomes that social conservatives found satisfactory. With some exceptions, leading studies primarily address the contributions made by elites to rhetoric about …

Don't Say You're Sorry Unless You Mean It: Pricing Apologies To Achieve Credibility, Murat C. Mungan

Scholarly Publications

Remorse and apologies by offenders have not been rigorously analyzed in the law and economics literature. This is perhaps because apologies are regarded as ’cheap talk’ and are deemed to be non-informative of an individual’s conscious state. In this paper, I develop a formal framework in which one can analyze remorse and apologies. I argue that legal procedures can be designed to price apologies, such that only truly remorseful individuals apologize. Hence, apologies would not be mere ’cheap talk’ and could send correct signals regarding an offender’s true conscious state, making them credible. This will lead victims, upon receiving apologies, …

The Terms Of The Debate: Litigation, Argumentative Strategies, And Coalitions In The Same-Sex Marriage Struggle, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

Why, in the face of ongoing criticism, do advocates of same-sex marriage continue to pursue litigation? Recently, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a challenge to California’s ban on same-sex marriage, and Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, a lawsuit challenging section three of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, have created divisive debate. Leading scholarship and commentary on the litigation of decisions like Perry and Gill have been strongly critical, predicting that it will produce a backlash that will undermine the same-sex marriage cause.

These studies all rely on a particular historical account of past same-sex marriage decisions and their …

The Reality Of Social Rights Enforcement, David Landau

Scholarly Publications

Despite the lack of socio-economic rights in the U.S. Constitution and the absence of political will to enforce them, the vast majority of constitutions around the world now include these rights, and courts are enforcing them in increasingly aggressive and creative ways. Scholars have produced a large and theoretically rich literature on the topic. Virtually all of this literature assumes that social rights enforcement is about the advancement of impoverished, marginalized groups. Moreover, the consensus recommendation of that literature, according to scholars like Cass Sunstein and Mark Tushnet, is that courts can enforce socio-economic rights hut should do so in …

High-Powered (Mis)Incentives And Venture-Capital Contractors, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Irrelevance Of Politics For Arbitrary And Capricious Review, Mark Seidenfeld

Scholarly Publications

This Article contends that, properly understood, judicial review of agency action under the reasoned decision-making standard precludes a court from considering political influence, but nonetheless allows an agency to consider it. It does so by identifying two fundamental attributes of such review, as courts have traditionally applied it, that have eluded scholarly focus and perhaps recognition altogether. The first attribute is that agency reasons, which are what courts review, are justifications rather than motivations for agency action. From this attribute, it follows that the irrelevance of politics for judicial review does not preclude politics as a legitimate agency consideration. The …