Legislation Commons^™

Providing Plaintiffs With Tools: The Significance Of Eeoc V. United Airlines, Inc., Michelle Letourneau

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note will analyze the language of the United Airlines II decision, in light of Barnett, Seventh Circuit precedents regarding the reasonable accommodation of reassignment, and cases from other circuits that the Seventh Circuit cited in relevant part in its United Airlines II decision. Part I will provide an introduction to the relevant provisions of the ADA. Part II will summarize relevant portions of a series of cases predating United Airlines II that deal with the concept of reassignment as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. These cases are discussed in considerable detail in order to highlight in Part III …

Conflicting Requirements Of Notice: The Incorporation Of Rule 9(B) Into The False Claims Act's First-To-File Bar, Brian D. Howe

Michigan Law Review

Intended to prevent fraud against the government, the False Claims Act (“FCA”) contains a qui tam provision allowing private individuals, known as relators, to bring suits on behalf of the government and receive a portion of the damages. At the heart of the qui tam provision lies the first-to-file bar, which provides that, once a first relator has filed a complaint, subsequent relators are prohibited from coming forward with complaints based on the facts underlying the first relator’s pending action. A circuit split has recently emerged regarding the incorporation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b)’s heightened pleading standard into …

Waste And Duplication In Nasa Programs: The Need To Enhance U.S. Space Program Efficiency, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The U.S. Government faces acute budgetary deficits and national debt problems in the Obama Administration. These problems have been brought about by decades of unsustainable government spending affecting all agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA). An outgrowth of this fiscal profligacy is the presence of wasteful and duplicative programs within NASA that prevent this agency from achieving its space science and human spaceflight objectives. These problems occur due to mismanagement of these programs from NASA and the creation of these programs by the U.S. Congress and congressional committees. This occurs because congressional appropriators tend to be more …

Party Polarization And Congressional Committee Consideration Of Constitutional Questions, Neal Devins

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

English Labor Law - The 1984 Trade Union Immunities Act And Its Effect On Unions' Legal Status, Bret J. Pangborn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Third Preference Status (Professionals) On Immigrants As Created By The 1965 Amendment To The Immigration And Nationality Act - Retraction Of Expansion Of Degree Equivalency - Matter Of Portugues Do Atlantico Information Bureau, Inc., Debra A. Egger

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Worker Dislocation Dilemma In The United States And Great Britain: Contrasting Legal Approaches, Peter E. Millspaugh

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Executing On An Empty Tank: Protecting The Supply Of Lethal Injection Drugs From Public Records Requests, Ira K. Rushing

Ira K Rushing

With the US Supreme Court holding the death penalty and lethal injection as Constitutional, there has been a new strategy for condemned prisoners. Using public information requests to discover the identities of the suppliers of lethal injection drugs and others in ancillary roles, the media has broad range to publish this information. This has led to many suppliers and compounding pharmacies to withhold supplies of the drugs to states using them in executions. This paper lays out a history of the death penalty in Mississippi that has gotten us to this point. It then attempts to provide persuasive arguments on …

Developing A Durable Right To Health Care, Erin C. Fuse Brown

Erin C. Fuse Brown

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) signature accomplishment was the creation of a statutory right to health care for the uninsured. This is a momentous change in policy, addressing one of the most vexing social issues of our time and affecting millions of people and billions of dollars of the U.S. economy. This ambition and the degree of societal and political debate leading up to the Act’s passage suggests that it is a “superstatute,” a rare breed of statute that can, among other things, create rights and institutions more typically thought to be the province of constitutional undertaking. …

The Aftermath Of Governor Mcdonnell’S Corruption Trial: Proposing Comprehensive Ethics Reform In Virginia, Lisa J. Lindhorst

Lisa J Lindhorst

On September 4, 2014, a federal court convicted former governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell of eleven counts of corruption, bribery, and fraud for accepting over $165,000 worth of gifts and loans from the CEO of a local company. The egregious actions that led to these federal criminal convictions, however, were startlingly “legal” under Virginia’s ethics laws. The disparity between federal criminal standards and Virginia’s ethics standards illustrates the severe inadequacies that plague Virginia’s current system of ethics laws. Virginia’s absence of appropriate ethics laws and enforcement led to the state’s failing State Integrity Investigation grade, and the public acknowledgment by …

“Camels Agree With Your Throat” And Other Lies: Why Graphic Warnings Are Necessary To Prevent Consumer Deception, Ellen English

Florida Law Review

The government’s latest attempt to protect consumers from the perils of tobacco use is in jeopardy. In 2009, Congress enacted the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which requires cigarette advertisements and packages to bear nine new textual health warnings and gives the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. In 2011, in compliance with the Act, the FDA issued a regulation, known as the graphic warning requirement, which mandates that a color graphic image accompany each of the nine textual warning statements. The graphic warning requirement now faces challenges from the tobacco industry, and the ambiguities current standards present …

The Paradox Of The Obamacare Decision: How Can The Federal Government Have Limited Unlimited Power?, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

Florida Law Review

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”), sets forth the most important judicial examination of constitutional power since the New Deal era. The political and media frenzy over the Obamacare case has obscured its actual legal analysis and larger constitutional implications, which warrant more reflective study. This Article seeks to provide such a scholarly perspective.

