Law Commons^™

Eldred And Lochner: Copyright Term Extension And Intellectual Property As Constitutional Property, Paul M. Schwartz, William Michael Treanor

Paul M. Schwartz

Since the ratification of the constitution, intellectual property law in the United States has always been, in part, constitutional law. Among the enumerated powers that Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress is the power to create certain intellectual property rights. To a remarkable extent, scholars who have examined the Constitution's Copyright Clause have reached a common position. With striking unanimity, these scholars have called for aggressive judicial review of the constitutionality of congressional legislation in this area. The champions of this position--we refer to them as the IP Restrictors--represent a remarkable array of constitutional and intellectual property scholars. …

Scotus Short Title Turmoil: Time For A Congressional Bill Naming Authority, Brian Christopher Jones

Brian Christopher Jones

This past summer saw the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in United States v. Windsor, and while the case has generated copious amounts of commentary and scholarship, relatively little attention has been paid to the case’s discussion of bill short titles. Central to the case’s analysis was a dispute over the role of short titles in inferring legislative purpose, and given this dispute, this Remark will argue that it’s time for a Congressional bill naming authority to ensure sensible, descriptive bill names.

Preemption By Fiat: The Department Of Labor's Usurpation Of Power Over Noncitizen Workers' Right To Unemployment Benefits, Irene Scharf

Irene Scharf

This Article starts with the premise that the right to unemployment insurance benefits is a property right protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which apply to noncitizen unemployment applicants as well as to United States citizens. Given this assumption, certain actions being taken by the United States Department of Labor ("DOL") violate both procedural and substantive due process as well as the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"). The challenged actions involve the DOL's issuance of internally-created missives, termed Unemployment Insurance Program Letters ("Program Letters"), that purport to interpret the meaning of a requirement under federal …

Breathe Deeply: The Tort Of Smokers' Battery, Irene Scharf

Irene Scharf

This Article explores the long and faltering history of attempts to impose liability on tobacco product manufactures. Part II traces the manufacturers' historical and current actions of targeting youth through both promotions and deceptive advertising. Part III argues in favor of an expanded cause of action against the manufacturers for the intentional tort of battery. Part IV discusses the prospect of awards of punitive damages in these cases, and the Epilogue summarizes other advantages of the battery cause of action.

Corrections Day, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

In July 1995, the House of Representatives established a Corrections Day procedure for fixing statutory mistakes. This article traces the history of the corrections day idea, beginning with suggestions offered by Justices Cardozo and Ginsburg many years apart. The article also recounts the early applications of Correction Day by the House. This article describes the problem of statutory mistakes: what they are, and who makes them. It explains that statutory mistakes do exist, regardless of how one defines mistake. Congress, agencies, and the courts all make mistakes, though the responsibility for them ultimately resides with Congress, the author of the …

What Is This "Lobbying" That We Are So Worried About?, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lobbying is both an essential part of our democratic process and a source of some of our greatest fears about dangers to that process. Yet when Congress, the public, and scholars consider loosening or, as is more often the case, tightening the restrictions on lobbying, they usually assume that everyone knows what activities are in fact lobbying. They therefore overlook the fact that multiple definitions of lobbying currently exist in the various federal laws addressing lobbying. This Article seeks to fill this gap by answering the question of how lobbying should be defined for purposes of the existing federal laws …

Lawmaking By Public Welfare Professionals, Gerald Jogerst, Jeanette Daly, Jeffrey Dawson, Gretchen Schmuch, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Legal Affinities: Explorations In The Legal Form Of Thought, Patrick Brennan

Patrick McKinley Brennan

This is my Introduction to Legal Affinities: Explorations in the Legal Form of Thought (forthcoming 2012) (co-edited with H. Jefferson Powell and Jack Sammons), a volume of essays dedicated to exploring the work of Joseph Vining. The Introduction introduces Vining’s phenomenology of law and surveys the themes and topics developed by the volume’s eight authors: Joseph Vining, Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., Rev. John McCausland, H. Jefferson Powell, Jack Sammons, Steve Smith, James Boyd White, and Patrick Brennan.

The Constitutional Infirmity Of Warrantless Nsa Surveillance: The Abuse Of Presidential Power And The Injury To The Fourth Amendment, Robert M. Bloom, William J. Dunn

Robert Bloom

In recent months, there have been many revelations about the tactics used by the Bush Administration to prosecute their war on terrorism. These stories involve the exploitation of technologies that allow the government, with the cooperation of phone companies and financial institutions, to access phone and financial records. This paper focuses on the revelation and widespread criticism of the Bush Administration’s operation of a warrantless electronic surveillance program to monitor international phone calls and emails that originate or terminate with a United States party. The powerful and secret National Security Agency heads the program and leverages its significant intelligence collection …

Faculty Colloquia, Spring 2010 Series, Royce Barondes, Kimberle Crenshaw, Chris Elmendorf, Michael Kang, Oliver Moreteau, Deborah Pearlstein, Richard Peltz, Nirej Sekhon, Stephanie Stern, Lee-Ford Tritt, Michael Zimmer

Lee-ford Tritt

Spring 2010 Presenters January 25: Royce Barondes (University of Missouri School of Law), ABA Ratings of Federal District Court Judges and the Likelihood of a Shepard’s Warning Signal February 1: Stephanie Stern (Loyola University Chicago School of Law), The Inviolable Home: From Iconic Property to Relational Privacy in the Fourth Amendment February 8: Michael Kang (Emory University School of Law), Sore Loser Laws February 15: Oliver Moreteau (LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center), The Future of Civil Codes in Europe February 22: Deborah Pearlstein (Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs), After Deference: Formal Approaches to Interpretation …

Don’T Be Silly: Lawmakers “Rarely” Read Legislation And Oftentimes Don’T Understand It . . . But That’S Okay, Brian Christopher Jones

Brian Christopher Jones

During the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), the reading and understanding of legislation became one of the most controversial issues mentioned in Congress and throughout the media. This led many to state that lawmakers should “read the bill,” and led one academic to propose a read-the-bill rule for Congress, where legislators would not vote or vote “no” if they had not read the full text of the legislation. My essay argues that in contemporary legislatures such proposals are unfeasible, and would ultimately produce lower quality legislation. In doing so, the piece uses interviews with legislative …

Integrating Public Choice And Public Law: A Reply To Debow And Lee, Daniel A. Farber, Philip P. Frickey

Daniel A Farber

No abstract provided.

The Application Of The Endangered Species Act To The Protection Of Freshwater Mussels: A Case Study, Eric Biber

Eric Biber

The success or failure of the 1973 Endangered Species Act in protecting freshwater mussels, which constitute a substantial portion of the species listed as threatened or endangered in the US, is examined. Current human threats to the survival of mussel species are reviewed, as are tools provided by the Act that might be used to protect and restore them. While the Act has prevented the extinction of most species of freshwater mussels, many remain critically endangered and declining. The inability of the statute to provide for freshwater mussel species recovery is attributed to the near-impossibility of recovering a species after …

Bargaining In The Shadow Of Social Institutions: Competing Discourses And Social Change In Workplace Mobilization Of Civil Rights, Catherine R. Albiston

Catherine R. Albiston

The Family and Medical Leave Act requires employers to provide job-protected leave, but little is known about how these leave rights operate in practice or how they interact with other normative systems to construct the meaning of leave. Drawing on interviews with workers who negotiated contested leaves, this study examines how social institutions influence workplace mobilization of these rights. I find that leave rights remain embedded within institutionalized conceptions of work, gender, and disability that shape workers' perceptions, preferences, and choices about mobilizing their rights. I also find, however, that workers can draw on law as a culture discourse to …

The Rule Of Law And The Litigation Process: The Paradox Of Losing By Winning, Catherine Albiston

Catherine R. Albiston

This article expands upon the idea that repeat players influence the development of law by settling cases they are likely to lose and litigating cases they are likely to win. Through empirical analysis of judicial opinions interpreting the Family and Medical Leave Act, it shows how the rule-making opportunities in the litigation process affect the development of law and the judicial determination of statutory rights. In addition, the article explains how early judicial opinions might influence later judicial interpretations of the law. Although individuals may successfully mobilize the law to gain benefits in their disputes, that success often removes their …

Scaled Legislation & The Legal History Of The Common Good, Jill M. Fraley

Jill M. Fraley

None available.

Personalized Bills As Commemorations: A Problem For House Rules?, Brian Christopher Jones

Brian Christopher Jones

The proliferation of personalized bills in Congress has occurred despite a prohibition on commemorations in the House of Representatives. This Essay provides a close examination of the wording behind the ban, especially the definition of “commemoration.” It uses examples from the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 and other statutes to demonstrate how many contemporary personalized bills fall underneath the prohibition, and therefore should not be introduced or considered in the House.

Public Assistance, Drug Testing And The Law: The Limits Of Population-Based Legal Analysis, Candice Player

Candice T Player

In Populations, Public Health and the Law, legal scholar Wendy Parmet urges courts to embrace population-based legal analysis, a public health inspired approach to legal reasoning. Parmet contends that population-based legal analysis offers a way to analyze legal issues—not unlike law and economics—as well as a set of values from which to critique contemporary legal discourse. Population-based analysis has been warmly embraced by the health law community as a bold new way of analyzing legal issues. Still population-based analysis is not without its problems. At times Parmet claims too much territory for the population-perspective. Moreover Parmet urges courts to recognize …

Baker V. State And The Promise Of The New Judicial Federalism, Charles Baron, Lawrence Friedman

Charles H. Baron

In Baker v. State, the Supreme Court of Vermont ruled that the state constitution’s Common Benefits Clause prohibits the exclusion of same-sex couples from the benefits and protections of marriage. Baker has been praised by constitutional scholars as a prototypical example of the New Judicial Federalism. The authors agree, asserting that the decision sets a standard for constitutional discourse by dint of the manner in which each of the opinions connects and responds to the others, pulls together arguments from other state and federal constitutional authorities, and provides a clear basis for subsequent development of constitutional principle. This Article explores …

Fetal Research: The Question In The States, Charles H. Baron

Charles H. Baron

This article is based on a paper delivered at the Third National Symposium on Genetics and the Law in Boston, April 1984.

