Digital Commons Network^™

Liability, Property, And Inalienability Rules In Employee Data Regulation, Matthew T. Bodie

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

Legal protections for workers’ data have usually taken the form of privacy protections designed to deter data processing that is excessive or invasive. Such protections generally fall into the category of liability rules, under which rights can be infringed as long as compensation is provided for the violation. As Guido Calabresi and A. Douglas Melamed have described in “Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral,” liability rules are contrasted with either property rules that prevent the involuntary transfer of rights or inalienability rules that prohibit rights transfers altogether. This article explores how property rules and inalienability …

Introduction, Einat Albin

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

PRIVACY PROTECTION has become an increasingly complex and controversial issue, fuelling academic and policy discussions, particularly in relation to new technological advancements. On one hand, there are concerns arising from new technologies becoming the “Big Brother” who is “watching you,” to borrow George Orwell’s iconic phrase from his dystopian novel 1984 — a true panopticon, a modern system of power infringing upon individual liberty, autonomy, and dignity. Concerns also arise from the blurring of boundaries between work life and private life, a phenomenon closely associated with these technologies, which encroach on individuals’ private spheres. On the other hand, some argue …

Bring Your Own Device — Now Hand It Over! Rescuing Workers’ Privacy During Data Searches, Virginia Mantouvalou, Michael Veale

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

Technological advancements pose serious threats to workers’ privacy. This article focuses on practices that greatly blur the line between workers’ private life and life at work, such as the practices of “bring your own device,” and linking cloud storage to personal and work devices. The first sees workers allowed to use personal devices for work-related activities, potentially for several employers. The second sees workers using online storage for personal and professional reasons, linking this storage to personal and work devices. Such practices can be useful for workers. However, they also present challenges for workers’ privacy, particularly when other legal frameworks …

Privacy As Professional Identity, Einat Albin

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

This article explores an important course of action to safeguarding privacy in the workplace, grounded in the professional identity of workers and their corresponding moral and ethical duties towards clients or patients. Described as “privacy as professional identity,” this concept is developed through two key contributions. First, the article argues that workers who are ethically and legally obligated to protect the confidentiality and privacy of their clients or patients — such as psychologists and lawyers — also inherently safeguard their own personal privacy. This argument is substantiated through illustrative examples and anchored in theoretical frameworks concerning the right to privacy. …

Data-Driven Collective Rights, Tomer Shadmy

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

Technological asymmetries in data-driven workplaces increasingly shape power dynamics between employers and employees. This article argues that safeguarding workers’ rights requires transforming collective labour rights into collective technological capabilities. Rather than viewing data rights narrowly as privacy issues, it reframes them as central to broader labour protections. As artificial intelligence enhances employers’ ability to monitor and exploit worker data, workers must be equipped with tools to analyse and act on their collective data. Employers now extract significant value from aggregated personal data, positioning workers as unwitting data providers and limiting workers’ agency. While current laws focus on individual data rights, …

It Takes Three To Tango: Labour Law, Data Protection, And Collective Voice For The Regulation Of New Technologies In The Workplace, Emanuele Dagnino

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

The prospect of algorithmic management of workers poses a risk to their dignity, freedom, health and safety and privacy. In their responses to this changed context, German, Italian, and Spanish labour regulators have taken different approaches. This article compares each jurisdiction’s approach to regulation by considering their distinctive features, functions, and objectives. The article goes on to consider the degree to which each jurisdiction’s approach to technological innovation in the workplace is a product of path-dependency, i.e., the extent to which responses to historical technological innovations in the workplace and established conceptions of the exercise of managerial prerogatives through technologies …

Oshiro V. Oshiro [State Of Nevada], 141 Nev. Adv. Op. 59 (Nov. 26, 2025), Richard Reid

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

Protecting Platform Workers In The European Union, Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Antonio Aloisi, Nicola Countouris, Valerio De Stefano, Silvia Rainone

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Comment On Proposed Mlsa Lay Advocacy Program, Brianne Holland-Stergar

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

Montana faces a severe justice gap: nearly half of low-income residents have unmet civil legal needs, and rural counties lack attorneys. High costs, distance, and cultural barriers make traditional solutions ineffective. The Montana Legal Services Association proposes a Certified Lay Advocate Program to training community-based advocates to provide free, specialized legal help under supervision of a lawyer. This model, which has proven successful in Alaska and other states, is evidence-backed, expands access to the law, reduces costs, and delivers culturally competent assistance for critical issues like domestic violence and housing.

The Use Of Less-Lethal Force By Law Enforcement: A Legal Analysis Of Civil Liability Cases In The Use Of Bean Bags And Rubber Bullets In Policing, Kenneth Lomenzo, Joshua Rosenbaum, Nathan Cronin, Mason Meyers, Akramul Hasan

Journal of Criminal Justice and Law

The use of less-lethal weapons such as bean bag rounds and rubber bullets has become a prominent and controversial mark of contemporary policing. Although these munitions are designed to incapacitate without resorting to deadly force, their deployment has resulted in serious injuries, fatalities, and a growing body of litigation. This article examines how federal appellate courts have addressed such cases through a systematic legal content analysis of 16 decisions issued between 1999 and 2025. Each case involved a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The analysis considers judicial reasoning, liability outcomes, …

Changing Perspectives In California: A Transformative Culture Exchange For Stockholm University And Sonoma State University Criminology Students, Bryan Burton, Sofie Hellmer, Vida Wåhlmark, Hope Ortiz, Diana Grant

csuglobalaction

From June 13 to 20, 2024, Sonoma State University (SSU) hosted 16 criminology students from Stockholm University (SU) for an educational and cultural exchange. Five SSU undergraduate “student ambassadors” participated, representing California and SSU while assisting the Swedish students. Surveys indicated the exchange was a meaningful academic and cultural experience for all participants. The Swedish students deepened their understanding of the U.S. criminal justice system through presentations by criminologists and discussions with practitioners on issues such as policing and prison reform. They also gained broader perspectives on California and the United States through interactions with SSU ambassadors and visits to …

W(H)Ither Regulation? Hither To The Tax System, Tracey M. Roberts

Pace Environmental Law Review

In a series of cases decided in the last three years, four delivered in 2024 alone, the U.S. Supreme Court has directed a withering gaze toward the federal administrative state. In West Virginia v. EPA, the Court both curtailed Executive Branch regulatory authority and mandated that Congress draft with greater statutory clarity and specificity under their recently developed major questions doctrine. Under Ohio v. EPA, the Court placed on administrative agencies the burden of extraordinary vigilance in addressing comments as part of the regulatory promulgation process. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the Court overturned Natural Resource Defense Council v. Chevron, …

Empathy On Trial: The Role Of Neuroscience And Communication In Sexual Violence Jurisprudence, Samantha M. Gonzales

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Sexual violence remains a contentious public safety and legal challenge, which has become further complicated by the tension between supporting victim-survivors and safeguarding the falsely accused. False accusations, though still well below the numbers of rightly accused, are experiencing a rise in popularity given recent (past ten years) political climates. This thesis examines how communication theory, neuroscience, and law intersect in molding perceptions of truth, culpability, and justice in sexual violence cases; while also examining the intersectionality of those fields in addressing the candor of allegations, the rate of recidivism, and quality of public health and safety. The most prominent …

From Fairy Tales To Fascist Nightmares: Countering Ron Desantis’ Florida, Ronald Mize, Et. Al

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

The recent spate of anti–‘woke’, don’t say gay, anti–trans, and anti–immigrant legislation, led by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, puts the sunshine state in the unenviable position of serving as the nation’s test case for Republicans’ neofascist agendas. This paper explores the exclusionary, targeting, and banning aspects of these culture war assaults on public education and outgroups. The specific banning of Critical Race Theory is discussed alongside cis–heteronormative efforts to target queer and trans communities, as well as DeSantis’ executive memoranda of transporting those at the border to sanctuary cities and S.B. 1718 aimed at excluding immigrant communities from public life …

The Power Of Public Vision In Adr, Courtney Verbick

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution (CJCR) Blog

Mediation, a form of alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”), resolves disputes outside of court with a neutral third party that facilitates negotiations. Its confidentiality promotes fairness, neutrality, and candor. This is appealing to parties when litigation could result in bad publicity, and is common in labor disputes, especially during union strikes, where open dialogue is essential.

The print edition of the issue has also been released. This post was originally published on the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution website on November 24, 2025

Between Sovereignty And Commons: Legal Frameworks For Digital Data Governance In India, Anushka Sachan

Journal of Law and Public Policy

This legislative note critically examines the Indian Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, with a focus on its provisions that imply data sovereignty and their implications for the governance of digital commons. Drawing on the seminal works on data commons, the note explores the conceptual and practical tensions between centralised data sovereignty, participatory, and decentralised models of data stewardship. While data sovereignty is often justified on grounds of national security and control, it may inadvertently hinder the development of inclusive and accountable frameworks for managing data as a public good.

An Essay On Trailblazing With Service Animals Langer, Pilot, Bowie, And Izzie: Preserving Non-Partisan Public Health And The Law, Gary C. Norman

Journal of Law and Health

A direct correlation exists among humans, their animals, and human health and wellness. This article will focus concisely on law students with disabilities and lawyers with disabilities and how they can be empowered to be trailblazers while remaining healthy and well. Salutogenic Model should be optimized by lawyers with disabilities working at the intersection of animal law, disability law, and public health law. Service animals have positive and salubrious impacts upon their handlers in several ways, including psychosocial health and wellbeing. The Grand Architect (or in my Cherokee tradition, "great spirit") continuously partners me with complicated but magnificent dog partners …

Addressing Health-Related Social Needs With Innovative Healthcare Spending, Kelly Naranjo Ms Ccrc, Eric Rochman Mph, Allyson Schiff Ba, Dorella Walters Mpa, Andrea Zaldivar Ed.D, Ms, Anp

Journal of Law and Health

Key objectives: To address the social determinants of health domains "social and community context" and "neighborhood and built environment" via Medically Tailored Meals, a nutrition intervention that includes home delivery, medical nutrition therapy and education, and frozen medically tailored meals provided by the non-profit partner. This intervention targeted Medicaid members exhibiting high healthcare utilization in conjunction with each individual's risk of developing higher morbidity and mortality of existing disease due to co-existing food and nutrition insecurity. The populations served include people living with Type 2 Diabetes, Hypertension, Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer, HIV/AIDS, and End-Stage Renal Disease, among other conditions, whose burden …

Access To Healthcare For Irregular Migrants, Jessica Dykes

Journal of Law and Health

Access to Healthcare for Irregular Migrants is an assessment of the right to life, security of the person, and non-discrimination as viewed through the lens of Nell Toussaint's legal battle. It tells the compelling story of an irregular migrant's battle for access to health care. Highlighting a gap in the Canadian healthcare system, this piece raises valuable questions about why that gap exists. Toussaint's experiences with multiple levels of the legal system, both in Canada and internationally, are included. It tells the story from when Ms. Toussaint entered Canada to the present; wherein the matter remains before the court.

This …

Pragmatic Textualism, Brian G. Slocum, Kevin Tobia

Duke Law Journal

Traditional textualism instructs judges to adhere to a statute's linguistic meaning and reject as irrelevant its interpretive consequences. Justice Scalia famously contrasted his restrained textualist judge with "Mr. Fix-It," a judge who inappropriately weighs consequences. Today, however, textualists increasingly embrace consequentialist reasoning. This Article documents this undertheorized shift and the emerging textualist efforts to justify it, including Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett's arguments for nonliteralism and judicial sensitivity to context. This Article critiques these efforts: Modern textualist theory lacks a compelling explanation for its newfound reliance on interpretive consequences.

Next, we offer a novel theory of the linguistic role for interpretive …

Incubators Of Innovation: Finding A Place For Title Ix In Religious Charter Schools, Emily Bass

Duke Law Journal

Since the early 1990s, many people across the country have embraced charter schools as "incubators of innovation." Charter schools are publicly funded, tuition-free, K–12 schools that have more flexibility than traditional public schools in curriculum, staffing, and more. With this flexibility, charter schools constantly test new approaches, aiming to inspire educational reform.

In recent years, some have begun calling for a new kind of charter school: the religious charter school. In May 2025, the Supreme Court deadlocked in Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board v. Drummund, a case involving St. Isidore, the nation's first explicitly religious charter school. For …

Patent Monopsonies, Roy Baharad, Gideon Parchomovsky

Duke Law Journal

Conventional wisdom perceives patent protection as a necessary evil. Patent protection, the argument goes, raises the prices of patented products and processes, thus restricting access to innovation. But without it, not enough innovation will be produced. Hence, generations of scholars have sought ways to curb the market power of patentees via various legal interventions, such as prizes, compulsory licenses, and other forms of regulation. All have tacitly assumed that eroding the market power of patentees would result in a competitive market for innovation that would put an end to the allocative inefficiencies and distributional inequities that emanate from patent protection. …

Between Utterance And Action: The Shaping Of Social Accountability In India’S Coastal Commons, Nayana Udayashankar, Aarthi Sridhar

Journal of Law and Public Policy

Judicial orders, management plans, and zonation maps prepared in relation to environmental laws encode the jurisprudence on accountability. Laws such as India’s Coastal Regulation Zone Notification (CRZ Notification) 2019 serve as sources of discourse on use and access rights. Such laws are crucial in shaping developmental decisions and democratic practice along the coast. As an environmental law that contains detailed articulation on judicially mandated planning, mapping, and public access to regulatory information, the CRZ Notification 2019 offers a good case to understand the relation between legal discourse and citizens’ agency. Citizens of the state of Tamil Nadu representing its small-scale …

Designing And Writing Effective Data Management Plans For Grant Proposals, Rubab Shahzad, Ibis Anette Moreno-Lozano

Day Family Research Lab Workshop Series

Fundamentals of research data management and how to create effective Data Management Plans (DMPs).

"The Terms And Spirit": Preserving The Purpose Of The Fair Labor Standards Act By Applying The Clear And Convincing Evidence Standard In Flsa Exemption Cases, Bridget Mccourt

Cleveland State Law Review

In 2023, the Fourth Circuit in Carrera v. E.M.D. Sales split from its sister courts by requiring employers to prove by clear and convincing evidence that an employee is exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit’s decision, resolving the split by holding that the preponderance of the evidence is the correct standard. This Note argues that the Fourth Circuit, despite failing to provide a justification for its heightened standard, was correct because it preserves the terms and spirit of the FLSA. Congress enacted the FLSA as a remedial statute aimed to alleviate …

The Fearless Decision And The Future Of Race-Conscious Charities, Chenglin Liu

Cleveland State Law Review

Historically, courts tended to differentiate between invidious discrimination against racial minorities and benign discrimination against whites in the context of affirmative action movements. With the social movements galvanized by the conservatives and the change of composition of the Supreme Courts and lower courts, the feasibility of race-conscious measures aimed at helping minorities is substantially reduced. The conservatives’ win in Fearless, coupled with the Trump Administration’s attacks on DEI, have produced a self-censoring effect on charitable organizations. Because of these threats, race-conscious charities will have to modify their practices to become more “inclusive” or face legal challenges from conservatives.

Unfollowing Censorship: A Policy-Oriented Analysis Of Government Pressure On Social Media Content Management, William C. Morgan

Cleveland State Law Review

The introduction of social media has facilitated communications and connectivity globally. However, in recent years, social media companies have started to adopt content moderation practices that are directly influenced by government pressure to comply with their requests to arrange information. Typically, these newly adopted practices often aim to censor or diminish the exposure of certain views, comments, and/or posts that the U.S. government, through its actors, dislike or find threatening to national security. This paper examines how informal government outreach to indirectly monitor, and control social media companies’ content moderation practices undermine the platforms’ constitutionally protected editorial autonomy. Consequently, this …

Surviving The Post–Biafran War By Navigating The Igbo People's Igba-Boi Apprenticeship Model Of Entrepreneurship, Chiemela Victor Amaechi, Ugo Pascal Onumonu, Salmia Binti Beddu, Ikechi Mgbeoji

Articles & Book Chapters

After the Nigerian Civil War, the Biafrans started from scratch through trades, mostly adopting the igba-boi apprenticeship system in Nigeria. This paper examines the impact of the igba-boi entrepreneurship system in post-Biafra for the survival of the Igbo identity. Historical–analytical and documentary methods were adopted in this investigation, through primary and secondary sources. This study found different phases of the igba-boi- apprenticeship model, which was adopted in entrepreneurship by the Igbos to survive after the war. This study found that economic towns in Eastern Nigeria, like Aba, Owerri, Enugu, Nnewi, Onitsha and Awka, have enhanced economic development. Also, it found …

"There Was Such An Array Of Circumstances Pointing To Defendant's Guilt…": Shepard V. United States And The Dying Declaration As A Legal, Social, And Political History Of People, Places, Times… And Utility, Joshua E. Kastenberg

Cleveland State Law Review

In 1933, the Court, in Shepard v. United States, limited the “dying declaration” exception to the prohibition against hearsay. Shepard has been cited over 500 times by courts of appeal, the decision appears in evidence casebooks, and scholars have challenged it as robbing the voice of victims. However, there has never been a legal history of the decision. The case arose from a criminal conviction that occurred in the last days of the “Roaring Twenties,” and the appeal transited through the courts in the first years of the Great Depression. The Court, in a unanimous decision authored by Justice …

The Nuclear Option: Preempting Power Generation, Keith Wadley

Et Cetera

Nuclear power is a topic which many feel strongly about. Unfortunately, much of the information present in public discourse is a product of fear, misinformation, and a general lack of understanding regarding what nuclear power is and does. This note seeks to clear up the murky waters of the topic by presenting some basic factual information contrary to common misconceptions while also seeking to argue, in light of this information, that Congress should, and currently has the power to, prevent states from prohibiting the use of nuclear power. Congress passed the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 which preempts the field …