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Full-Text Articles in Law

Safe Harbors In Tax Law, Emily Cauble Mar 2014

Safe Harbors In Tax Law, Emily Cauble

College of Law Faculty

Safe harbors pervade tax law. Yet, the academic literature offers no comprehensive account of why they exist. This Article begins to fashion that account by developing a theoretical framework for understanding the functional purposes that safe harbors serve. In order to analyze safe harbors’ functional purposes, this Article compares and contrasts them with rules and standards. Articulating the reasons for adopting safe harbors has important practical implications. For instance, analyzing the functions of safe harbors can shed light on the use of other rule-standard hybrids such as rebuttable or irrebuttable presumptions. In addition, this Article provides direction to lawmakers considering …


Safe Harbors In Tax Law, Emily Cauble Mar 2014

Safe Harbors In Tax Law, Emily Cauble

College of Law Faculty

Safe harbors pervade tax law. Yet, the academic literature offers no comprehensive account of why they exist. This Article begins to fashion that account by developing a theoretical framework for understanding the functional purposes that safe harbors serve. In order to analyze safe harbors’ functional purposes, this Article compares and contrasts them with rules and standards. Articulating the reasons for adopting safe harbors has important practical implications. For instance, analyzing the functions of safe harbors can shed light on the use of other rule-standard hybrids such as rebuttable or irrebuttable presumptions. In addition, this Article provides direction to lawmakers considering …


The Rule Of Law As A Law Of Law, Gary S. Lawson, Steven Calabresi Mar 2014

The Rule Of Law As A Law Of Law, Gary S. Lawson, Steven Calabresi

Faculty Scholarship

Justice Scalia is famous for his strong rule orientation, best articulated in his 1989 article, “The Rule of Law as a Law of Rules.” In this Essay, we explore the extent to which that rule orientation is consistent with the Constitution’s original meaning. We conclude that it is far less consistent with the Constitution than is generally recognized. The use of standards rather than rules is prescribed not only by a few provisions in the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment but also by key aspects of the 1788 constitutional text. The executive power, the Necessary and Proper power, …


The Means Principle, Larry Alexander Jan 2014

The Means Principle, Larry Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

Michael Moore believes there are deontological constraints on actors’ pursuit of good consequences. He believes these constraints are best conceived of as agent-relative prohibitions such as “you must not intentionally kill, batter, rape, steal, etc.” I, joined in recent years by Kimberly Ferzan, believe that the best interpretation of deontological constraints — the interpretation that best accounts for our intuitions about certain stock cases — is that they are constraints on the causal means by which good consequences may be achieved. We believe those constraints can be unified under a single deontological principle, what we call the “means principle.” It …


Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan G. Vacca Jan 2014

Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan G. Vacca

Akron Law Faculty Publications

For several years, courts have been improperly calculating damages in cases involving the unlicensed use of genetically-modified (GM) seed technology. In particular, when courts determine patent damages based on the hypothetical negotiation method, they err in exaggerating these damages to a point where no rational negotiator would agree. In response, we propose a limited affirmative defense of an implied license due to the patent’s status as a de facto standard essential patent. To be classified as a de facto standard essential patent, the farmer must prove three elements that reflect the peculiarities of GM seeds used in farming: (1) dominance, …


Mixed Signals On Summary Judgment, Howard Wasserman Jan 2014

Mixed Signals On Summary Judgment, Howard Wasserman

Faculty Publications

This essay examines three cases from the Supreme Court’s October Term 2013 addressing the standards for summary judgment. In one case, the Court affirmed summary judgment against a civil-rights plaintiff, in a continued erroneous over-reliance on the certainty of video evidence. In two other cases, the Court rejected the grant of summary judgment against civil-rights plaintiffs, arguably for the first time in quite a while. This essay unpacks the substance and procedure underlying all three decisions and considers the effect of the three cases and what signals they send to lower courts and litigants about the proper approach to summary …