Digital Commons Network^™

Gender And Nonfinancial Matters In The Ali Principles Of The Law Of Family Dissolution, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

The question for this issue is gender issues in the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution. Overall, the Principles are an impressive effort to create clarity and coherence, given the disorganized and evolving state of family law. This commentary raises a few questions about the Principles’ treatment of nonfinancial issues, and suggests that this treatment should raise concerns about women’s interests upon divorce. First, I will briefly review the ALI’s position on nonfinancial matters. Second, I will discuss why the limitation to financial losses should matter to women; that is, I will investigate the costs of …

Of Theory And Practice, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

Much has been written about theory and practice in the law, and the tension between practitioners and theorists. Judges do not cite theoretical articles often; they rarely "apply" theories to particular cases. These arguments are not revisited. Instead the Essay explores the working and interaction of theory and practice, practitioners and theorists.

The Essay starts with a story about solving a legal issue using our intellectual tools - theory, practice, and their progenies: experience and "gut." Next the Essay elaborates on the nature of theory, practice, experience and "gut." The third part of the Essay discusses theories that are helpful …

Genetic Testing For Susceptability To Disease From Exposure To Toxic Chemicals: Implications For Public And Worker Health Policies, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

The Environmental Genome Program intends to identify "susceptibility genes" that would indicate if a person is more vulnerable to cancer or other disease as a result of exposure to certain chemicals in the workplace, the environment, foods, or other products. Research findings and the capability to test persons for such genes are likely to impugn and challenge health policies and regulatory programs that do not take genetic susceptibility into account when conferring health benefits and restricting chemical exposures. This article focuses on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and discusses four options available to this agency for protecting genetically …

The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women In The Treatment Of Pain, Diane E. Hoffmann, Anita J. Tarzian

Faculty Scholarship

In general, women report more severe levels of pain, more frequent incidences of pain, and pain of longer duration than men, but are nonetheless treated for pain less aggressively. The authors investigate this paradox from two perspectives: Do men and women in fact experience pain differently - whether biologically, cognitively, and/or emotionally? And regardless of the answer, what accounts for the differences in the pain treatment they receive, and what can we do to correct this situation?

Restricting Hate Speech Against Private Figures: Lessons In Power-Based Censorship From Defamation Law, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the debate between those who favor greater protection for minorities vulnerable to hate speech and First Amendment absolutists who are skeptical of any burdens on pure speech. The author also provides another perspective on the debate by highlighting the "public/private figure" distinction as an area within First Amendment law that acknowledges differences in power, a construct anti-hate speech advocates should use to further their cause. Specifically, the author places the "public/private figure" division in a theoretical and historical context and then provides empirical support for the thesis that whites enjoy a more prominent societal role and greater …

Racial Profiling: Driving While Mexican And Affirmative Action, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay will focus on "racial profiling" not just in the way people think about the term - that is, with respect to stopping motorists for traffic violations based solely on their race, so-called "Driving While Mexican" or "Driving While Black" - but also in the context of "affirmative action - namely, using race as a factor in employment and educational decisions. More broadly, then, I want us to think of "racial profiling" as simply "the use of race to develop an understanding of an individual" which moves us slightly away from more pejorative notions of the phrase that have …

On Elián And Aliens: A Political Solution To The Plenary Power Problem, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

The poignant story of a little boy fished out of the sea after losing his mother to the elements captured the country's imagination and ignited a political firestorm. The Elián González saga drew conflicting opinions from nearly every branch of American local, state, and federal governments.

This article takes no specific position on Elián's situation. Rather, this artivle values the González story for putting a human face on often faceless legal issues. More specifically, Elián's saga raises the following important question: When should the right of the human being to be treated as an individual trump the right of government …

Rape And Force: The Forgotten Mens Rea, Kit Kinports

Faculty Scholarship

In rape cases involving physical violence or express threats of physical harm, proof of the actus reus obviously does establish mens rea with respect to force as well as nonconsent. A defendant who beat or threatened to kill his victim could hardly raise a plausible argument that he did not know he was using force. But, in other circumstances, the defendant's mens rea vis-a-vis force may be less clear, and it may therefore make a difference whether a rape conviction requires proof that the defendant purposely intended to use force, or whether it is enough that he knew he was …

Private Choices And Public Law Richard A. Posner's Contributions To Family Law And Policy, Ben Depoorter, Francesco Parisi

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

From Difference To Dominance To Domesticity: Care As Work, Gender As Tradition, Joan C. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Television And Societal Effects: An Analysis Of Media Images Of African-Americans In Historical Context, Sherri L. Burr

Faculty Scholarship

This paper takes a historical approach to the depictions of African-Americans in television in the five decades since the 1950s and links those images to the changing roles and perceptions of African-Americans in society. Part I discusses the various television shows from the 1950s to the 1990s that featured African-Americans and have had a societal impact. Part II analyzes the chicken/egg relationship between networks and advertisers and asks whether television, given the economic forces affecting it, can be used as a force for change. Part III explores how these television images have affected foreigners and children. Television remains "without a …

Whither The Accountability Theory: Second-Class Status For Third-Party Refugees As A Threat To International Protection, Jennifer Moore

Faculty Scholarship

This article cautions that the accountability theory strikes at the very heart of international protection, by threatening the international consensus underlying the provision of asylum to refugees. Part 2 presents a conceptual analysis of the accountability theory and its fundamental inconsistency with the principle of refugee protection. This philosophical approach is followed in Part 3 by a pragmatic examination of the impact of the accountability theory in the context of a regional burden-sharing regime that allows a European State, under certain circumstances, to return an asylum seeker to the country of first asylum. Part 3 concentrates on two asylum cases …

The Uniform Mediation Act: To The Spoiled Go The Privileges, Scott H. Hughes

Faculty Scholarship

The Uniform Mediation Act, as currently written and approved by NCCUSL, may unnecessarily cause the destruction of self-determination in many cases. The provisions demonstrate favoritism for mediators and may result in damage to the integrity of the process. Further, the nature of the provisions restricting the parties access to the exceptions to the privilege may both increase the number of lawsuits against mediators and also encourage wrongful behavior on the part of disputants. None of this will ultimately inure to the benefit of mediation as an institution. If it is necessary to have a privilege for mediation, certain elements should …

The Politics Of Bush V. Gore, Evan Tsen Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Grand Perspectives On Evidence Law, Roger C. Park

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Transforming The Debate: Why We Need To Include Transgender Rights In The Struggles For Sex And Sexual Orientation Equality, Taylor Flynn

Faculty Scholarship

The Author observes that sex and sexual orientation equality jurisprudence is premised upon the traditional understanding of "sex" as determined by anatomy at birth. The presumption typically following from this reduction of sex to anatomy is the notion that certain gendered attributes are inherent in biological male- or femaleness. The Author asserts that these erroneous and unduly narrow views significantly hamper courts' ability to address the core of sex and sexual orientation discrimination-hostility based on failure to conform to conventional gender norms. Surveying workplace, public accommodation, asylum, marriage, and custody cases, Flynn explains how conventional jurisprudence fails a wide array …

The Jury In The 21st Century: An Interdisciplinary Conference: Introduction, Susan Herman, Lawerence M. Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Convicting The Innocent Beyond A Reasonable Doubt: Some Lessons About Jury Instructions From The Sheppard Case, Lawrence Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Failing The Test: Germany Leads Europe In Dismantling Refugee Protection, Maryellen Fullerton

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Title Vii And Religious Liberty, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids religious discrimination in employment, raises in microcosm some extremely thorny questions about religious liberty; questions more familiar to most of us in constitutional settings. In focusing on these questions in their Title VII context, I am more interested in fundamental conceptual issues than in the precise details of what that law should be taken to provide.

Among the questions are: What is discrimination because of religion? How should religion be "defined"? How far should employers accommodate the religious exercise of workers? Under the First Amendment, how much accommodation can the …

Brief For The Plaintiff-Appellant Lucas Rosa In The United States Court Of Appeals For The First Circuit Lucas Rosa V. Park West Bank And Trust Company On Appeal From The United States District Court For The District Of Massachusetts, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

This is the brief for the Plaintiff-Appellant Lucas Rosa v. Park West Bank and Trust Company in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. This appeal is from a Final Judgment, entered October 18, 1999, that disposed of all claims in the case. This case involves an action brought pursuant to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Massachusetts statutes forbidding discrimination in places of public accommodation, and credit, against a bank for refusing to issue and accept a loan application from a bank customer because of the customer's sex.

Choice And Boundary Problems In Logerquist, Hummert, And Kumho Tire, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

This article, part of a symposium on the opinion of the Arizona Supreme Court in Logerquist v. McVey, questions that court’s rationales for refusing to apply heightened scrutiny to psychiatric testimony about the retrieval of repressed memories. It also challenges the court’s use of a “personal observations” exception to the heightened scrutiny standard of Frye v. United States. It proposes that a better solution to problems of scientific and expert evidence would be to adopt a sliding scale that attends to the use to which the evidence is put and the degree to which it has been shown to be …

Protecting Children From Exposure To Domestic Violence: The Use And Abuse Of Child Maltreatment Statutes, Lois A. Weithorn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Embracing The Darkness: Logerquist V. Mcvey And The Doctrine Of Ignorance Of Science Is An Excuse, David L. Faigman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Causation, Contribution And Legal Liability: An Empirical Study, Lawrence Solan, John Darley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Constitutional Law Can Learn From The Ali Principles Of Family Dissolution, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Written Contract As Safe Harbor For Dishonest Conduct, Lawrence Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Why Laws Work Pretty Well, But Not Great: Words And Rules In Legal Intrepretation, Lawrence Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reciprocity, Utility, And The Law Of Aggression, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Accounting For Family Change, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

The legal focal point of familial obligation in the United States has long been the relationship between paired adults-most centrally marriage. Obligations to children, and rights to their company, were derivative; they were to be met through the framework of the all-important pairing of adults. Over the past several decades, that core source of legal obligation has shifted from the adult relationship between partners to the relationship between parent and child. The shift has occurred at a number of different levels, and it has had a variety of consequences, the majority of which are still shaking out. The legal catalyst …