Common Law Commons^™

Taxing Judicial Restraint: How Washington's Supreme Court Misinterpreted Its Role And The Washington State Constitution, Nicholas Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In the realm of constitutional interpretation, the judicial department reigns supreme. League of Education Voters v. State exemplifies the judiciary’s potential abuse of its interpretative role: The Washington Supreme Court misinterpreted its judicial function because it ignored the text of Washington State’s constitution and held a statute unconstitutional. The court, therefore, voided a statute because of judicial volition, not because Washington’s constitution demanded that outcome. This Note challenges the reasoning in League and makes a novel suggestion for Washington State constitutional analysis, an approach that may apply to other states. This Note details a new analytical framework ...

¿La Noción De Contrato Es Homogénea?, Renzo E. Saavedra Velazco

Renzo E. Saavedra Velazco

No abstract provided.

The False Claims Act Creates A 'Zone Of Protection' That Bars Suits Against Employees Who Report Fraud Against The Government, Joel D. Hesch

Joel D. Hesch

May employees copy internal company documents and turn them over to the U.S. Department of Justice as part of applying for a whistleblower reward for reporting fraud against the Government? This is one of the most hotly contested issues facing whistleblowers and employers, and the answer will affect the future of the Government’s primary whistleblower reward program.

Each year, companies are cheating the military and Medicare by billions of dollars. To combat fraud, Congress enacted the federal False Claims Act (FCA), which is the primary anti-fraud tool used by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the fastest growing ...

The Role Of Nuisance In The Developing Common Law Of Hydraulic Fracturing, Kaoru Suzuki

Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review

In 2012, the oil and gas industry created more than 1.2 million jobs. The industry expects this number to increase to more than 2.3 million in 2035 and expects revenues to exceed $1.9 trillion from 2012 to 2035. The development of hydraulic fracturing technology, a process by which natural gas under shale formations can be extracted, has allowed the oil and gas industry to experience this exponential growth. The economic benefits of hydraulic fracturing comes at a cost. Residents of Pennsylvania, Texas, and Ohio, among other states, have begun to experience the environmental harms and effects of ...

Conceptualizing Capacity: Interpreting Canada’S Qualified Ratification Of Article 12 Of The Un Disability Rights Convention, Nicholas Caivano

Western Journal of Legal Studies

During the negotiations leading up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), States Parties vigorously debated the scope of Article 12, which establishes legal capacity for persons with disabilities “on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life.” The ambiguity of Article 12 has led to many interpretations that have been the subject of debate among human rights activists and academics. Developments in the jurisprudence and legislative reforms across several jurisdictions indicate that governments and courts have begun to grapple with what recognizing the right to legal capacity for persons with disabilities ...

Apportioning Liability In Maryland Tort Cases: Time To End Contributory Negligence And Joint And Several Liability, Donald G. Gifford, Christopher J. Robinette

Faculty Scholarship

The Article presents a comprehensive proposal for assigning liability in tort cases according to the parties’ respective degrees of fault. The authors criticize the Court of Appeals of Maryland’s recent decision in Coleman v. Soccer Association of Columbia declining to abrogate contributory negligence, particularly the court’s notion that it should not act because of the legislature’s repeated failure to do so. The Article provides a comprehensive analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of comparative fault, including its effect on administrative costs, claims frequency, claims severity, insurance premiums, and economic performance. The authors propose the legislative enactment of ...

Restatements And Non-State Codifications Of Private Law, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

This paper offers a vantage point through which to assess the phenomenon of projects codifying private law that are undertaken by private persons or institutions, distinct from legislatures and state-sponsored codification and law-revision projects. The private institution on which this paper focuses is the American Law Institute (ALI). ALI works in statutory form—most notably the Uniform Commercial Code and the Model Penal Code—as well as through projects that generate “Principles” to guide legal development within their specific fields and “Restatements” that authoritatively cover the law in a field.

The history of the Restatements sketched in this essay fits ...

Attribution Of Liability For Workplace Injuries Caused By Non-Employees- Recent Developments In The Law Of Non-Delegable Duty, Neil J. Foster

Neil J Foster

What I do in this paper is to open up in a fairly preliminary way an area of the law relating to attribution of liability that, while it has been around for a long time, I think is increasingly being misunderstood by scholars and the courts. I will mostly focus on the application of this principle in relation to workplace injuries, partly because that constitutes a significant area of its past and present application.

Check Fraud And The Common Law: At The Intersection Of Negligence And The Uniform Commercial Code, Melissa Waite

Boston College Law Review

Common law negligence claims persist in check fraud cases despite the Uniform Commercial Code’s loss allocation provisions in Articles 3 and 4. Absent an explicit preemption provision, courts disagree as to whether, when, and to what extent the Code preempts these common law claims. As a result, the courts’ varying analytical approaches to common law negligence claims often create seemingly conflicting results. This Note reviews the current loss allocation rules in check fraud scenarios and examines recent preemption case law. It argues in favor of the comprehensive rights and remedies analysis used by the majority of courts to determine ...

The Evolution Of The Common Law And Efficiency, Nuno Garoupa, Carlos I. Gómez Ligüerre

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Saving The Trees One Constitutional Provision At A Time: Judicial Activism And Deforestation In India, Lennon Banks Haas

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

An All Of The Above Theory Of Legal Development, Larry A. Dimatteo

Larry A DiMatteo

This paper reviews different theories of legal development in order to highlight their similarities and differences. In the end, as in contract theories, no monist view of legal development possesses the explanatory power needed to understand how law has come to be and where it may take us in the future. What we do have is a foundation built on at least two millennia of legal history. The intellectual starting point for this project is Nathan Isaacs’ unfinished work on a cycle theory of legal development. His view of legal development takes issue with Henry Sumner Maine’s thesis that ...

Illegitimate Children And Constitutional Review, Clayton W. Plotkin, John Vodonick

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unwritten Law And Its Writers, Frederick J. Moreau

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is The Rule Of Necessity Really Necessary In State Administrative Law: The Central Panel Solution, Arnold Rochvarg

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

The rule of necessity is a judicial doctrine that permits a judge or agency decision maker to decide a case even if he or she would ordinarily be disqualified due to bias or prejudice . The rationale of the doctrine is that if there is no other person who can make the decision, let the biased person decide the case rather than have no decision made at all. The rule of necessity has been used in state administrative proceedings liberally despite the fact that it is widely recognized as unfair. This article analyzes current approaches to the doctrine, and after concluding ...

Combating Obesity With A Right To Nutrition, Paul Diller

Paul Diller

Domestic and international law have, in different ways, recognized a human right to food since the twentieth century. The original reason for this recognition was the need to alleviate a particular type of food insecurity—“traditional” hunger, as manifested in conditions like malnutrition and underweight. The current public-health crisis of obesity, however, demands a reconsideration of this right. The food environment in the United States today is awash in high-calorie, low-nutrient food products that are often cheaper, on a relative basis, than more nutritious foods, leading to the overconsumption of the former by much of the American population. Merely ensuring ...

Certainty Of Title: Perspectives After The Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis On The Essential Function Of Effective Recording Systems, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Recording systems for property play a pivotal, market-facilitating role for the players engaged in any transaction, the judiciary that must resolve disputes between the players, and others members of the general public by informing each about the true nature of ownership of the real property things in the world. This symposium article explores the essential character of such systems in providing certainty of title, and takes a tour through the mortgage foreclosure crisis to see where adherence to and respect for these systems’ roles broke down.

Leading up to the crisis, as securitization became vogue and the housing boom blurred ...

A Decade Of Registered And Unregistered Design Rights Decisions In The Uk: What Conclusions Can We Draw For The Future Of Both Types Of Rights?, Estelle Derclaye

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

Rubin And New Cap: Foreign Judgments And Insolvency, Adrian Briggs

Jones Day Professorship of Commercial Law Lecture

The decisions of the UK Supreme Court in 2012 in Rubin and New Cap, and of the Singapore High Court in 2013 in Beluga Chartering, raise in acute form the question of how far the common law of international insolvency and of the recognition of foreign judgments can go when a local court is asked by a court in another country to render particular forms of assistance in relation to an insolvency administration which is taking place there. It asks how the instinct to give assistance for the ultimate benefit of creditors needs to be balanced by the caution which ...

Legal Rhetoric And Social Science: A Hypothesis For Why Doctrine Matters In Judicial Decisionmaking, Brett Waldron

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

In the realm of American jurisprudence, little draws more excitement or controversy than investigating the role of federal judges in our constitutional order. Yet, at the same time, the scholarly literature has not settled upon a singular descriptive device to explain how federal judges actually carry out this role. In broad strokes, current academic commentary appears to be divided on the issue of whether fidelity to the law or fidelity to political ideology largely determines how judges decide cases. This division, however interesting it may be, should not be afforded the luxury of being examined on a level playing field ...