Law Commons^™

The Normativity Of Copying In Copyright Law, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

All Faculty Scholarship

Not all copying constitutes copyright infringement. Quite independent of fair use, copyright law requires that an act of copying be qualitatively and quantitatively significant enough or “substantially similar” for it to be actionable. Originating in the nineteenth century, and entirely the creation of courts, copyright’s requirement of “substantial similarity” has thus far received little attention as an independently meaningful normative dimension of the copyright entitlement. This Article offers a novel theory for copyright’s substantial-similarity requirement by placing it firmly at the center of the institution and its various goals and purposes. As a common-law-style device that mirrors the functioning of …

Subsidiarity In The Tradition Of Catholic Social Doctrine, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Working Paper Series

This chapter is an invited contribution to the first English-language comparative study of subsidiarity, M. Evans and A. Zimmerman (eds.), Subsidiarity in Comparative Perspective (forthcoming Springer, 2013). The concept of subsidiarity does work in many and varied legal contexts today, but the concept originated in Catholic social doctrine. The Catholic understanding of subsidiarity (or subsidiary function) is the subject of this chapter. Subsidiarity is often described as a norm calling for the devolution of power or for performing social functions at the lowest possible level. In Catholic social doctrine, it is neither. Subsidiarity is the fixed and immovable ontological principle …

Traditional Knowledge, Cultural Expression, And The Siren's Call Of Property, Justin Hughes

Articles

Discussions on international legal norms for the protection of TK/TCE have, in their contemporary form, been ongoing since the late 1990s. In that time, our understanding of key issues for a workable system—subject matter, beneficiaries, rights, or protections—have advanced little, if at all. Indeed, as Michael Brown has observed, “vexing questions of origins and boundaries . . . are commonly swept under the rug in public discussions.” Yet even if all those questions were settled, we also need a clear justification or justifications for a new form of intellectual property on the world stage.

Statutory Interpretation Doctrine On The Modern Supreme Court And Four Doctrinal Approaches To Judicial Decision-Making , R. Randall Kelso

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Justice As Right Relationship: A Philosophical And Theological Reflection On Affirmative Action, Robert John Araujo

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Political Question Or Judicial Query: An Examination Of The Modern Doctrine And Its Inapplicability To Human Rights Mass Tort Litigation, Nancy S. Williams

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Tragédia Do Judiciário: Subinvestimento Em Capital Jurídico E Sobreutilização Do Judiciário, Ivo T. Gico Jr.

Ivo Teixeira Gico Jr.

Esta tese explora o subinvestimento em capital jurídico como uma explicação para o problema de congestionamento dos tribunais brasileiros. A análise indica que os magistrados brasileiros não possuem incentivos e mecanismos suficientes para investir em capital jurídico e uniformizar regras jurídicas. A insegurança jurídica resultante, combinada com o livre acesso ao serviço publico adjudicatório constitucionalmente garantindo, gera incentivos para a sobreutilização dos tribunais, resultando no problema endêmico de congestionamento, a Tragédia do Judiciário. O congestionamento atrai litigantes que desejam postergar suas obrigações pelo sistema judicial, enquanto litigantes legítimos são excluídos, um problema trágico de seleção adversa.

Surpassing Sentencing: The Controversial Next Step In Confrontation Clause Jurisprudence, Amanda Harris

Florida Law Review

After Crawford v. Washington opened the door to a Confrontation Clause debate in 2004, the United States Supreme Court has consistently confronted confrontation issues arising out of the Crawford interpretation. One issue that the Supreme Court has not yet tackled is whether the Confrontation Clause applies during non-capital and capital sentencing. While many states and federal courts continue to hold that no right of confrontation during sentencing exists, many other courts have chosen to apply a right of confrontation in both capital and non-capital sentencing. This Note takes two new approaches to the Confrontation Clause at sentencing debate. First, this …

Triangulating Judicial Responsiveness: Automated Content Analysis, Judicial Opinions, And The Methodology Of Legal Scholarship, Chad M. Oldfather, Joseph P. Bockhorst, Brian P. Dimmer

Florida Law Review

The increasing availability of digital versions of court documents, coupled with increases in the power and sophistication of computational methods of textual analysis, promises to enable both the creation of new avenues of scholarly inquiry and the refinement of old ones. This Article advances that project in three respects. First, it examines the potential for automated content analysis to mitigate one of the methodological problems that afflicts both content analysis and traditional legal scholarship—their acceptance on faith of the proposition that judicial opinions accurately report information about the cases they resolve and courts‘ decisional processes. Because automated methods can quickly …

Breves Notas Sobre El Neoconstitucionalismo, Jhonathan Avila Romero

Jhonathan Avila Romero

El presente trabajo aborda las acepciones del neoconstitucionalismo.

O Cidadão E O Estadista, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Fala-se muito em crise, naturalmente em mudanças políticas, e até em regeneração dos partidos. Cremos que esta é fundamental. Ou tal ocorre, ou virá, mais dia menos dia, após esta ou aquela convulsão, a ditadura e o partido único, sob qualquer bandeira, normalmente populista. Muitos estão já a atiçar o lume antipartidário e antidemocrático, como ocorreu noutros tempos. E apontando já os bodes expiatórios a sacrificar, enquanto os verdadeiros responsáveis passam ao largo... Por outro lado, não é Estadista quem quer. São precisas virtudes e qualidades. Não uma competência mitificada e abstrata. Mas projeto político e capacidade, experiência, etc.

The America Invents Act May Be Constitutionally Infirm If It Repeals The Bar Against Patenting After Secret Commercial Use, Ron D. Katznelson

Ron D. Katznelson

No abstract provided.

Expanding Stare Decisis: The Role Of Precedent In The Unfolding Dialectic Of Brady V. Maryland, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

Does stare decisis constrain the expansion of constitutional doctrine? Does existing precedent preclude the Supreme Court from expanding a criminal defendant’s right to exculpatory evidence? While commentators frequently clash on when stare decisis should prevent the Court from overruling its own precedents, the question of when fidelity to precedent should inhibit doctrinal expansion is surprisingly under-theorized. This Article begins to fill this gap through an in-depth case study of stare decisis and the expansion of criminal due process doctrine.

This Article analyzes the longstanding constitutional dialectic between procedural and substantive schools of criminal due process. Focus is on Brady v. …

Let's Talk About Text: Contracts, Claims, And Judicial Philosophy At The Federal Circuit, Andrew T. Langford

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

Newman, J., Dissenting: Another Vision Of The Federal Circuit, Blake R. Hartz

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

Are Jurisprudential Debates Conceptual?: Some Lessons From Democratic Theory, Dan Priel

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The dominant view among legal philosophers is that jurisprudential debates about the nature of law are conceptual. In this article I challenge this view. I do so by comparing these debates to debates about the justification of democracy and showing that the arguments found in both are often very similar. I demonstrate that in both domains, there are arguments on one side that explain an institution (either law or democracy) in terms of its ability to help people lead a better life, and there are arguments on the other side that highlight the value of these institutions in promoting political …

Creating Hammer V. Dagenhart, Logan E. Sawyer Iii

Scholarly Works

Hammer v. Dagenhart is among the best known cases in the canon of constitutional law. It struck down the first federal child labor law on the grounds that Congress’s commerce power allowed it to prohibit the interstate shipment of harmful goods, like impure food and drugs, but not harmless goods, like the products of child labor. Withering criticism of the decision spread from Justice Holmes’s famous dissent to law reviews, treatises, casebooks, and constitutional law classes. For nearly a century the decision has been scorned as inconsistent with precedent, incoherent as policy, and driven solely by the Court’s reactionary commitment …

A Financial Economic Theory Of Punitive Damages, Robert J. Rhee

Michigan Law Review

This Article provides a financial economic theory of punitive damages. The core problem, as the Supreme Court acknowledged in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, is not the systemic amount of punitive damages in the tort system; rather it is the risk of outlier outcomes. Low frequency, high severity awards are unpredictable, cause financial distress, and beget social cost. By focusing only on offsetting escaped liability, the standard law and economics theory fails to account for the core problem of variance. This Article provides a risk arbitrage analysis of the relationship between variance, litigation valuation, and optimal deterrence. Starting with settlement …

Stare Decisis And The Rule Of Law: A Layered Approach, Jeremy Waldron

Michigan Law Review

Stare decisis remains a controversial feature of the legal systems that recognize it. Some jurists argue that the doctrine is at odds with the rule of law; others argue that there are good rule-of-law arguments in favor of stare decisis. This Article considers one possible good rule-of-law argument. It suggests that we should approach stare decisis in a layered way, looking at what the rule of law requires of the various judges involved in the development of a precedent. One rule-of-law principle, the principle of constancy, counsels against lightly overturning such precedents as there are. But that is not in …

Violence Is Never The Answer, Or Is It? Constitutionality Of California's Violent Video Game Regulation, Laura Black

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

In 2011, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the California law proscribing the sale of violent video games to minors violated the First Amendment and was, therefore, unconstitutional. Because this is the first video game case to be heard by the Supreme Court, the decision marked a significant milestone for the video game and entertainment industries. The beginning of this note will review the history leading up to the passage of the law as well as examine previous attempts by other states to regulate the distribution of violent video games to minors. Most importantly, this note will explore the …

The Praise Of Silly: Critical Legal Studies And The Roberts Court, James F. Lucarello

Touro Law Review

This Comment demonstrates that the Supreme Court is lying to you in its opinions. Why is it lying? The short answer to this question is quite simple: It is being silly.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being silly. In fact, some praise silliness, as a heightened and healthy understanding of the indeterminate world that incorporates our reality. Silliness, how ever, is only praise-worthy when it is understood and utilized purposefully. The silliness of most of the Justices on the Supreme Court, on the other hand, is a product of self-delusion and fundamentalism, which makes their silliness not silly at …

Employment Discrimination Decisions From The October 2008 Term, Drew S. Days Iii

Touro Law Review

Several employment discrimination decisions were handed down this Term. They were Ricci v.DeStefano (Title VII); Gross v.FBL Financial Services, Inc. (Age Discrimination in Employment Act); AT & T Corp. v. Hulteen (Pregnancy Discrimination Act); and 14 Penn Plaza L.L. C. v. Pyett, which concerned the impact of arbitration agreements upon the reach of federal employment discrimination laws.

The October 2008 Term: First Amendment And Then Some, Burt Neuborne

Touro Law Review

Liberals must acknowledge a dirty little secret about American constitutional law; a secret that the Warren Court made apparent, though it had existed from the day John Marshall asserted the power of judicial review in a Constitution that says nothing about it. The secret is that there is no serious theory explaining or justifying what courts actually do when they strike down a statute as unconstitutional.

The Warren years were enormously important in moving the country forward. I do not know what we would have done without the wisdom and courage of the Court. But when you start looking for …

A Passion For Justice, Charles A. Reich

Touro Law Review

What makes a good judge or justice? The public has a need to know. But simplistic labels, such as "activist," "liberal" and "conservative," are both meaningless and misleading. Perhaps aformer law clerk can offer a different perspective.

I served with David J. Vann as law clerk to Justice Hugo L.Black during the momentous 1953 Term of the Supreme Court. This was the year when Brown v. Board of Education was decided. It was also the year when Chief Justice Vinson died and was replaced by the Governor of California, Earl Warren. And it was also a year in which the …

Transparencia Y Anticorrupción, Primera Llamada De Peña, Norma E. Pimentel

Norma E Pimentel

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Study Of Supreme Court Justice Pre-Appointment Experience, Benjamin H. Barton

Florida Law Review

This Article compares the years of experience that preceded each Justice‘s appointment to the United States Supreme Court. This Article seeks to demonstrate that the background experiences of the Roberts Court Justices are quite different from those of earlier Supreme Court Justices and to persuade the reader that this is harmful. To determine how the current Justices compare to their historical peers, the study gathered a database that considers the yearly pre-Court experience for every Supreme Court Justice from John Jay to Elena Kagan. The results are telling: the Roberts Court Justices have spent more pre-appointment time in legal academia, …

Ecos Do Ipiranga. Autonomia, Cidadania E Justiça No Brasil, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

O grito do Ipiranga é um belo mito de independência. O Brasil é cultural e juridicamente uma realidade que está a construir uma interessantíssima identidade nacional, colhendo dos outros o que interessa, mas sobretudo afirmando-se com autonomia. E já pode exportar produtos jurídicos próprios, como, pela sua visibilidade, a publicidade televisiva das sessões do Supremo Tribunal Federal.

Past Consideration Or Unconnected Consideration, Yihan Goh, Man Yip

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is trite law that a valid and enforceable contract must be supported by consideration. The recent Court of Appeal case of Rainforest Trading Ltd v State Bank of India Singapore [2012] 2 SLR 713 is a further addition to the local jurisprudence on consideration, specifically the issue of past consideration. This note considers the specific issue of past consideration and argues that its label should be discarded in favour of a more realistic one that correctly emphasises its underlying concerns.

Baker's Autonomy Theory Of Free Speech, Anne Marie Lofaso

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Paradigmas Jurídicos Do Ter, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

A questão da propriedade é essencial ao Direito. A forma como com ela lida determina-o na sua essência. Por isso o primeiro grande paradigma jurídico foi o do direito objetivo, com relação de propriedade direta sobre as coisas, depois o subjetivo, em que a relação se subjetiviza e aparentemente (só aparentemente) se imaterializa, ao ponto de hoje tudo ser governado pelos Mercados sem rosto, e tem-se a esperança que possa vir a triunfar um Direito Novo, Humanista, Fraterno, em que conte mais a Pessoa que a propriedade. Este artigo recorda os momentos matinais em que se (de alguma forma miticamente) …