Common Law Commons^™

Finding Law, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

That the judge's task is to find the law, not to make it, was once a commonplace of our legal culture. Today, decades after Erie, the idea of a common law discovered by judges is commonly dismissed -- as a "fallacy," an "illusion," a "brooding omnipresence in the sky." That dismissive view is wrong. Expecting judges to find unwritten law is no childish fiction of the benighted past, but a real and plausible option for a modern legal system.

This Essay seeks to restore the respectability of finding law, in part by responding to two criticisms made by Erie and ...

National Association Of Manufacturers V. Department Of Defense, Summer L. Carmack

Public Land and Resources Law Review

In an attempt to provide consistency to the interpretation and application of the statutory phrase “waters of the United States,” as used in the Clean Water Act, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers together passed the WOTUS Rule. Unfortunately, the Rule has created more confusion than clarity, resulting in a number of lawsuits challenging substantive portions of the Rule’s language. National Association of Manufacturers v. Department of Defense did not address those substantive challenges, but instead determined whether those claims challenging the Rule must be filed in federal district courts or federal courts of appeals. In its decision ...

Could Official Climate Denial Revive The Common Law As A Regulatory Backstop?, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival

Faculty Scholarship

The Trump Administration is rapidly turning the clock back on climate policy and environmental regulation. Despite overwhelming, peer-reviewed scientific evidence, administration officials eager to promote greater use of fossil fuels are disregarding climate science. This Article argues that this massive and historic deregulation may spawn yet another wave of legal innovation as litigants, including states and their political subdivisions, return to the common law to protect the health of the planet. Prior to the emergence of the major federal environmental laws in the 1970s, the common law of nuisance gave rise to the earliest environmental decisions in U.S. history ...

Who Determines What Is Egregious? Judge Or Jury: Enhanced Damages After Halo V. Pulse, Brandon M. Reed

Georgia State University Law Review

Enhanced damages in patent law are a type of punitive damage that can be awarded in the case of “egregious misconduct” during the course of patent infringement. Authorization for enhanced damages comes from 35 U.S.C. § 284, which allows the district court to increase total damages up to three times the amount of actual damages found by the jury. It is well understood that, since enhanced damages are punitive in nature, enhancement should only be considered for cases of “wanton” or “deliberate” infringement. However, determining what constitutes this “egregious” misconduct has vastly transformed over time to include a negligence ...

Enforcing Constitutional Rights Through Computer Code, Steve Young

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Lawmaking and enforcement has advanced since Hammurabi first wrote out his legal code thousands of years ago. Today, the American legal system relies on legislatively-enacted federal, state, county, and municipal legal codes, agency-created regulations, the judge-made common law, and various law enforcement entities. This can be a confusing and complex system of rules and their explanations with varying degrees of enforcement. Blockchain technology is an automatic and efficient alternative to written codes that must be humanly-enforced. There has been limited scholarly interest in the implications of a legal application of blockchain technology to a political system but there have been ...

Disseisin, Doubt, And Debate: Adverse Possession Scholarship In The United States (1881-1986), John Lovett

Texas A&M Law Review

Property law scholars in the United States have discussed the doctrine of adverse possession for more than a century. Indeed, ever since American property law scholars began to write property law treatises, formalize property law courses in modern law schools, publish property specific articles in law reviews, and publish property law case books, adverse possession has served as a staple of property law discourse. This Article examines how property law scholars think about and discuss adverse possession. It explores how adverse possession talk has changed—and not changed—over time. In other words, this Article examines both the substance and ...

Postmodern Social Control: Dividuals And Surveillance, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

As a society's foundational philosophy changes, so, too, will its forms of social control. By using the works of thinkers like Deleuze and Foucault as pivot points, the dynamic nature of social interactions and the agents to mediate those actions shall be investigated. This article includes findings from archival analysis written in a journalistic prose for simplicity of consumption.

Inseparable: Perspective Of Senator Daniel Webster, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

Considering the hypersensitivity that their nation has towards race relations, it is often ineffable to contemporary Americans as to how anyone could have argued against abolition in the 19th century. However, by taking the perspective of Senator Daniel Webster speaking to an audience of disunionist-abolitionists, proslaveryites, and various shades of moderates, numerous points of contention will be brought to light as to why chattel slavery persisted so long in the U.S. Focal points of dialogue will include the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, the "positive good" claims of Senator John C. Calhoun, the disunionism of William Lloyd Garrison, and the ...

United States V. Osage Wind, Llc, Summer Carmack

Public Land and Resources Law Review

The Osage Nation, as owner of the beneficial interest in its mineral estate, issues federally-approved leases to persons and entities who wish to conduct mineral development on its lands. After an energy-development company, Osage Wind, leased privately-owned surface lands within Tribal reservation boundaries and began to excavate minerals for purposes of constructing a wind farm, the United States brought suit on the Tribe’s behalf. In the ensuing litigation, the Osage Nation insisted that Osage Wind should have obtained a mineral lease from the Tribe before beginning its work. In its decision, the Tenth Circuit applied one of the Indian ...

Time To Reconsider Nullum Tempus Occurrit Regi - The Applicability Of Statutes Of Limitations Against The State Of Maine In Civil Actions, Sigmond D. Schutz

Maine Law Review

Many states, including the State of Maine, take the position that they have, essentially, an infinite time within which to bring a civil action. The basis for the State's claim of immunity from statutes of limitations is the old English common law doctrine, “nullum tempus occurrit regi”-- literally, no time runs against the King--which purports to exempt the State from statutes of limitations of general applicability unless statutes expressly provide otherwise. There has not been a Maine Supreme Judicial Court (Law Court) opinion mentioning the nullum tempusdoctrine since 1955, but the doctrine continues to be actively asserted by the ...

Mcgarvey V. Whittredge: Continued Uncertainty In Maine's Intertidal Zone, Benjamin N. Donahue

Maine Law Review

In 2008, William McGarvey and Mary Klientop filed a declaratory judgment seeking a determination that their neighbor, Jonathan Bird, had no right to cross their intertidal land to reach the ocean to scuba dive. McGarvey and Kleintop own property that borders Passamaquoddy Bay in the Town of Eastport. As owners of oceanfront property in Maine, their title extends through the intertidal zone to low water mark in fee simple. The intertidal land they own also stretches in front of Bird’s property, bordering his property just below the high water mark. This configuration creates a strip that separates Jonathon Bird ...

Not Losing The Forest For The Trees: Distinguishing Conservation Transfer Fees From Other Private Transfer Fees, Frank C. Aiello

Maine Law Review

Private transfer fee covenants against real property are increasingly under fire from Congress, federal regulators, and state legislatures. This fire has been fueled by strong advocacy from the National Association of Realtors. It will only be a matter of time before private transfer fees will also be challenged in state courts as not meeting the common law requirements for a servitude. As these bodies take aim at the private transfer fee, they literally must not lose sight of the forest for the trees. A private transfer fee that benefits conservation and environmental stewardship is consistent with the traditional use of ...

Scriptural Justification For The American Revolution, Samuel Ewing

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis will seek to examine the intention of the Founding Fathers regarding their decision to break from England in what became the American Revolution. On July 4^th, 1776, fifty-five men gathered to sign the defining document of their cause – the Declaration of Independence. As the document presents the climactic argument against the English crown, this thesis will seek to analyze its writers’ intentions, presuppositions, and rationalizations. Ultimately, this thesis will demonstrate that the Founders not only sought biblical justification for their actions and opinions, but followed the letter of biblical and common law in order to please both ...

Reviving Reliance, Ann M. Lipton

Fordham Law Review

This Article explores the misalignment between the disclosure requirements of the federal securities laws and the private causes of action available to investors to enforce those requirements. Historically, federally mandated disclosures were designed to allow investors to set an appropriate price for publicly traded securities. Today’s disclosures, however, also enable stockholders to participate in corporate governance and act as a check on managerial misbehavior. To enforce these requirements, investors’ chief option is a claim under the general antifraud statute, section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. But courts are deeply suspicious of investors’ attempts to use ...

The Pedagogical Needs Of Children And Adults Living In The Calais Jungle Refugee Camp: Existential Issues And Perspectives Of Volunteer Teachers And Workers, Theresa C. Bodon, Nancy K. Votteler

FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education

This study aimed at examining the pedagogical needs and challenges of children and young adults living in a refugee camp in France known as the Calais Jungle. Through the researchers’ observations and interviews with volunteer teachers and workers at the camp, insights into their perspectives shed light on the pedagogical needs of refugees. Also, utilizing Paulo Freire’s philosophical stance, this study provides a contextual approach to the educational practices and ideological viewpoints represented within unregulated refugee camp settings.

Lewis V. Clarke, Summer L. Carmack

Public Land and Resources Law Review

One manner in which Indian tribes exercise their inherent sovereignty is by asserting sovereign immunity. In Lewis v. Clarke, the Court decided that the sovereign immunity extended to instrumentalities of tribes did not further extend to tribal employees acting within the scope of their employment. The Court acknowledged the concerns of the lower court, namely, the possibility of setting a precedent allowing future plaintiffs to sidestep a tribe’s sovereign immunity by suing a tribal employee in his individual capacity. However, the Supreme Court ultimately felt that the immunity of tribal employees should not exceed the immunity extended to state ...

An Empirical Study Of Property Divisions At Divorce, Margaret Ryznar

Pace Law Review

Much has been written about family law and how to fairly divide property between divorcing spouses. Without a good understanding of what courts are doing in the field, however, there is no baseline for theoretical frameworks. This Article fills the void by analyzing all divorce cases involving children that were filed in one county over several months. The resulting empirical data has implications for the meaning of fairness in divorce, the role of judicial discretion, and the incentives for contracting by couples. This Article also examines the underlying law in order to explore the correlation between the family law code ...

Possession Of Child Exploitation Material In Computer Temporary Internet Cache, Sungmi Park, Yunsik Jake Jang, Joshua I. James

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

When considering the possession of child exploitation material U.S. and German courts have the same focus, but slightly different interpretations. This slight difference in interpretation could mean that in one country a defendant will be found guilty of possession while in the other country he or she could be found not guilty. In this work we examine the standards courts in Germany and the United States have used to combat child pornography, and analyze the approaches specifically related to viewing and possession of CEM. A uniform solution is suggested that criminalizes “knowing access with the intention to view” as ...

A Novel Tool For Teaching Property: Starting With The Questions, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

The Future Of The Common Law, Robert C. Brown

Robert C. Brown

No abstract provided.