Law Commons^™

Business Subsidies And The Dormant Commerce Clause, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

In this Article, I seek to respond to the Court's overture with a treatment of of subsidies under the dormant Commerce Clause that moves progressively from the general to the specific. Part I examines key Supreme Court cases to show that the basic question of whether state business subsidies are constitutional remains open and important. Part II then turns to how that question should be resolved, focusing on whether subsidies are fairly distinguishable from ostensibly equivalent, and concededly unlawful, discriminatory tax relief. The thrust of Part II is that both precedent and policy support the traditional, pre-West Lynn Creamer" view …

Toward Humanistic Theories Of Legal Justice, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In an oft-quoted aside, Justice Holmes once remarked that when lawyers in his courtroom make appeal to justice, he stops listening: such appeals do nothing but signal that the lawyer has neither the facts nor law on his side, or worse, that he is ignorant of whatever law might be relevant.' Holmes's remark has not gone unheeded. Holmes's legacy, in part, is precisely this lapse: we don't have, or teach, a guiding theory of legal justice, nor do we have, or teach, a family of competing theories of legal justice, that might inform our work in law, at least as …

Understanding Mahon In Historical Context, William Michael Treanor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Despite its enormous influence on constitutional law, Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon is just such an opinion; the primary purpose of the author’s article Jam for Justice Holmes: Reassessing the Significance of Mahon is to clarify Holmes's intent by placing the opinion in historical context and in the context of Holmes's other opinions. While other scholars have also sought to place Mahon in context, his account differs in large part because of its recognition, as part of the background of Mahon, of a separate line of cases involving businesses affected with a public interest.

The author argues that at …

Jam For Justice Holmes: Reassessing The Significance Of Mahon, William Michael Treanor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

When courts and commentators discuss Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, they use the same word with remarkable regularity: famous. Mahon has achieved this fame in part because it was the occasion for conflict between judicial giants, and because the result seems ironic. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.--the great Lochner dissenter and a jurist generally considered a champion of judicial deference to legislatures in the sphere of economic decision-making--wrote the opinion striking down a Pennsylvania statute barring coal mining that could cause the surface to cave-in. Sharply dissenting from Holmes's opinion was his consistent ally on the Court, Justice Louis …

Migration As International Trade: The Economic Gains From The Liberalized Movement Of Labor, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can Internet Offerings Bridge The Small Business Capital Barrier?, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Internet technology offers the potential to reduce the search and information costs associated with capital formation. Commentators have suggested that the Web will enable small business to achieve better access to the capital markets. To facilitate this access, they have suggested regulatory reforms to make internet offerings cheaper and easier. At the same time, small business offerings have been identified as among the most risky, offering a caution to those who counsel regulatory reform. This article examines the existing regulatory climate. State and federal regulators have adopted a number of recent reforms to facilitate the use of the internet and …

Single-Parent Latinas On The Margin: Seeking A Room With A View, Meals, And Built-In Community, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers the unique challenges of single parent Latinas and and a different way of viewing concerns of single parents. This alternative paradigm uses a holistic approach to the problems I had been pondering, acknowledging their interconnectedness, rather than artificially segmenting them into disjointed issues. I visualized a multi-pronged approach to Latina mothers' many concerns, based on a cohousing model, as modified for the needs of a low-income, racially distinct population of single-parent Latinas. It describes co-housing and proposes that this housing model be more broadly accessible through land use changes and greater acceptance of housing beyond single family …

The Political Economy Of Statutory Reach: U.S. Disclosure Rules In A Globalizing Market For Securities, Merritt B. Fox

Faculty Scholarship

This Article addresses the appropriate reach of the U.S. mandatory securities disclosure regime. While disclosure obligations are imposed on issuers, they are triggered by transactions: the public offering of, or public trading in, the issuers' shares. Share transactions are taking on an increasingly transnational character. The barriers to a truly global market for equities continue to lessen: financial information is becoming increasingly globalized and it is becoming increasingly inexpensive and easy to effect share transactions abroad. There are approximately 41,000 issuers of publicly traded shares in the world. For an ever larger portion of these issuers, there will be significant …

Bloomer Girl Revisited Or How To Frame An Unmade Picture, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Nearly all contracts casebooks feature the saga of Shirley MacLaine's suit against Twentieth Century Fox arising from the cancellation of the proposed film Bloomer Girl. None really get the story right. To be fair, none try. The case is a vehicle for exploring the obligation of the victim of the breach of an employment contract to take alternative employment. If MacLaine refused an offer of alternative employment that was not "different and inferior," her failure to mitigate would mean that the earnings she would have received would be offset against the damages; so, asked the court, was the alternative …

Lochner In Cyberspace: The New Economic Orthodoxy Of "Rights Management", Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I of this Article describes the economic models now proffered as the basis for defining rights in digital works, and explores their striking resemblance to the system of social ordering described and advanced in the Supreme Court's Lochner-era decisions. The ghost of Lochner is not invoked lightly, nor with intent to belittle. Lochner represented a particular ideal of social ordering, premised on a seamless convergence of the private-law institutions of property and contract to provide a zone of legal insulation for market outcomes. In the physical world, that vision has long been compromised by evidence of market failures …

Careers And Contingency, Gillian Lester

Faculty Scholarship

Disagreement among legal scholars over the phenomenon of "contingent employment" – work having limited hours, duration, or security – has led to disparate prescriptions for legal reform. For some, the best solution would be to either leave the market alone, or eliminate existing regulations that drive employers to create contingent jobs. Others believe current regulations do not go far enough and advocate reforms ranging from expanding mandatory benefits and protections to facilitating collective bargaining among contingent workers in order to restore such benefits as long-term security, training, and career advancement. The debate about law reform has centered partly on disputes …

Economic Analysis Of Evidentiary Law: An Underused Tool, An Underplowed Field (Symposium: The Economics Of Evidentiary Law), Richard D. Friedman

Articles

The law and economics movement has had a major impact on many areas of law, but rather little on the law of evidence. This is not to say that there have been no attempts to analyze evidentiary issues through an economic lens,' but such efforts are far more scattered in evidence than in other legal fields, including the closely related one of civil procedure.2 Believing that economics has value for evidentiary analysis, I suggested to the Executive Committee and Advisory Board of the Evidence Section of the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS"), when I was chairman of the section, …

Corporate Judgement Proofing: A Response To Lynn Lopucki's 'The Death Of Liability', James J. White

Articles

In "The Death of Liability" Professor Lynn M. LoPucki argues that American businesses are rendering themselves judgment proof.- Using the metaphor of a poker game, Professor LoPucki claims American businesses are increasingly able to participate in the poker game without putting "chips in the pot." He argues that it has become easier for American companies to play the game without having chips in the pot because of the ease with which a modern debtor can grant secured credit, because of the growth of the peculiar form of sale known as asset securitization, because foreign havens for secreting assets are now …

Smokers' Compensation: Toward A Blueprint For Federal Regulation Of Cigarette Manufacturers, Jon D. Hanson, Kyle D. Logue, Michael S. Zamore

Articles

Although nothing is certain in Washington, sweeping federal legislation in the cigarette area is more likely now than has ever been the case. Congress is currently considering several proposals for comprehensive federal regulation of the cigarette market, a market that has until now gone largely untouched by government intervention. Among those proposals, the one that has received the most attention, and the one that in fact motivated policy makers to look anew at the problems posed by cigarettes, is the proposed national tobacco resolution (the "Proposed Resolution"). The Proposed Resolution, which has been advanced by a coalition of state attorneys …

The Costs Of Cigarettes: The Economic Case For Ex Post Incentive-Based Regulation, Jon D. Hanson, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

Cigarette smoking causes over 420,000 deaths annually in the United States, roughly twenty percent of all U.S. deaths, making cigarettes the single greatest preventable cause of death in this country. Indeed, tobacco kills more people every year than alcohol, illicit drugs, automobile accidents, violent crime, and AIDS combined. And not only are cigarettes deadly to smokers; they kill nonsmokers as well. According to a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the "sidestream" or "passive" smoke from cigarettes - so-called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) - is responsible annually for approximately 3000 lung cancer deaths, between 150,000 and 300,000 lower …