Law Commons^™

A Vision Of The Anti-Racist Public Corporation, Steven A. Ramirez

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fixing Standard-Form Contracts, Shirly Levy

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Consumers are at a disadvantage when it comes to standard-form contracts – information gaps, weak bargaining power, and behavioral biases are all at work against them. Moreover, in the digital age, many consumers do not even attempt to read the lengthy contracts they instantaneously approve. Manipulation by sophisticated commercial parties is therefore guaranteed.

The literature offers various ways to alleviate this problem, including nudges and carefully crafted contractual default rules, but the question remains - how can the content of a consumer contract that no one reads be improved? This article draws lessons from the financial market, where shareholders and …

The Eleventh Amendment And Nondiverse Suits Against States, Collin Hong

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Since Hans v. Louisiana (1890), the Supreme Court has maintained that the Eleventh Amendment protects states from suits by plaintiffs who are citizens of other states and by citizens of that state, despite the text of the Eleventh Amendment specifying that only suits from citizens of other states are barred. Scholars have noted that what therefore protects the states from suits against their own citizens is not the Eleventh Amendment, but rather a common-law immunity that existed between nations at the founding. That immunity applied both to states and to foreign nations. This article argues that just as Congress has …

Freedom Of Algorithmic Expression, Inyoung Cheong

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Can content moderation on social media be considered a form of speech? If so, would government regulation of content moderation violate the First Amendment? These are the main arguments of social media companies after Florida and Texas legislators attempted to restrict social media platforms’ authority to de-platform objectionable content.

This article examines whether social media companies’ arguments have valid legal grounds. To this end, the article proposes three elements to determine that algorithms classify as “speech:” (1) the algorithms are designed to communicate messages; (2) the relevant messages reflect cognitive or emotive ideas beyond mere operational matters; and (3) they …

Markets As Legal Constructions, Gregory Brazeal

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Since at least the late 1970s, popular political and economic debates in the United States have often been framed in terms of a choice between “government” and “the market.” In addition, debates have often assumed that “the market” is associated with freedom while government “regulation” or “interference in the market” constitutes oppression.

This article begins by making the familiar observation that the distinction between “government” and “the market,” at least when taken at face value, makes no sense. Even idealized laissez-faire markets are creatures of the state and its market-structuring laws, including criminal law and the laws of property, contracts, …

Core And Periphery In Constitutional Law, R. George Wright

William & Mary Law Review Online

This paper embarks on an excursion through a number of the most vital constitutional rights cases, and other contexts as well, and seeks to show that the recurring judicial attempts to distinguish between core and peripheral areas within any given broad constitutional right are unnecessary and distracting. Intriguingly, the case for this conclusion varies significantly depending upon the nature of the general constitutional right in question. But the overall lesson is that courts should abandon their attempts to distinguish between core and peripheral areas of any given broad constitutional right. Courts should instead focus—directly or indirectly—on their best assessment of …

Dignity And Respect At All Times: How Federal Agencies Can Measure Up In Complying With Nagpra And Related Statutes, Catherine E. Kanatas, Maxwell Smith

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

Addressing Green Energy's "Resource Curse", Roger E. Meiners, Andrew P. Morriss

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

Policy changes that encourage non-fossil fuel energy mean increased reliance on batteries and other technologies that must develop rapidly. This article focuses on batteries, noting that key inputs come from corrupt countries, so little of the benefits of exports flow to citizens, and many key finished mineral products come from China. The United States thereby becomes more reliant on autocratic regimes. Using cobalt as an example, this article looks at the nature of its production, the inability of the United States to shoulder its share of the environmental burden of mineral extraction and refining, and looks to previous examples of …

The Fashion Industry Is Not As "Green" As It Would Like You To Believe, Ashly Riches

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

Journal Staff

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

Unacceptable Risk: The Failure Of Georgia’S “Guilty But Intellectually Disabled” Statute And A Call For Change, Logan Purvis

Georgia Law Review

In 1988, Georgia became the first state in the nation to prohibit the execution of intellectually disabled criminal defendants. At the time, this groundbreaking action played a critical role in shaping the national debate surrounding the criminal justice system’s treatment of this group of individuals, culminating in the United States Supreme Court’s own prohibition in 2002. A drafting error in Georgia’s statute, however, created a highly prejudicial process for determining intellectual disability, all but ensuring that the law’s protections are unattainable for those who seek it. Despite this error, Georgia’s process has remained the same since the statute’s enactment with …

Table Of Contents

Georgia Law Review

No abstract provided.