My starting point is the ACA, which has three key provisions. First, it requires “guaranteed issue” of health insurance to all applicants and “community rating” to prevent insurance …

Sentencing Pregnant Drug Addicts: Why The Child Endangerment Enhancement Is Not Appropriate, Monica Carusello

Monica B Carusello

No abstract provided.

Pardons And The Theory Of The “Second-Best”, Chad Flanders

Florida Law Review

This Article explains and defends a “second-best” theory of pardons. Pardons are second-best in two ways. First, pardons are second-best because they represent, in part, a response to a failure of justice: the person convicted was not actually guilty, or he or she was punished too harshly, or the punishment no longer fits the crime. In the familiar analogy, pardons act as a “safety valve” on a criminal justice system that doesn’t work as it ideally should. Pardons, in the nonideal world we live in, are sometimes necessary.

But pardons are also second-best because they can represent deviations from other …

The Rostrum Principle: Why The Boundaries Of The Public Forum Matter To Statutory Interpretation, Amy Widman

Florida Law Review

There is a section of dicta in the recent Supreme Court decision on health care reform that might portend new ground, although not in Commerce Clause jurisprudence. Rather, in his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia did a curious thing for those interested in statutory interpretation: He cited an op-ed in The New York Times that quoted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Justice Scalia used this quotation as evidence of meaning on the issue of whether Congress intended to draft a severable mandate, or more specifically, why the Court should not interpret the fact that Congress was silent as anything more than …

Predicting The Fallout From King V. Burwell - Exchanges And The Aca, Nicholas Bagley, David K. Jones, Timothy Stoltzfus Jost

Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court's surprise announcement on November 7 that it would hear King v. Burwell struck fear in the hearts of supporters of the Affordable Cara Act (ACA). At stake is the legality of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule extending tax credits to the 4.5 million people who bought their health plans in the 34 states that declined to establish their own health insurance exchanges under the ACA. The case hinges on enigmatic statutory language that seems to link the amount of tax credits to a health plan purchased "through an Exchange established by the State." According to …

Retaliation And The Reasonable Person, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

When a worker complains about discrimination, federal law is supposed to protect that worker from later retaliation. Recent scholarly attention focuses on how courts limit retaliation claims by narrowly framing the causation inquiry. A larger threat to retaliation law is developing in the lower courts. Courts are declaring a wide swath of conduct as insufficiently serious to constitute retaliation.

Many courts hold that it is legal for an employer to threaten to fire a worker, to place the worker on administrative leave, or to negatively evaluate the worker because she complained about discriminatory conduct. Even if the worker has evidence …

Eliminating Arbitrary Age Descrimination In 401(K) And Pension Plan Eligibility Requirements: A Simple Fix To Encourage Younger Workers To Save For Retirement, Andrew J. Clopton

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Current federal law allows companies to exclude their youngest workers from participating in 401(k) and other pension plans. Public policy should encourage young workers to contribute to retirement as early as practicable, rather than impose obstacles to saving. Workers who begin saving even a few years earlier improve their retirement security and reduce the likelihood they will be dependent on the government later in life. While “age discrimination” is conventionally thought of as the mistreatment of older workers, this concept applies equally to employees who are differentiated based solely on their young age. Thus, Congress should amend the Internal Revenue …

Surviving Preemption In A World Of Comprehensive Regulations, Kyle Anne Piasecki

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

The Clean Air Act imposes a federal regulatory regime on a number of sources of air pollution. It does not, however, provide a ready means of relief to individuals harmed by air polluters. Nevertheless, many courts have held that the Clean Air Act preempts state common law tort claims that do provide a means to such relief. The disparate benefits of the Clean Air Act and common law tort claims may indicate different purposes and make court imposed preemption of common law tort claims improper. This Comment argues that the Savings Clause in the Clean Air Act and in parallel …

Price Gouging: A Gray Area, Mathis Mateus

Common Reading Essay Contest Winners

Second Place

Essay Prompt: In Justice, Sandel discusses a number of contemporary political issues (e.g. price gouging during the 2004 Hurricane, the 2008-9 financial meltdown, the volunteer army, pregnancy surrogates, executive pay, slavery reparations, immigration, and gay marriage). Take a position on one of the issues discussed in the book and make the best case that you can for why this position is the most just. You may include evidence from the book, your prior studies, your own experience, and/or outside research. (Outside research is not required.)