Are Ballot Titles Biased? Partisanship In California's Supervision Of Direct Democracy, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer

Douglas M. Spencer

This study investigates whether and if so under what conditions the California Attorney General, who authors the ballot title and summary ("label") for statewide ballot initiatives, writes ballot language that is biased rather than impartial. State law demands an impartial label, but commentators frequently complain that the AG chooses misleading language to bolster (undermine) measures that the AG or his/her party supports (opposes). Using a convenience sample of students from several universities, we measure ordinary observers' perceptions of bias in ballot labels for initiatives dating back to 1974. Separately, we calculate an objective measure of bias using a readability algorithm. …

I'Ll Huff And I'Ll Puff - But Then You'll Blow My Case Away: Dealing With Dismissed And Bad-Faith Defendants Under California's Anti-Slapp Statute, Jeremiah Ho

Jeremiah A. Ho

This Article will demonstrate that, despite efforts to recognize SLAPPs and to safeguard our legal process from abuses, SLAPP suits and their underlying interference with the legitimate exercise of the right to petition can often engender new ways of creeping back onto the legal stage to wreak havoc on the private citizen - that the devious, shape-shifting Big Bad Wolf of First Amendment rights can return to reprise its role as the subversive villain and to trot unsuspecting litigants out to slaughter. After an introduction into the general world of SLAPPs and the specific history behind California's section 425.16, this …

What's Love Got To Do With It?: The Corporations Model Of Marriage In The Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Jeremiah A. Ho

Jeremiah A. Ho

The time may come, far in the future, when contracts and arrangements between persons of the same sex who abide together will be recognized and enforced under state law. When that time comes, property rights and perhaps even mutual obligations of support may well be held to flow from such relationships. But in my opinion, even such a substantial change in the prevailing mores would not reach the point where such relationships would be characterized as "marriages". At most, they would become personal relationships having some, but not all, of the legal attributes of marriage. And even when and if …

What's Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax system, but there are serious flaws with that idea. Those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses; and (4) significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs inherent in a system that taxes transferees on transactions that may be largely unmonitored.

This article reviews common characteristics of existing inheritance …

Milk And Other Intoxicating Choices: Official State Symbol Adoption, Ryan Valentin

Ryan Valentin

No abstract provided.

Restoring The Right To Organize In The Private Sector, James Newell

James Newell

No abstract provided.

Medical Malpractice Reform Measures And Their Effects, Robert Leflar

Robert B Leflar

New rules and methods for medical injury dispute resolution have been launched in New Hampshire and New York, and demonstration projects are underway elsewhere. This article describes major medical malpractice reforms undertaken and proposed in recent years. Reforms are classified as (1) liability-limiting initiatives favoring health-care providers; (2) procedural innovations promoted as improving dispute resolution processes, such as patient compensation funds, “sorry” laws, disclosure and early offer laws, health courts, and safe harbor laws; and (3) major conceptual reforms to move liability away from physicians to hospitals or administrative no-fault compensation systems. Empirical evidence about the practical effects of already-implemented …

Algunas Generalidades De Los Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios En Colombia, Daniel A. Monroy

Daniel A Monroy C

El presente documento recoge algunas ideas tomadas de manuales, conceptos, doctrina y jurisprudencia relacionada con los servicios públicos en Colombia, dirigidas a mostrar algunas generalidades relacionadas con su definición, tarifas, medición, defensa de usuarios, facturación, entre otros aspectos, con la única intención de guiar introductoriamente al lector en el área objeto del documento.

One Redeeming Quality About The 112th Congress: Refocusing On Descriptive Rather Than Evocative Short Titles, Brian Christopher Jones

Brian Christopher Jones

For all intents and purposes the 112th Congress has been deemed a massive failure by most; fewer laws enacted and contemptuous debates characterized the session’s most lambasted qualities. However, one redeemable aspect was present: a focus back on descriptive and technical words for short titles, rather than evocative or tendentious terms. When compared to the 111th Congress, the use of evocative words slowed while the use of technical terms increased. This is the first time this has happened since the 101st-102nd Congress (1989-1993). Additionally, it is the largest separation between technical and evocative words since the 103rd Congress (1993-1995). Yet …

Arkansas's Public Records Retention Program: Records Retention As A Cornerstone Of Citizenship And Self-Government, Richard Peltz-Steele

Richard J. Peltz-Steele

This article first provides background, charting the scope of record retention in relation to the freedom of information, then outlining record retention through its history and development in the federal government, through its general principles and modes of practice, through a sketch of the problems that have arisen specially in the electronic era, and through an overview of its development at the state level. The article then describes the recent history of record retention law in Arkansas, up to and including the initiative enacted by the General Assembly in 2005, and the process and product of a state working group …