State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Targeting The Texas Citizen Participation Act: The 2019 Texas Legislature's Amendments To A Most Consequential Law, Amy Bresnen, Lisa Kaufman, Steve Bresnen

St. Mary's Law Journal

Few Texas laws enacted in recent decades have had a greater impact on civil litigation or been more litigated than the Texas Citizen’s Participation Act (“TCPA”) passed in 2011. Despite its stated purpose of protecting First Amendment rights, as written, the TCPA’s seemingly limitless application confounded judges and litigants alike, causing the 86th Legislature in 2019 to pass sweeping changes to that law. The Article describes the original statute’s problematic nature, the caselaw interpreting it, and the recent changes’ legislative history and substance. The authors highlight contributions of key legislators and stakeholders. The Article’s extensive treatment of changes to key …

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall—Biased Impartiality, Appearances, And The Need For Recusal Reform, Zygmont A. Pines

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The article focuses on a troubling aspect of contemporary judicial morality.

Impartiality—and the appearance of impartiality—are the foundation of judicial decision-making, judicial morality, and the public’s trust in the rule of law. Recusal, in which a jurist voluntarily removes himself or herself from participating in a case, is a process that attempts to preserve and promote the substance and the appearance of judicial impartiality. Nevertheless, the traditional common law recusal process, prevalent in many of our state court systems, manifestly subverts basic legal and ethical norms.

Today’s recusal practice—whether rooted in unintentional hypocrisy, wishful thinking, or a pathological cognitive dissonance— …

The Nature Of Standing, Matthew I. Hall, Christian Turner

Scholarly Works

Standing to raise a claim before a judicial tribunal is notoriously contested. Federal courts during the last century developed an increasingly rule-like and rigid doctrine around the concept of private injury to govern access to the federal forum. Some states followed the federal lead. Others have created important exceptions, and even in federal courts, issues like organizational standing, legislative standing, and standing of qui tam relators have proved controversial. We describe a broader taxonomy of agenda control rules, of which standing rules are a special case, to understand why and how courts and other institutions govern their choices of what …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The (Surprisingly) Prevalent Role Of States In An Era Of Federalized Class Actions, Linda S. Mullenix

BYU Law Review

In enacting the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), Congress intended to expand access to the federal courts for interstate class actions by creating minimal diversity and removal jurisdiction. In Section 2 of the Act, “Findings and Purposes,” Congress stated that class action abuses undermined “the concept of diversity jurisdiction as intended by the Framers of the United States Constitution” in that state courts kept cases of national importance out of federal court and sometimes demonstrated bias against out-of-state defendants. Congress stated that a purpose of CAFA was to “restore the intent of the framers of the United States …

22nd Annual Open Government Summit: Office Of The Attorney General: Access To Public Records Act & Open Meetings Act, Attorney General State Of Rhode Island

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Civil Procedure Update 2020: New Mexico Annual Judicial Conclave, Verónica C. Gonzales-Zamora, George Bach

Faculty Scholarship

These materials are part of a presentation on civil procedure given to magistrate, district, appellate, and tribal court judges, justices, and staff attorneys in New Mexico courts. These materials include the language of approved and proposed amendments to the state and federal rules of civil procedure as well as summaries of relevant appellate cases issued by the New Mexico Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the Navajo Nation between May 1, 2019 to May 1, 2020.

• Amendments to the New Mexico Rules of Civil Procedure include NMRA Rule …

Drug Courts And The Following Of The Federal Guidelines, Charles James Souza

Master’s Theses and Projects

During the 1980’s, drug offense were running high within the United States. The court system along with the police and other fields were forced to form other methods of dealing with offenders who have a substance abuse problem. In 1989, the first drug court in the United States was formed in the state if Florida. The idea was to create a therapeutic method to help those who are committing non-violent criminal acts due to their addiction. The goal of drug court was to get offenders the treatment they needed so they would not resort to criminal activity. Drug court personal …

The State Attorney General’S Duty To Advise As A Source Of Law, Winthrop Jordan

University of Richmond Law Review

This Comment seeks to help fill that gap by considering how a state attorney general’s duty to advise functions as a source of law, by proposing six general models of how the opinions of a state attorney general can alter the legal rights, duties, and relations of persons. In doing so, this Comment still seeks to acknowledge and respect the fact that each state’s individual constitution and traditions will create a unique role for its attorney general’s duty to advise in shaping state law.

Associations And Cities As (Forbidden) Pure Private Attorneys General, Heather Elliott

William & Mary Law Review

The Supreme Court interprets Article III’s case-or-controversy language to require a plaintiff to show injury in fact, causation, and redressability. A plaintiff who meets that tripartite test has standing to sue and thus a personal stake in pursuing the litigation. Accordingly, in Sierra Club v. Morton, the Supreme Court prohibited pure private attorneys general: litigants who would sue without the requisite personal stake. This limitation extends to organizations. They, too, must show standing on their own account or, under Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Commission, identify a member with Article III standing and show how the lawsuit is germane to …

Supervisors Without Supervision: Colon, Mckenna, And The Confusing State Of Supervisory Liability In The Second Circuit, Ryan E. Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note received the 2019 Washington and Lee Law Council Law Review Award.

This Note analyzes two intra-Second Circuit splits that make it nearly impossible for prisoners to recover against supervisors under § 1983. First, district courts in the Second Circuit are divided as to whether the five categories of personal involvement defined in Colon v. Coughlin survive the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Personal involvement by the supervisory defendant is a necessary element to impose supervisory liability. Some district courts hold that only the first and third Colon factors survive Iqbal, while others hold that all …

Stepping Into The Shoes Of The Department Of Justice: The Unusual, Necessary, And Hopeful Path The Illinois Attorney General Took To Require Police Reform In Chicago, Lisa Madigan, Cara Hendrickson, Karyn L. Bass Ehler

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Civil Procedure: Pre-Trial & Trial, Amanda Sotak, Don Colleluori, Andrew C. Whitaker

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Pills, Public Nuisance, And Parens Patriae: Questioning The Propriety Of The Posture Of The Opioid Litigation, Michelle L. Richards

University of Richmond Law Review

The opioid crisis has been in litigation for almost twenty years on various fronts, including criminal prosecutions of pharmaceutical executives, civil lawsuits by individuals against drug manufacturers and physicians, class actions by those affected by opioid abuse, and criminal actions filed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”). In the early 2000s, opioid litigation began with individual plaintiffs filing suit against manufacturers and others for damages allegedly related to opioid use. The litigation has since expanded significantly in terms of the type of plaintiffs and defendants, the nature of the claims being asserted, and the damages attributable to the crisis.

The …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Superseding Money Judgments In Texas: Four Proposed Reforms To Help The Business Litigant And To Further Improve The Texas Civil Justice System, James Holmes

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents