Testing The Limits Of Virtual Compliance: Website Accessibility, "Tester" Plaintiffs, And Article Iii Standing Under The Ada, 2024 University of Georgia School of Law
Testing The Limits Of Virtual Compliance: Website Accessibility, "Tester" Plaintiffs, And Article Iii Standing Under The Ada, Ashlyn Dewberry
Georgia Law Review
Federal courts have split in determining whether “tester” plaintiffs bringing suit under the ADA assert the requisite injury in fact necessary for Article III standing. These “website accessibility testers” allege that defendants’ websites do not make certain information available to disabled persons in violation of Title III of the ADA and one of its implementing regulations. This split presents an excellent opportunity to clarify which informational and stigmatic harms qualify as injuries in fact for Article III standing purposes. This Note argues that ADA website accessibility testers cannot obtain standing under current law. Neither the text of the ADA nor …
“We Do No Such Thing”: 303 Creative V. Elenis And The Future Of First Amendment Challenges To Public Accommodations Laws, 2024 Georgetown University Law Center
“We Do No Such Thing”: 303 Creative V. Elenis And The Future Of First Amendment Challenges To Public Accommodations Laws, David Cole
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In 303 Creative v. Elenis, the Supreme Court ruled that a business had a right to refuse to design a wedding website for a same-sex couple. But properly understood, the decision’s parameters are narrow, and the decision should have minimal effect on public accommodations laws.
Judicial Fidelity, 2024 Pepperdine University
Judicial Fidelity, Caprice L. Roberts
Pepperdine Law Review
Judicial critics abound. Some say the rule of law is dead across all three branches of government. Four are dead if you count the media as the fourth estate. All are in trouble, even if one approves of each branch’s headlines, but none of them are dead. Not yet. Pundits and scholars see the latest term of the Supreme Court as clear evidence of partisan politics and unbridled power. They decry an upheaval of laws and norms demonstrating the dire situation across the federal judiciary. Democracy is not dead even when the Court issues opinions that overturn precedent, upends long-standing …
Abortion And Affirmative Action: The Fragility Of Supreme Court Political Decision-Making, 2024 New York University School of Law
Abortion And Affirmative Action: The Fragility Of Supreme Court Political Decision-Making, William E. Nelson
Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality
This Article shows, on the basis of new evidence, that the canonical case of Marbury v. Madison has been grossly misinterpreted and that as a result of the misinterpretation we cannot understand what is wrong with contemporary cases such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.
The Article will proceed as follows. Because Marbury cannot be properly understood without understanding the eighteenth-century background against which it was decided, Part I will examine legal practices in colonial and post-Revolutionary America, focusing on cases in which judicial review emerged …
The Rise Of General Jurisdiction Over Out-Of-State Enterprises In The United States, 2024 Emory University School of Law
The Rise Of General Jurisdiction Over Out-Of-State Enterprises In The United States, Peter Hay
Emory International Law Review
In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court continued its revision of personal jurisdiction law, in this case by refining, thereby perhaps expanding, the law of when a court may exercise general personal jurisdiction – that is, jurisdiction over all claims – over a non-resident person or an out-of-state enterprise. In Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., it held in a 4+1:4 decision that, when a state requires a non-resident company to register to do business in the state and such registration constitutes consent to jurisdiction over all claims against it, such exercise is permitted. In reaching its conclusion, the Court …
On Traditionalism In Free Speech Law, 2024 Notre Dame Law School
On Traditionalism In Free Speech Law, R. George Wright
Journal of Legislation
No abstract provided.
The Worst Choice For School Choice: Tuition Tax Credits Are A Bad Idea And Direct Funding Is Wiser, 2024 Emory University School of Law
The Worst Choice For School Choice: Tuition Tax Credits Are A Bad Idea And Direct Funding Is Wiser, Michael J. Broyde, Anna G. Gabianelli
Faculty Articles
School choice is on the rise, and states use various mechanisms to implement it. One prevalent mechanism is also a uniquely problematic one: the tax credit. Tax credits are deficient at equitably distributing a benefit like school choice; they are costly, and they invite fraud. Instead of using tax credits, states opting for school choice programs should use direct funding. Direct funding will more efficiently achieve the goals of school choice because it can be regulated like any other government benefit, even if it ends up subsidizing religious private schools.
Tax credits’ prevalence is not inexplicable, of course. It is …
The Need For Corporate Guardrails In U.S. Industrial Policy, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
The Need For Corporate Guardrails In U.S. Industrial Policy, Lenore Palladino
Seattle University Law Review
U.S. politicians are actively “marketcrafting”: the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act collectively mark a new moment of robust industrial policy. However, these policies are necessarily layered on top of decades of shareholder primacy in corporate governance, in which corporate and financial leaders have prioritized using corporate profits to increase the wealth of shareholders. The Administration and Congress have an opportunity to use industrial policy to encourage a broader reorientation of U.S. businesses away from extractive shareholder primacy and toward innovation and productivity. This Article examines discrete opportunities within the …
Supreme Court Litigators In The Age Of Textualism, 2024 William & Mary Law School
Supreme Court Litigators In The Age Of Textualism, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court’s approach to statutory interpretation has moved in a textualist direction over the last several decades, but there is little systematic information on how litigators’ briefing practices have changed during this era of textualist ascendancy. This Article examines thirty-five years’ worth of party briefs (over 8,000 briefs total), explores the briefs’ use of interpretive tools (including differences across categories of attorneys), and compares the briefs to the Court’s opinions.
This examination yields several valuable findings. Although the briefs show a textualist shift, they differ from the Court’s opinions in a few ways. The magnitude of the textualist shift …
Chapter 13: Let’S Call The Whole Thing Off, 2024 Emory University School of Law
Chapter 13: Let’S Call The Whole Thing Off, Lawrence Ponoroff
Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal
Courts cannot agree on much of anything about chapter 13, and legislators cannot agree and are confused over what to do about it. This state of affairs benefits no one and shows no signs of abating. So, in this Article, I propose to throw in the towel by imagining a world without chapter 13. Spoiler alert: although I am not superstitious, with just a few tweaks and tucks to chapter 7, I think the Bankruptcy Code might just be better off operating like a high-rise elevator that goes directly from floor twelve to floor fourteen. I will lay it out …
Third-Party Bankruptcy Releases And The Separation Of Powers: A Stern Look, 2024 Emory University School of Law
Third-Party Bankruptcy Releases And The Separation Of Powers: A Stern Look, Henry Reynolds
Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal
In the last few years, bankruptcy scholars and professionals have criticized mass tort debtors’ use of chapter 11 bankruptcy as a litigation forum. One such criticism concerns mass tort debtors’ use of third-party releases: provisions in chapter 11 reorganization plans that enjoin creditors’ claims against non-debtor third parties. If a bankruptcy court approves such releases, creditors lose claims against the released third parties, which often include the debtor’s directors, insurers, or employees.