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

Georgia Law Review

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 …

A Fourteenth Century Solution To A Twenty-First Century Problem: Using Qui Tam Legislation To Limit Executive War Power, Nicholas R. Lewis

Georgia Law Review

The United States was founded on the principle that Congress alone has the power to take the nation to war. This founding principle has failed. In its place now stands the modern principle that the Executive holds the power to initiate, wage, and conclude warfare. This modern principle, which is irreconcilable with the intent of America’s Founders, is a problem that must be remedied. And while this problem may be most pronounced in the twenty-first century, a possible solution comes from the most unlikely of places: fourteenth century England. In the 1300s, England developed qui tam legislation, a novel legal …

Privacy Is Not Dead: Expressively Using Law To Push Back Against Corporate Deregulators And Meaningfully Protect Data Privacy Rights, Alexander F. Krupp

Georgia Law Review

When the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) passed in 2016, it represented the world’s first major comprehensive data privacy law and kicked off a conversation about how we think about the right to privacy in the modern age. The law granted a broad range of rights to EU citizens, including a right to have companies delete data they collect about you, a right not to have your personal information sold, and a range of other rights all geared towards individual autonomy over personal data. All the while, platform companies like Facebook (Meta), Apple, and Amazon have taken …

Stay Schemin’: Tax Court’S Recent Ruling On Credit Card Rewards And The Impact This Ruling Has On Future Rewards Programs, Hunter Davis

Georgia Law Review

Beyond the utility of actual “credit,” the most important perk cardholders seek to capitalize on are the rewards that each cardholder’s particular credit card offers. Cardholders look for the most bang for their buck in terms of rewards and points. Ranging from frequent flyer miles to cash back to everything in between, rewards programs have expanded and diversified rapidly over the past several decades, and consumers cannot get enough. So much so that the question of whether, and when, consumer loyalty rewards should be taxable has arisen and persists today. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Tax Court have …

You’Re Out!: Three Strikes Against The Plra’S Three Strikes Rule, Kasey Clark

Georgia Law Review

As federal court caseloads increased in the twentieth century, concerned jurists and academics pointed their fingers at many potential culprits. One culprit in particular, however, caught the attention of Congress: suits brought by prisoners. To curtail what it believed was an influx of frivolous prisoner litigation, Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) in 1996. One provision of the PLRA, known as the “three strikes rule,” prohibits a prisoner from proceeding in forma pauperis if three or more of the prisoner’s prior actions or appeals have been dismissed as frivolous or malicious or for failure to state a claim …

Biased But Reasonable: Bias Under The Cover Of Standard Of Care, Maytal Gilboa

Georgia Law Review

Inequities in the distribution of healthcare are widely acknowledged to plague the United States healthcare system. Controversies as to whether anti-discrimination law allows individuals to bring lawsuits with respect to implicit rather than intentional bias render negligence law an important avenue for redressing harms caused by implicit bias in medical care. Yet, as this Article argues, the focus of negligence law on medical standards of care to define the boundaries of healthcare providers’ legal duty of care prevents the law from adequately deterring implicit bias and leaves patients harmed by biased treatment decisions without redress for their losses, so long …

Standing On The Shoulders Of Llcs: Tax Entity Status And Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, Samuel D. Brunson

Georgia Law Review

Since the formation of the first decentralized autonomous organization in 2016, their use has exploded. Thousands of DAOs now try to take advantage of smart contracts to solve a problem that plagues business entities: the gulf between ownership and management. Armed with smart contracts and requiring token-holders to vote on any change in strategy, DAOs dispense with the management layer so necessary in traditional business entities.

DAOs owe their existence to technology. Without blockchain, without cryptocurrency, and without smart contracts, there would be no DAOs. But they owe their explosive to something much more unexpected: Treasury regulations.

In the wake …

Faithful Execution In The Fifty States, Zachary S. Price

Georgia Law Review

Amid heightened political conflict over criminal-justice policy, norms surrounding prosecutorial discretion have shifted rapidly. Under the prior mainstream approach, prosecutors exercised broad charging discretion, but generally did so tacitly and in case-by-case fashion out of deference to statutory law’s primacy. Under an emerging alternative approach, associated for the moment with progressive politics, prosecutors categorically and transparently suspend enforcement of laws they consider unjust or unwise. The federal government under President Obama employed this theory in high-profile policies relating to marijuana crimes, as well as immigration and the Affordable Care Act. More recently, a number of self-described “progressive prosecutors” have employed …

Endnotes, Sdlp

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Toxic Criminals: Prosecuting Individuals For Hazardous Waste Crimes Under The United States Resource Conservation And Recovery Act, Dr. Joshua Ozymy, Dr. Melissa Jarrell Ozymy

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The U.S. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) contains criminal provisions which allow prosecutors to seek substantial penalties when individuals commit hazardous waste crimes involving significant harm or culpable conduct. However, our empirical understanding of enforcement outcomes is limited. We used content analysis of 2,728 criminal prosecutions derived from U.S. EPA criminal investigations from 1983 to 2021 and examined all prosecutions of individual defendants for RCRA violations. Our results show that 222 prosecutions were adjudicated, with over $72.9 million in monetary penalties, 755 years of probation, and 451 years of incarceration levied at sentencing. Seventeen percent of prosecutions centered on …

