Law Commons^™

Judicial Threats To Olmstead And The Americans With Disabilities Act, Jean Mangan, Andrea L. Dennis

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The authors examine the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v L.C. ex rel. Zimring and related Supreme Court rulings that could raise questions about the Americans With Disabilities Act's guarantee of care in integrated settings and about which governmental entity's interpretation should be respected when deciding whether a state has met its integration obligation. After reviewing statutes, administrative regulations, and judicial decisions, the authors conclude that Olmstead's integration mandate will likely stand, but actions should be taken to codify the rule in federal and state statutes so that governmental agencies will continue to have the authority to ensure compliance …

Jurisdiction Beyond Our Borders: United States V. Alcoa And The Extraterritorial Reach Of American Antitrust, 1909–1945, Laura Phillips Sawyer

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Chapter in the book Antimonopoly and American Democracy by Daniel A. Crane and William J. Novak, eds., Oxford University Press, 2023.

In 1945, Judge Learned Hand wrote one of the most influential opinions in modern antitrust law. In declaring that the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) had illegally monopolized the industry for virgin aluminum and had participated in an illegal international cartel, Hand both revived and extended American antitrust law. The ruling is famous for several reasons: it narrowly defined the relevant market in favor of the government; it expanded the category of impermissible dominant firm conduct; it interpreted congressional …

Challenges And Rewards Of Educating First Generation Law Students, Lori D. Johnson

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No abstract provided.

Generative Ai And The Future Of Legal Education, Joseph Regalia

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No abstract provided.

Retconning Heller: Five Takes On New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. V. Bruen, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Brannon P. Denning

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New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen was the first significant Second Amendment case that the Supreme Court had heard in nearly fifteen years since its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. This Article offers some preliminary observations about the opinion itself, as well as its likely effects, some of which are starting to manifest

Our first take concerns the question of opinion assignment. Why did Chief Justice Roberts-whose support for the Second Amendment has been suspect-assign the opinion to Justice Thomas?

Takes Two and Three concern Justice Thomas's substitution of text, history, and tradition for …

Boyd Law School: Transforming Nevada’S Legal Community For 25 Years, Leah Chan Grinvald

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No abstract provided.

Architects, Artists, Photographers, Property Owners, The Public And Their Rights: Reconciling Vara, The Awcpa, And Copyright Fundamentals, David E. Shipley

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Murals, sculpture, and other works of visual art have been parts of buildings, monuments and other structures for centuries, but copyright infringement litigation in the federal courts between artists, architects, photographers, and building owners is a relatively recent phenomenon. The outcome of these lawsuits has an impact on the public seeing works of visual art; experiencing works of visual art on buildings, monuments, and structures; and, looking at photographs of visual art on or in those architectural works. This article focuses on how the Copyright Act’s protection of artists’ rights in their works of visual art on buildings under the …

All The News That’S Fit To Be Identified: Facilitating Access To High-Quality News Through Internet Platforms, Sonja R. West, Jonathan Peters, Lefteris Jason Anastasopolous

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Roughly half of Americans get some of their news from social media, and nearly two-thirds get some of their news from search engines. As our modern information gatekeepers, these internet companies bear a special responsibility to consider the impact of their platform and site policies on users’ access to high-quality news sources. They should adopt policies that clear the digital pathway between the public and press by facilitating such access. To that end, the companies must first, address the threshold issue of how best to identify high-quality news sources. This article examines factors that would be useful, drawing from legal …

The Spac Market, Usha Rodrigues, Michael Stegemoller

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Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) exploded in popularity in the past few years, to such a degree that they made up 60% of IPOs in 2020, 66.3% in 2021, and 69.4% in 2022. Celebrities from Colin Kaepernick to Jay-Z have launched SPACs, but perhaps the most feverish attention came in October 2021, when a SPAC called Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) announced plans to acquire Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), a social media company headed by former president Donald Trump.

The SPAC frenzy has now abated, a casualty of some combination of higher interest rates, regulatory crackdown, and oversupply. …

A Theory Of Substantive Standards Of Review: The Case Of Corporate Law, Tomer S. Stein

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In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court limited deference to universities. In West Virginia v. EPA, the Court reduced its deference to administrative agencies. In Coster v. UIP Cos., Inc., the Delaware Supreme Court limited deference to boards of directors, proclaimed a new standard of review, and then retracted the new standard of review (maybe). Common to these constitutional, administrative, and corporate law cases is unpredictability, uncertainty, and inconsistency in the use and application of substantive standards of review. This doctrinal chaos is explicitly acknowledged by the very judges that formulate …

Plaintiffs' Process: Civil Procedure, Mdl, And A Day In Court, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Abbe R. Gluck

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The article focuses on the concept of "plaintiffs process" within the field of civil procedure. It discusses how civil procedure doctrine has traditionally been defendant-centric, focusing on the rights and protections of defendants in legal cases. It examines the role of multidistrict litigation (MDL) in this context and how it impacts plaintiffs rights and access to the courts.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Us Antitrust, Maurice E. Stucke

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This article examines the bad and ugly as the US federal agencies seek to rejuvenate competition. The bad is legislative hiatus to update the antitrust laws for the digital economy. The ugly is when courts push their own economic beliefs, without regard for the congressional intent and aims of the antitrust laws. Regardless of who wins, the rule of law (and those most dependent on the antitrust law) suffer. To correct America’s market power problem, the article proposes restoring the constitutional balance, where the courts adjudicate, the legislature legislates, and enforcers enforce.

Environmental Law, Travis M. Trimble

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In 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a plaintiff and the organization to which she belonged had standing, based on her claimed injury to her aesthetic well-being, to bring a Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit against a developer who had allegedly filled a wetland in violation of its permit, even though the plaintiff had never visited the wetland and even though the wetland was on private property not accessible to the plaintiff. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama concluded that acid mine leachate from a refuse pile …

Commentary On Trading In The Clouds, Gary Pulsinelli

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No abstract provided.

Comment On The Fiduciary-Ness Of Business Associations, Brian Krumm

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No abstract provided.

A Rejoinder To Professor Padfield: Lobbying The States For Anti-Esg Legislation, Dwight Aarons

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No abstract provided.

Theseus In The Labyrinth: How State Constitutions Can Slay The Procedural Minotaur, Marcus Alexander Gadson

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Civil procedure is one of the biggest hurdles to access to justice. An array of rules and interpretations of those rules have turned lawsuits into meandering mazes with a procedural minotaur waiting to gobble up meritorious claims. The problem is especially acute for the many Americans without abundant resources or access to a lawyer. Fortunately, there is a ready remedy, albeit one access to justice advocates have ignored: state constitutions. Forty state constitutions, which protect hundreds of millions of Americans, generally guarantee "[t]hat all courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done him in his person, property …

Sanitation: Reducing The Administrative State’S Control Over Public Health, Lauren R. Roth

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On April 18, 2022, in Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc. v. Biden, United States District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle vacated the mask mandate issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Following a framework laid out in other decisions restricting CDC actions in response to COVID-19, the court found that the agency lacked statutory authority to protect the public from the virus by requiring mask wearing during travel and at transit hubs because Congress did not intend such a broad grant of power. Countering decades of public health jurisprudence, the federal district court failed to defer to experts and …

Natural Gas And Net Zero: Mutually Exclusive Pathways For The Southeast, Adam D. Orford

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Climate policy increasingly focuses on pathways to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, providing a clear standard against which to evaluate energy system planning. Examining the current and projected fuel mix of the electric power sector in the southeastern United States shows that an ongoing transition to natural gas for electricity risks locking in decades of greenhouse gas emissions at levels fundamentally incompatible with net zero goals. Furthermore, southeastern regulatory proceedings are not well designed to engage with this reality, although useful regulatory models are emerging. Natural gas will remain an important part of the southeastern fuel mix …

Campbell V. Reisch: The Dangers Of The Campaign Loophole In Social Media Blocking Litigation, Clare R. Norins, Mark Bailey

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Since 2016, social media blocking by government officials has been a lively battleground for First Amendment rights of free speech and petition. Government officials increasingly rely on social media to communicate with the public while ever greater numbers of private individuals are voicing their opinions and petitioning for change on government officials' interactive social media accounts. Perhaps not surprisingly, this has prompted many government officials to block those users whose comments they deem to be critical or offensive. But such speech regulation by a government actor introduces viewpoint discrimination—a cardinal sin under the First Amendment.

In 2019, three United States …

Book Review: Comparative Election Law, Lori A. Ringhand

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Review of the book Comparative Election Law by James A Gardner, ed. (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022) 544 p.

Fair Notice, The Rule Of Law, And Reforming Qualified Immunity, Nathan S. Chapman

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After many well-publicized cases of police wrongdoing, a growing number of courts, scholars, and politicians have demanded the abolition of qualified immunity. The doctrine requires courts to dismiss damages actions against officials for violating the plaintiff’s constitutional rights unless a reasonable officer would have known that the right was “clearly established.” Scholars argue that the doctrine impedes deterrence of rights violations and forecloses compensation and vindication for victims.