Third-party releases have troubled many. Critics and courts have said that third-party releases violate (1) the Bankruptcy Code, (2) bankruptcy policy, (3) the constitutional right to due process, …
Table Of Contents, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review
Seattle University Law Review
Table of Contents
Public Primacy In Corporate Law, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
Public Primacy In Corporate Law, Dorothy S. Lund
Seattle University Law Review
This Article explores the malleability of agency theory by showing that it could be used to justify a “public primacy” standard for corporate law that would direct fiduciaries to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of the public. Employing agency theory to describe the relationship between corporate management and the broader public sheds light on aspects of firm behavior, as well as the nature of state contracting with corporations. It also provides a lodestar for a possible future evolution of corporate law and governance: minimize the agency costs created by the divergence of interests between management and …
Shareholder Primacy Versus Shareholder Accountability, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
Shareholder Primacy Versus Shareholder Accountability, William W. Bratton
Seattle University Law Review
When corporations inflict injuries in the course of business, shareholders wielding environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) principles can, and now sometimes do, intervene to correct the matter. In the emerging fact pattern, corporate social accountability expands out of its historic collectivized frame to become an internal subject matter—a corporate governance topic. As a result, shareholder accountability surfaces as a policy question for the first time. The Big Three index fund managers, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, responded to the accountability question with ESG activism. In so doing, they defected against corporate legal theory’s central tenet, shareholder primacy. Shareholder primacy builds …
Corporate Law In The Global South: Heterodox Stakeholderism, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
Corporate Law In The Global South: Heterodox Stakeholderism, Mariana Pargendler
Seattle University Law Review
How do the corporate laws of Global South jurisdictions differ from their Global North counterparts? Prevailing stereotypes depict the corporate laws of developing countries as either antiquated or plagued by problems of enforcement and misfit despite formal convergence. This Article offers a different view by showing how Global South jurisdictions have pioneered heterodox stakeholder approaches in corporate law, such as the erosion of limited liability for purposes of stakeholder protection in Brazil and India, the adoption of mandatory corporate social responsibility in Indonesia and India, and the large-scale program of Black corporate ownership and empowerment in South Africa, among many …
The Limits Of Corporate Governance, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
The Limits Of Corporate Governance, Cathy Hwang, Emily Winston
Seattle University Law Review
What is the purpose of the corporation? For decades, the answer was clear: to put shareholders’ interests first. In many cases, this theory of shareholder primacy also became synonymous with the imperative to maximize shareholder wealth. In the world where shareholder primacy was a north star, courts, scholars, and policymakers had relatively little to fight about: most debates were minor skirmishes about exactly how to maximize shareholder wealth.
Part I of this Essay discusses the shortcomings of shareholder primacy and stakeholder governance, arguing that neither of these modes of governance provides an adequate framework for incentivizing corporations to do good. …
A History Of Corporate Law Federalism In The Twentieth Century, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
A History Of Corporate Law Federalism In The Twentieth Century, William W. Bratton
Seattle University Law Review
This Article describes the emergence of corporate law federalism across a long twentieth century. The period begins with New Jersey’s successful initiation of charter competition in 1888 and ends with the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. The federalism in question describes the interrelation of state and federal regulation of corporate internal affairs. This Article takes a positive approach, pursuing no normative bottom line. It makes six observations: (1) the federalism describes a division of subject matter, with internal affairs regulated by the states and securities issuance and trading regulated by the federal government; (2) the federalism is an …
How To Interpret The Securities Laws?, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
How To Interpret The Securities Laws?, Zachary J. Gubler
Seattle University Law Review
In discussions of the federal securities laws, the SEC usually gets most of the attention. This makes some sense. After all, it is the agency charged with administrating the securities laws and regulating the industry as a whole. It makes the majority of the laws; it engages in enforcement actions; it reacts to crises; and it, or sometimes even its individual commissioners, intervene publicly in policy debates. Often overlooked in such discussion, however, is the role of the Supreme Court in shaping securities law, and a new book by Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson demonstrates why this is an oversight. …
The Pioneers, Waves, And Random Walks Of Securities Law In The Supreme Court, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
The Pioneers, Waves, And Random Walks Of Securities Law In The Supreme Court, Elizabeth Pollman
Seattle University Law Review
After the pioneers, waves, and random walks that have animated the history of securities laws in the U.S. Supreme Court, we might now be on the precipice of a new chapter. Pritchard and Thompson’s superb book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, illuminates with rich archival detail how the Court’s view of the securities laws and the SEC have changed over time and how individuals have influenced this history. The book provides an invaluable resource for understanding nearly a century’s worth of Supreme Court jurisprudence in the area of securities law and much needed context for …
Overseeing The Administrative State, 2024 Seattle University School of Law
Overseeing The Administrative State, Jill E. Fisch
Seattle University Law Review
In a series of recent cases, the Supreme Court has reduced the regulatory power of the Administrative State. Pending cases offer vehicles for the Court to go still further. Although the Court’s skepticism of administrative agencies may be rooted in Constitutional principles or political expediency, this Article explores another possible explanation—a shift in the nature of agencies and their regulatory role. As Pritchard and Thompson detail in their important book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court was initially skeptical of agency power, jeopardizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s ambitious New Deal plan. The Court’s acceptance …