It's Time To Trash Consumer Responsibility For Plastics: An Analysis Of Extended Producer Responsibility Laws' Sucess In Maine, Marina Mozak

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Consumer responsibility for waste is a historic relic, dating back to a time when nearly all of a consumer’s waste was compostable, reusable, or marketable. Today, with the rise of plastics and complex goods like electronics, consumers lack the expertise, time, and ability to personally break down the products they consume for reuse. Much of our household waste goes to the curb and into a single stream of municipal solid waste (“MSW”). This includes a variety of wastes which each require specialized processing. Recycling this complex waste falls to municipalities which are woefully underfunded and underqualified to process such complex …

Ohio House Bills 168 And 110: Just Another Drop In The Bucket For Brownfield Redevelopment?, Mia Petrucci

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

This article examines Ohio House Bills 168 and 110. These House Bills provide liability protection to purchasers of brownfield sites, allocate $500 million dollars to brownfield funding—with $350 million allotted for investigation, cleanup, and revitalization of brownfield sites and $150 million for demolition of vacant/abandoned buildings—and create a new Building Demolition and Site Revitalization Program, for the revitalization of properties surrounding brownfield sites. In the first three Sections of this article, the concept of brownfield redevelopment is introduced, the associated challenges with brownfield projects are discussed, and attempts by federal and state governments to address brownfield remediation challenges in the …

About Sdlp, Sdlp

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief (ISSN 1552-3721) is a student-run initiative at American University Washington College of Law that is published twice each academic year. The Brief embraces an interdisciplinary focus to provide a broad view of current legal, political, and social developments. It was founded to provide a forum for those interested in promoting sustainable economic development, conservation, environmental justice, and biodiversity throughout the world.

Editors' Note, Rachel Keylon, Meghen Sullivan

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

For more than two decades, the Sustainable Development Law and Policy Brief (SDLP) has published works analyzing emerging legal and policy issues within the fields of environmental, energy, sustainable development, and natural resources law. SDLP has also prioritized making space for law students in the conversation. We are honored to continue this tradition in Volume XXIII.

Child Custody Is No Place For A Magic Formula: Why A Presumption Of 50/50 Physical Custody In West Virginia Is Not In Its Children's Best Interests, Stephanie R. Weber

West Virginia Law Review

The “best interest of the child” standard is used throughout family law and is the generally accepted standard for determining custody disputes. However, many states have introduced, and some have enacted, legislation that creates a presumption of joint, or “50/50,” physical custody between the parents. As psychological studies have shown, instability typically found in custody disputes can have a significant impact on a child’s life, influencing attachment style and abilities to successfully self-regulate. These findings make the 50/50 presumption a flawed concept. Courts should be able to take factors supported by this research into account when making custody determinations as …

A Road To Resolution For Federal Whistleblowers' Mixed Case Claims, Devin Redding

West Virginia Law Review

Since the birth of the United States, whistleblowers have held our nation’s government accountable for illegal, fraudulent, and harmful behavior. The triumphs and failures of whistleblowers are deeply entwined with our nation’s struggle for independence, civil rights, and economic freedom. Nevertheless, employees who bravely expose misdeeds at all levels of our federal government are often bullied and discriminated against on the basis of sex, gender, age, disability, and more. In recent decades, and despite improved whistleblower protections, federal whistleblowers increasingly suffer from adverse employment actions and discrimination as reprisal for their disclosures. Employees looking toward our administrative law systems and …

Federal Sentencing: The Need For A New Test For The Abduction Enhancement In The Context Of Robbery, Alex Leroy

West Virginia Law Review

The abduction enhancement applied to the crime of robbery is inherently ambiguous; the enhancement reads, “‘abducted’ means that a victim was forced to accompany an offender to a different location.” The lack of a clear definition for “location” has caused a split within the federal circuits, with some circuits interpreting “location” as position and others interpreting “location” as place. This has caused disproportionate sentences for similar criminal conduct within separate circuits, creating the need for a more uniform interpretation of the sentencing enhancement for abduction.

This Note builds upon the work of David J. Sandefer and proposes two additional factors …

Shifting The Scope Towards Students: An Analysis Of Tax Code Treatment Of The Higher Education Loan Interest Deduction, Brianna C. Frontuto

West Virginia Law Review

In a nation where education is held in the highest regard but given the lowest priority, the United States continues to enlarge a gaping hole in the education system: student loan debt, a crisis sweeping across the nation and affecting nearly every individual in the United States. Higher education costs have sky-rocketed, and the expanding administrations and complex projects do not provide assurance that this will change any time soon.

Congress has placed tax incentives in the Internal Revenue Code (“the Code”) to encourage the pursuit of higher education while providing a benefit for doing so. Specifically, § 221 of …