One line of attack has relied on empirical evidence to challenge what scholars take to be the main justification for qualified immunity, that it prevents the threat of constitutional liability from over-deterring …

American Religious Liberty Without (Much) Theory: A Review Of Religion And The American Constitutional Experiment, 5th Edition, Nathan S. Chapman

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Book review of Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment, 5th ed. By John Witte Jr., Joel A. Nichols, and Richard W. Garnett. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 464. $150.00 (cloth); $39.95 (paper); $26.99 (digital). ISBN: 9780197587614.

Constitutional Text, Founding-Era History, And The Independent-State-Legislature Theory, Dan T. Coenen

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One question raised by proponents of the so-called independent-state-legislature theory concerns the extent to which state courts can apply state constitutional requirements to invalidate state laws that concern federal elections. According to one proposed application of the theory, state courts can never subject such laws to state-constitution-based judicial review. According to another application, federal courts can broadly, though not invariably, foreclose state courts from drawing on state constitutions to invalidate federal-election-related state legislation. This article evaluates whether either of these positions comports with the original meaning of the Constitution. Given the article’s focus on the originalist methodology, it directs attention …

The Contours Of Gun Industry Immunity: Separation Of Powers, Federalism, And The Second Amendment, Hillel Y. Levin, Timothy D. Lytton

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In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), granting the firearms industry sweeping immunity from civil lawsuits. However, PLCAA immunity is not absolute. This Article demonstrates that both state and federal courts have fundamentally misread PLCAA when adjudicating cases involving the scope of gun industry immunity. Properly understood, PLCAA permits lawsuits against the gun industry so long as they are based on statutory causes of action rather than common law. While broadly preempting state common law claims, PLCAA affords state legislatures autonomy in deciding how to regulate the gun industry within their borders.

Additionally, this …

Absolute Official Immunity In Constitutional Litigation, Michael L. Wells

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Absolute official immunity blocks recovery for constitutional violations that occur in the course of legislative, judicial, prosecutorial, and testimonial functions, no matter how egregiously the officer has acted. The basic policy underlying the doctrine is that constitutional litigation will produce unacceptable social costs, mainly by discouraging officials from acting boldly and effectively in the public interest. It may be necessary to sacrifice the vindication of constitutional rights and deterrence of violations in some circumstances, but the Court’s broad function-based limits give too much weight to the costs of constitutional remedies and pays too little attention to the vindication and deterrence …

A Critical Evaluation Of The Qualified Small Business Stock Exclusion, Gregg Polsky, Ethan Yale

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Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code grants a gain exclusion to certain shareholders who own "qualified small business stock." We describe the tortured history of this rule, explain how it works (and fails to work), and critically evaluate whether the rule serves any coherent policy objective. If Congress keeps the rule in place, significant revisions are necessary to align the rule with sound policy and tamp out the abusive manipulations arguably permitted by the law in its present form. We propose several improvements along these lines. We also make the case for eliminating the exclusion in its entirety.

Recent Case Law On "Coming To The Nuisance", Michael Lewyn

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It is well settled that landowners who come to the nuisance (that is, sue another landowner for nuisance even if they moved to the land after the alleged nuisance began) can sometimes recover for nuisance. But is "coming to the nuisance" merely one factor among many in a nuisance case, or is it completely irrelevant? This article concludes that courts adopt the former view in theory, but in recent years have not actually used "coming to the nuisance" to reject a nuisance claim. In other words, the "coming to the nuisance" defense is like a locked-up weapon: courts say they …

"The Arc Of The Moral Universe": Christian Eschatology And U.S. Constitutionalism, Nathan Chapman

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At the heart of American constitutionalism is an irony. The United States is constitutionally committed to religious neutrality; the government may not take sides in religious disputes. Yet many features of constitutional law are inexplicable without their intellectual and cultural origins in religious beliefs, practices, and movements. The process of constitutionalization has been one of secularization. The most obvious example is perhaps also the most ideal of liberty of conscience that fueled religious disestablishment, free exercise, and equality was born of a Protestant view of the individual’s responsibility before God.

This Essay explores another overlooked instance of constitutional secularization. Many …

Contextualizing Corruption: Foreign Financing Bans And Campaign Finance Law, Lori A. Ringhand

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In Bluman v. FEC, the court held that foreign nationals could be prohibited from making even independent expenditures because such expenditures risked inappropriately influencing the choices made by American voters. The result in Bluman is correct, but the court’s reasoning is wrong. Foreign financing bans are constitutional not because foreign speech may “inappropriately” influence voters, but for the same reason all successful restrictions on political speech are constitutional: because of the risk they pose to the appearance or actuality of corrupting the conduct of public officials. The sense of indebtedness or ingratiation independent expenditures can induce in elected officials may …