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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Disinformation And The Defamation Renaissance: A Misleading Promise Of “Truth”, Lili Levi Jun 2023

Disinformation And The Defamation Renaissance: A Misleading Promise Of “Truth”, Lili Levi

University of Richmond Law Review

Today, defamation litigation is experiencing a renaissance, with progressives and conservatives, public officials and celebrities, corporations and high school students all heading to the courthouse to use libel lawsuits as a social and political fix. Many of these suits reflect a powerful new rhetoric—reframing the goal of defamation law as fighting disinformation. Appeals to the need to combat falsity in public discourse have fueled efforts to reverse the Supreme Court’s press–protective constitutional limits on defamation law under the New York Times v. Sullivan framework. The anti–disinformation frame could tip the scales and generate a majority on the Court to dismantle …


Promissory Estoppel: The Life History Of An Ideal Legal Transplant, Joel M. Ngugi Jan 2007

Promissory Estoppel: The Life History Of An Ideal Legal Transplant, Joel M. Ngugi

University of Richmond Law Review

This article hopes to accomplish three things. First, it will revisit the historical origins of the doctrine of promissory estoppel in the American law of contracts and the role that Samuel Williston, the Chief Reporter of the Restatement (First) of Contracts ("First Restatement") played in the evolution of the doctrine. The dominant theory is that Williston conceptualized the new promissory estoppel doctrine in a way that retarded and blunted the doctrine shortly after its birth. This theory is adhered to by both critics and proponents of the expansion of promissory estoppel as a ground of promissory obligation. According to both …


The Merger Of Common-Law And Equity Pleading In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 2006

The Merger Of Common-Law And Equity Pleading In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

This article describes the separation of common law and equity in Virginia leading up to the 2006 merger of common law and equity pleading and the problems that remain to be solved by the courts.


Some Old Problems In England And Some New Solutions From Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 2004

Some Old Problems In England And Some New Solutions From Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The fundamental ideal to which we aspire in the field of civil procedure is the perfect balance between expeditious results and correct results in the administration of justice. Two famous quotations from two famous English Equity judges come to mind. John Scott, Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1801 to 1827 who was often criticized for being excessively dilatory, said, 'sat cito si sat bene'. Sir George Jessel, Master of the Rolls from 1873 to 1883, once said, 'I may be wrong and sometimes am, but I never have any doubts'. Jessel had his docket under firm …


English Common Law In Virgina, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 1985

English Common Law In Virgina, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

By statute the common law of England is the basis of the common law of modern Virginia. This reception statute refers to the customary, unwritten law of the kingdom of England, but only that part which was general and common to all parts of England. That the English common law is the foundation of the law of Virginia is a matter not merely of a modern statute but also of history and reason.


The Abolition Of The Forms Of Action In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 1983

The Abolition Of The Forms Of Action In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The common law procedure for initiating actions at law in the English courts required a plaintiff to obtain a writ invoking the jurisdiction of the court and to file a declaration setting forth the facts that justified instigation of the suit and established the cause of the action. This clumsy and archaic system of litigation was abolished by a single chop of the legislative guillotine in New York in 1848. England followed suit in 1875, and the United States federal courts in 1938. Writs and declarations were replaced by simple forms which were copied from the practice of the equity …


The Equity Jurisdiction Of The Exchequer, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 1972

The Equity Jurisdiction Of The Exchequer, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The equity jurisdiction of the Exchequer has been so overshadowed by the equity jurisdiction of the Chancery and that of other courts that there is today only a foggy awareness that it ever existed. Therefore it is the purpose of this communication to locate this court .within the course of English legal history and to say a word or two about its development.