Jurisprudence Commons^™

Filosofía De La Responsabilidad Extracontractual: Un Llamado Al Debate, Jorge Luis Fabra

Jorge Luis Fabra Zamora

Recientemente se ha comenzado a hablar con fuerza de la “filosofía de la responsabilidad extracontractual” en Latinoamérica. La publicación de varias compilaciones de artículos, la traducción de uno de los textos fundacionales del área, y la publicación del primer libro con una contribución original al debate en español han hecho que este estudio filosófico se consolide un cuerpo académico por mérito propio. Sin embargo, a pesar de estos logros, la idea de una “filosofía de la responsabilidad extracontractual” puede sonar extraña al jurista práctico. Como señala Zipursky, desde la perspectiva de los jueces o abogados, la responsabilidad extracontractual –que se …

The Legacy Of Anthony M. Kennedy, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

The defining moments in Justice Kennedy’s tenure on the Court came in Planned Parenthood, Lawrence, and United States v. Windsor, where the Court did to the Constitution—in the name of liberty—what it also did—in the name of democracy—to Florida’s citizens in Bush v. Gore. In all three cases, Justice Kennedy’s reliance on a broad conception of liberty, rather than equal protection principles, shifted the balance too heavily in favor of judicial, rather democratic, creation of unenumerated fundamental rights.

Justice Kennedy will rightly be celebrated for safeguarding reproductive freedom and championing sexual autonomy for same-sex couples, but underneath the black …

Una Vez Más Sobre La Tercería De Propiedad Contra Embargo. A Propósito De Un Reciente Pronunciamiento De La Corte Suprema, Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

En una reciente sentencia casatoria, la Sala Civil Permanente de la Corte Suprema ha hecho prevalecer el embargo inscrito frente a la propiedad no registrada. En opinión del autor, esta sentencia, a diferencia de anteriores pronunciamientos, invoca argumentos distintos a los tradicionales, por lo que marca un punto de referencia imprescindible para cualquier análisis de la tendencia jurisprudencial sobre la materia. Por ello, en este trabajo, se efectúan diversas precisiones sobre esta decisión judicial, lo cual es especialmente relevante en la medida que se estima que en el próximo Pleno Casatorio Civil nuestra Corte Suprema unifi cará criterios sobre la …

The Case For Defamatory Opinion, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

The law should not allow revenge porn in the name of the First Amendment, just as it should not allow private citizens to purchase AK-47’s in the name of the Second Amendment. Citizens can abuse fundamental rights just as governments can infringe them. At some point, courts have to acknowledge that the First Amendment was not intended to give people a fundamental right to trash an individual’s reputation while seeking cover under the self-serving blanket of opinion and taste. It is one thing to stroll into a courthouse with a shirt that says Fuck the Draft, but quite another to …

El Sexto Pleno Casatorio Civil Y Un Acierto A Medias, Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

No abstract provided.

¿Es Posible Y Deseable Inaplicar La Jurisprudencia De La Corte?, Juan Luis Hernández Macías

Juan Luis Hernández Macías

No abstract provided.

Illegal Agreements And The Lesser Evil Principle, Chunlin Leonhard

Chunlin Leonhard

Illegal agreement disputes force U.S. courts to wrestle with multiple competing interests. The courts’ approach has been generally explained and understood in terms of the general rule of non-enforcement of illegal agreements with numerous exceptions. The case law on this topic has been described as “a vast, confusing and rather mysterious area of the law.” This article offers the insight that, contrary to common belief, courts’ approach to illegal agreements shows a consistent pattern. A review of randomly selected cases shows that the courts have by and large consistently (albeit implicitly) applied the lesser evil principle in resolving the disputes. …

El Quinto Pleno Casatorio Civil Y Una Oportunidad Perdida Para Revalorizar El Rol De La Jurisprudencia, Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

El autor señala que la impugnación de acuerdos de asociación se refi ere a la categoría de la anulabilidad. Así, el artículo 92 del Código Civil convierte causas de nulidad en causas de anulabilidad, pero la conversión opera dentro de la categoría de los actos colegiales asociativos inválidos, mas no respecto de aquellos actos colegiales asociativos que deben ser considerados como inexistentes. Por ello, considera que los asociados tienen a su disposición los remedios de anulabilidad e inexistencia, dependiendo de la patología que afecte al acto colegial asociativo que se busca cuestionar.

Complexity And Simplicity In Law: A Review Essay (Cass R. Sunstein, Simpler: The Future Of Government (2003)), David M. Driesen

David M Driesen

This essay discusses Cass Sunstein’s book, Simpler: The Future of Government, in order to advance our understanding of the concepts of complex and simple law. Many writers identify complexity with uncertainty and high cost. This essay argues that complexity bears no fixed relationship to costs or benefits. It also shows that complexity’s relationship to uncertainty is so ambiguous that it is profitable to treat complexity and uncertainty as separate concepts. It develops useful separate concepts of legal and compliance complexity that will aid efforts to simplify law, like the one Sunstein claims to have embarked upon. It also argues that …

The Rise And Rise Of The One Percent: Getting To Thomas Piketty's Wealth Dystopia, Shi-Ling Hsu

Shi-Ling Hsu

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century, which is surely one of the very few economics treatises ever to be a best-seller, has parachuted into an intensely emotional and deeply divisive American debate: the problem of inequality in the United States. Piketty's core argument is that throughout history, the rate of return on private capital has usually exceeded the rate of economic growth, expressed by Piketty as the relation r > g. If true, this relation means that the wealthy class – who are the predominant owners of capital – will grow their wealth faster than economies grow, which …

Reforming Copyright Interpretation, Zahr K. Said

Zahr K Said

This Article argues that copyright law needs to acknowledge and reform its interpretive choice regime. Even though judges face potentially outcome-determinative choices among competing sources of interpretive authority when they adjudicate copyrightable works, their selection of interpretive methods has been almost entirely overlooked by scholars and judges alike. This selection among competing interpretive methods demands that judges choose where to locate their own authority: in the work itself; in the context around the work, including its reception, or in the author’s intentions; in expert opinions; or in judicial intuition. Copyright’s interpretive choice regime controls questions of major importance for the …

Short-Circuiting Contract Law: The Federal Circuit's Contract Law Jurisprudence And Intellectual Property Federalism, Shubha Ghosh

Shubha Ghosh

The Federal Circuit was established in 1982 as an appellate court with limited jurisdiction over patent claims. However, the Federal Circuit has used this limited jurisdiction to expand its reach into contract law, developing a federal common law of contract. Given the growing importance of patent litigation in the past three decades, this creation of an independent body of contract law creates uncertainty in transactions involving patents. This troublesome development received attention in Stanford v Roche, a 2011 Supreme Court decision upholding the Federal Circuit's invalidation of a patent assignment to Stanford University. This Article documents the development of …

Crítica A La Nueva Regulación De La Autotutela De La Posesión, Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

No abstract provided.

Crítica A La Nueva Regulación De La Defensa Posesoria Extrajudicial, Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

No abstract provided.

The Rules Of Engagement, David D. Butler

David D. Butler

First impressions are the eye of the needle through which all subsequent threads are drawn. Zealous advocates take conrol of the Courtroom even before the prosecution is through the door. Get to the Courtroom first. Secure the table and chairs closer to the jury. Pick up all the chalk by the black board. When the befuddled county attorney is looking for a piece of chalk, hand him or her a nice new piece from the box you have in your attache case. Zealous advocates get to the Courtroom fiirst, with the most. Often, a zealous advocate can lift his or …

An Other History Of Knowledge And Decision In Precautionary Approaches To Sustainability, Saptarishi Bandopadhyay

Saptarishi Bandopadhyay

In this paper, I offer an alternative reading of precaution with the hope of recovering the capacity of this ethic to facilitate legal and political decisions. Despite being a popular instrument of international environmental governance, decision-makers continue to understand this principle as reflecting an immemorial and natural instinct for preserving the environment in cases of scientific uncertainty. Such a reading, however, ignores the history and moral basis underlying this principle and thereby renders it obvious, and automatically adaptable to the politics of Sustainable Development. By offering a thicker history of precautionary governance at exemplary moments of ecological crisis I trace …

La Nueva –Y Desnaturalizada- Defensa Posesoria Extrajudicial, Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

No abstract provided.

The Emergence Of Constitutionalism As An Evolutionary Adaptation, Fabio Portela Almeida

Fabio P L Almeida

The emergence of modern societies is an evolutionary puzzle. Homo sapiens is the only animal species capable of cooperating in large-scale societies consisting of genetically unrelated individuals. From a biological point of view, this feature leads to enormous questions. Social scientists typically assume that human life is lived in large-scale societies as a result of cultural, social and institutional history. In this perspective, social institutions such as law, economy and religion enhance cooperation to higher levels. Gene-culture coevolutionary theories have studied this issue in an integrated framework that accounts for social and biological theories of cooperation. These theoretical approaches have …

Objections To Sentencing Law Synthetic Marijiuana, Jeffrey C. Grass Jd, Ms, Aclm

Jeffrey C. Grass JD, MS, ACLM

This case is one of the first cases in sentencing in the Fifth Circuit pursuant to a guilty plea to charge of conspiracy to distribute synthetic marijuana through a retail “head shop.” Consequently, the precedential value of this Court’s application of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (USSG) demands a thorough and correct reading of the law concerning the calculation of drug quantities and appropriate sentencing enhancements. Furthermore, because synthetic marijuana was heretofore widely believed to be legal by both distributors and consumers, the concept of what constitutes a fair and just punishment for an offense under 18 U.C. 3553(a)(2)(A) is very …

The Contribution Of The International Tribunal For The Law Of The Sea To The Development Of The Current International Law Of The Sea, With Special Reference To The Polar Regions, Gabriela A. Oanta Associate Professor Of Public International Law

Gabriela A. Oanta Associate professor of public international law

This article analyzes the contribution of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) to the development of the international law of the sea. On the hand, the mechanism of dispute settlement provided by UNCLOS and other international agreements adopted in the last thirty years approximately over the oceans and seas will be studied. And on the other hand, this article presents an analysis of the past, present and future activity of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea with regard to the two polar regions, the Arctic and the Antarctica. Antarctica lato sensu has received …

Adam Smith's Lectures On Jurisprudence-Justice, Law, And The Moral Economy, Walter J. Kendall Lll

Walter J. Kendall lll

Adam Smith, a leading thinker of the British Enlightenment, is universally known as the author of the Wealth of Nations and an economic theorist. He is less well known as the author of a Theory of Moral Sentiments and an ethicist. And known almost not at all for his Lectures on Jurisprudence or as a legal theorist. This essay looks at Smith’s thought through the lens of his Lectures on Jurisprudence. It highlights the almost paradoxical positions Smith had on self-interest, markets, government, and economic expansion. Obscured by his reputation and these paradoxes are his views on justice, equality, and …

Nigger Manifesto: Ideological And Intellectual Discrimination Inside The Academy, Ellis Washington

Ellis Washington

Draft – 22 March 2014

Nigger Manifesto

Ideological Racism inside the American Academy

By Ellis Washington, J.D.

Abstract

I was born for War. For over 30 years I have worked indefatigably, I have labored assiduously to build a relevant resume; a unique curriculum vitae as an iconoclastic law scholar zealous for natural law, natural rights, and the original intent of the constitutional Framers—a Black conservative intellectual born in the ghettos of Detroit, abandoned by his father at 18 months, who came of age during the Detroit Race Riots of 1967… an American original. My task, to expressly transcend the ubiquitous …

It's The Constitution, Stupid: Two Liberals Pay Tribute To Antonin Scalia's Legacy, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Living constitutionalism may achieve “good” results, but with each Roe v. Wade, and Bush v. Gore, the Constitution’s vision takes more shallow breaths, and democracy fades into elitism’s shadow. The debate over constitutional interpretation is, in many ways, reducible to this question: if a particular outcome is desirable, and the Constitution’s text is silent or ambiguous, should the United States Supreme Court (or any court) disregard constitutional constraints to achieve that outcome? If the answer is yes, nine unelected judges have the power to choose outcomes that are desirable. If the answer is no, then the focus must be on …

It's The Constitution, Stupid: Two Liberals Pay Tribute To Antonin Scalia's Legacy, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Living constitutionalism may achieve “good” results, but with each Roe v. Wade, and Bush v. Gore, the Constitution’s vision takes more shallow breaths, and democracy fades into elitism’s shadow. The debate over constitutional interpretation is, in many ways, reducible to this question: if a particular outcome is desirable, and the Constitution’s text is silent or ambiguous, should the United States Supreme Court (or any court) disregard constitutional constraints to achieve that outcome? If the answer is yes, nine unelected judges have the power to choose outcomes that are desirable. If the answer is no, then the focus must be on …

Justice Sotomayor's Undemocratic Dissent In Schuette V. Coalition To Defend Affirmative Action, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

There are compelling reasons to support affirmative action programs. The effects of racial discrimination, and racism itself, remain prevalent throughout the country. Pretending otherwise would be to ignore reality. Arguing that the equal protection clause compels a state to implement race-based affirmative action programs, however, would make a mockery of the Constitution. Former Supreme Court Justice Hughes famously stated, “at the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional.” The remaining 10 percent is “[t]he rational part … [that] supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.” It is time for this type of judging to end. …

Democracy, Law And Global Finance: A Legal And Institutional Perspective, Tamara Lothian

Tamara Lothian

Finance has become more a problem than a solution to what the world most wants: socially inclusive growth. It has become a source of crises that threaten the development of the real economy. It has escaped accountability to democratic institutions and often helped, instead, to influence and corrupt them. Its potential to contribute to broad-based opportunity-expanding growth has been largely and massively squandered.

In this piece I seek to understand not only how this failure manifests itself in some of the major countries and regions of the world, but also, how it can be corrected.

The intellectual and policy response …

¿La Cobertura De La Hipoteca Y Del Embargo Puede Sobrepasar El Monto Del Gravamen Inscrito En El Registro?, Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

Jimmy J. Ronquillo Pascual

¿La cobertura de la hipoteca y del embargo puede sobrepasar el monto del gravamen inscrito en el registro?

The Presentment Clause Meets The Suspension Power: The Affordable Care Act’S Long And Winding Road To Implementation, Mitchell Widener

Mitchell Widener

The presentment clause MEETs the Suspension Power: The Affordable Care Act’s Long and Winding Road to Implementation

Mitchell J. Widener

Abstract

To enact a law, the Presentment Clause of the Constitution mandates that both Houses of Congress present a bill to the President who either signs it into law or vetoes it. The Founders included this provision to prevent presidents from emulating King James II, who would routinely suspend Parliament’s laws to favor political constituents. Additionally, the Presentment Clause served to enhance the separation-of-powers principle implied in the Constitution.

Within the past year, President Obama has suspended multiple portions of …

Discretion Abused: Reinterpreting The Appellate Standard Of Review For Hearsay, Matthew J. Peterson

Matthew J. Peterson

Matthew J. Peterson, Discretion Abused: Reinterpreting the Appellate Standard of Review for Hearsay

Abstract:

The decision by a federal a court to exclude or admit hearsay can be crucial to the case of either party. Despite this prospective impact, the federal courts of appeal currently defer to district courts’ expertise by reviewing a district court’s decision to admit or exclude hearsay for an abuse of discretion. Such deference often insulates district courts’ incorrect interpretation of the rule against hearsay and the improper application of the exclusions and exceptions to the rule from appellate reversal.

Lowering the standard of review for …

El Principio De Precaución En La Jurisprudencia Constitucional Colombiana: Incertidumbre Científica Y Omisiones Selectivas, Camilo Ossa, Daniel Monroy

Camilo Ossa

En el presente artículo se propone hacer una lectura crítica al principio de precaución, buscando profundizar, de manera específica, algunas cuestiones que minan el equilibrio del principio como instrumento guía para la toma decisiones de quien corresponde tomarlas. Así, el artículo está estructurado en dos partes, (i) por un lado se aborda la cuestión teórica, desarrollando la concepción que, en la doctrina, se tiene frente al principio, teniendo en cuenta dos aspectos esenciales como son: las implicaciones que supone afronta la “incertidumbre científica”, elemento fundamental del principio; y, la defensa de la tesis según la cual en muchos casos la …