Jurisprudence Commons^™

The Uncertain Status Of The Manifest Disregard Standard One Decade After Hall Street, Stuart M. Boyarsky

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) enables parties to obtain quick and final resolution to disputes without incurring the costs, delays, and occasional publicity of litigation. Indeed, section 10 of the FAA enumerates four specific grounds on which courts may vacate arbitral awards: corruption, fraud, impartiality, and misconduct or incompetence. Yet over the past 60 years, a debate has raged over the existence of an additional ground: the arbitrator’s manifest disregard of the law.

The Supreme Court first enounced this standard in dicta in its 1953 decision in Wilko v. Swan. Over next four decades, every federal circuit court slowly …

Recalibrating Cy Pres Settlements To Restore The Equilibrium, Michael J. Slobom

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Class action settlement funds become “non-distributable” when class members fail to claim their share of the settlement or the cost of distribution exceeds the value of individual claims. Before 1974, parties had two options for disposing of non-distributable funds: escheatment to the state or reversion to the defendant. Both options undermine unique objectives of the class action—namely, compensating small individual harms and deterring misconduct.

To balance the undermining effects of escheatment and reversion, courts incorporated the charitable trust doctrine of cy pres into the class action settlements context. Cy pres distributions direct non-distributable settlement funds to charities whose work aligns …

Sanctuary Cities And The Trump Administration: The Practical Limits Of Federal Power, Joshua W. Dansby

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

On January 25, 2017, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order with the supposed purpose of enhancing public safety of the interior of the United States. Part of the Administration’s plan includes threatening “sanctuary jurisdictions,” also known as “sanctuary cities,” with the loss of federal funds for failing to comply with federal law, specifically 8 U.S.C. § 1373.

There are several problems with this plan: (1) there is no solid definition for what makes a city a “sanctuary;” (2) if we accept the Administration’s allusion that a sanctuary jurisdiction is one that “willfully” refuses to comply with 8 U.S.C. …

Effects Of Senate Bill 4 On Wage-Theft: Why All Workers Are At Risk In Low-Income Occupations, Daniella Salas-Chacon

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

Avian Jurisprudence And The Protection Of Migratory Birds In North America, Marshall A. Bowen

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Holding Ridesharing Companies Accountable In Texas, Martha Alejandra Salas

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Undocumented Crime Victims: Unheard, Unnumbered, And Unprotected, Pauline Portillo

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

When Courts Run Amuck: A Book Review Of Unequal: How America's Courts Undermine Discrimination Law By Sandra F. Sperino And Suja A. Thomas (Oxford 2017), Theresa M. Beiner

Texas A&M Law Review

In Unequal: How America’s Courts Undermine Discrimination Law (“Unequal”), law professors Sandra F. Sperino and Suja A. Thomas provide a point-by-point analysis of how the federal courts’ interpretations of federal anti-discrimination laws have undermined their efficacy to provide relief to workers whose employers have allegedly engaged in discrimination. The cases’ results are consistently pro-employer, even while the Supreme Court of the United States—a court not known for being particularly pro-plaintiff—has occasionally ruled in favor of plaintiff employees. The authors suggest some reasons for this apparent anti-plaintiff bias among the federal courts, although they do not settle on a particular reason …

The Role Of International Actors In Promoting Rule Of Law In Uganda, Joseph M. Isanga

Joseph Isanga

African conflicts have been caused in part by regimes that do not respect democracy. Uganda is an illustrative case. International actors have played along under an undeclared policy of constructive engagement, but this has essentially served only to delay democratic evolution. As a result, Ugandan leaders have become increasingly autocratic. In such circumstances, reliance on the military and personal rule based on patronage--as opposed to democracy and the rule of law-have become critically important in governance. Yet forceful measures often only beget forceful reactions. The best hope for democracy is for courts to enforce the will of the people as …

African Judicial Review, The Use Of Comparative African Jurisprudence, And The Judicialization Of Politics, Joseph M. Isanga

Joseph Isanga

This Article examines African constitutional courts’ jurisprudence—that is, jurisprudence of courts that exercise judicial review—and demonstrates the increasing role of sub-Saharan Africa’s constitutional courts in the development of policy, a phenomenon commonly referred to as 'judicialization of politics' or a country’s 'judicialization project.' This Article explores the jurisprudence of constitutional courts in select African countries and specifically focuses on the promotion of democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of law, and presupposes that although judges often take a positivist approach to adjudication, they do impact policy nevertheless. The use of judicial review in Africa has been painfully slow, …

Individual Accountability For Corporate Crime, Gregory Gilchrist

Georgia State University Law Review

Corporate crime is too often addressed by fining the corporation, leaving the real people who committed the crime facing no consequence at all. This failure to hold individuals accountable in cases of corporate malfeasance generates an accountability gap that undermines deterrence and introduces expressive costs. Facing heightened criticism of this trend, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates issued a policy designed to generate prosecutions of real people in cases of corporate wrongdoing. The policy reflects a strong and continuing demand for more prosecutions of individuals in the corporate context.

This Article contends that the effort to introduce accountability by increasing prosecutions …

Deep Pocket Jurisprudence: Where Tort Law Should Draw The Line, Victor E. Schwartz, Phil Goldberg, Christopher E. Appel

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Of Brutal Murder And Transcendental Sovereignty: The Meaning Of Vested Private Rights, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

The idea of vested private rights is divisive; it divides those who practice law from those who teach and think about law. On one side of the divide, practicing lawyers act as though (at least some) rights exist and exert binding obligations upon private persons and government officials, such that once vested, the rights cannot be taken away or retrospectively altered. Lawyers convey estates in property, negotiate contracts, and write and send demand letters on the supposition that they are specifying and vindicating rights, which are rights not as a result of a judgment by a court in a subsequent …

Plata O Plomo: Effect Of Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations On The American Criminal Justice System, Mark M. Mcpherson

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming