Digital Commons Network^™

(Almost) No Bad Drugs: Near-Total Products Liability Immunity For Pharmaceuticals Explained, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

So Goes The Nation: The Constitution, The Compact, And What The American West Can Tell Us About How We'll Choose The President In 2020 And Beyond, Wilfred Codrington Iii

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Boards In Information Governance,, Sarah Haan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What's The Difference Between A Conclusion And A Fact?, Howard M. Erichson

Faculty Scholarship

In Ashcroft v. Iqbal, building on Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, the Supreme Court instructed district courts to treat a complaint’s conclusions differently from allegations of fact. Facts, but not conclusions, are assumed true for purposes of a motion to dismiss. The Court did little to help judges or lawyers understand this elusive distinction, and, indeed, obscured the distinction with its language. The Court said it was distinguishing “legal conclusions” from factual allegations. The application in Twombly and Iqbal, however, shows that the relevant distinction is not between law and fact, but rather between different types of factual assertions. This …

The Problems With Decision-Making, Joanna K. Sax

Faculty Scholarship

Our society faces major challenges in numerous areas, including climate change and healthcare. Addressing these problems with technological advances are of great importance. Increasingly, however, consumers are resisting or rejecting such technological interventions based on inappropriate assignment of risk. In other words, the consumer assessment of risk is not in line with evidence-based assessment of risk. This article focuses on two controversial areas, vaccines and genetically engineered food, as examples in which consumers assign a high risk despite an evidence-based assessment of low risk. This article describes how empirically tested decision-making theories explain why consumers inappropriately assign risk. While these …

Language Access And Due Process In Asylum Interviews, Pooja R. Dadhania

Faculty Scholarship

The Department of Homeland Security does not provide interpreters to asylum applicants during their asylum interviews, instead requiring them to supply their own. This Article challenges this deprivation of language access as a procedural due process violation because it denies limited English proficient asylum seekers meaningful access to the statutorily created affirmative asylum process. The Department of Homeland Security's failure to provide interpreters can silence limited English proficient asylum seekers by depriving them of the opportunity to meaningfully present their claims. Asylum seekers, especially those who are low income or speak rare languages, face significant challenges in finding suitable interpreters. …

Blue Lives & The Permanence Of Racism, I. India Thusi

Faculty Scholarship

In true dystopian form, the killing of unarmed Black people by the police has sparked a national narrative about the suffering of police officers. “Blue Lives Matter” has become the rallying call for those offended by the suggestion that we should hold police officers accountable for killing unarmed Black people. According to a December 2016 poll, 61% of Americans believed that there was a “war on police,” and 68% of Whites had a favorable view of the police as compared to 40% of Blacks. Lawmakers around the country have been proposing Blue Lives Matter laws that make it a hate …

National Cybersecurity Innovation, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Faculty Scholarship

National cybersecurity plays a crucial role in protecting our critical infrastructure, such as telecommunication networks, the electricity grid, and even financial transactions. Most discussions about promoting national cybersecurity focus on governance structures, international relations, and political science. In contrast, this Article proposes a different agenda and one that promotes the use of innovation mechanisms for technological advancement. By promoting inducements for technological developments, such innovation mechanisms encourage the advancement of national cybersecurity solutions. In exploring possible solutions, this Article asks whether the government or markets can provide national cybersecurity innovation. This inquiry is a fragment of a much larger literature …

Criminalizing Coercive Control Within The Limits Of Due Process, Erin L. Sheley

Faculty Scholarship

The sociological literature on domestic abuse shows that it is more complex than a series of physical assaults. Abusers use “coercive control” to subjugate their partners through a web of threats, humiliation, isolation, and demands. The presence of coercive control is highly predictive of future physical violence and is, in and of itself, also a violation of the victim’s liberty and dignity. In response to these new understandings the United Kingdom has recently criminalized nonviolent coercive control, making it illegal to, on two or more occasions, cause “serious alarm or distress” to an intimate partner that has a “substantial effect” …

Victim Impact Statements At Canadian Corporate Sentencing, Erin L. Sheley

Faculty Scholarship

The recent SNC-Lavalin scandal and its political fallout have drawn
public attention to an existing culture of impunity enjoyed by corporate
criminal wrongdoers, despite the 2004 changes to the Criminal Code of
Canada that intended to make corporate prosecutions easier. In this article,
I argue that the conceptual problems with corporate criminal liability may
lie in the criminal justice system’s general misapprehension of the nature of
corporate crime; especially of the distinct nature of the harm experienced
by white collar victims. I further argue that, therefore, part of the solution
to under-enforcement may be evidentiary: the Crown and courts should, …

Darkside Discretion In Immigration Cases, Shoba Wadhia

Faculty Scholarship

"Darkside Discretion" refers to a situation where the noncitizen satisfies the statutory criteria set by Congress to be eligible for remedy but is denied by an adjudicator in the exercise of discretion. Imagine a woman who arrived in the United States six months ago who meets her burden of proving she is a refugee based on a fear of persecution by the government in her home country because of her religious beliefs, but who is denied asylum for discretionary reasons. This kind of decision exposes the "darkside" of discretion because it reflects how the government uses the tool of discretion …

Gender Stereotypes And Gender Identity In Public Schools, Dara Purvis

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, claims brought by transgender students requesting accommodations from a public school have been framed under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal funding. Given the changing interpretation of Title IX from the Obama to Trump administrations, both statutory and constitutional arguments supporting the right of public school students to express their gender in any manner contrary to traditional gendered norms have renewed vitality. In the decades since Stonewall, students facing school discipline for nonconforming gender presentation that violated …

Günter Frankenberg's Comparative Constitutional Studies: Between Magic And Deceit, Jud Mathews

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutions traffic in magic and deceit, argues Günter Frankenberg, promising freedom and democracy even as they underwrite the exercise of coercive power on a massive scale. Scholars should approach constitutions with a healthy skepticism, but, Frankenberg contends, most mainstream scholars are too credulous, especially regarding the claims of liberal constitutionalism. Comparative Constitutional Studies serves as his corrective to the perceived blind spots and predilections of mainstream comparative constitutional scholarship, and it gives attention to little-known constitutions, forgotten histories, and alternatives to liberal constitutionalism. It’s a rich, challenging, and valuable book, one that takes the reader to some off the beaten …

Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Losses: The Cases For And Against Coverage, Christopher French

Faculty Scholarship

The financial consequences of the government-ordered shutdowns of businesses across America to mitigate the COVID-19 health crisis are enormous. Estimates indicate that small businesses have lost $255 to $431 billion per month and more than 44 million workers have been laid off. When businesses have requested reimbursement of their business interruption losses from their insurers under business interruption policies, their insurers have denied the claims. The insurance industry also has announced that business interruption policies do not cover pandemic losses, so they intend to fight COVID-19 claims “tooth and nail.” More than 450 lawsuits throughout the country already have been …

Religious Accommodation, The Establishment Clause, And Third-Party Harm, Mark Storslee

Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, religious accommodation has become increasingly controversial. That controversy has given rise to a new legal theory gaining popularity among academics and possibly a few Supreme Court justices: the idea that the First Amendment's Establishment Clause condemns accommodations whenever they generate anything beyond a minimal cost for third parties.

The third-party thesis is appealing. But this Article argues that there are good reasons to believe it falls short as an interpretation of the Establishment Clause. In its place, the Article offers a new theory for understanding the relationship between costly accommodations and the …

Dementia, Autonomy, And Supported Healthcare Decisionmaking, Megan S. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

Healthcare providers often rely on surrogates to decide on behalf of their patients with dementia who are deemed incapable of exercising autonomy. There is a longstanding debate about the appropriate standard of surrogate healthcare decisionmaking for these patients. Many influential scholars argue that the precedent autonomy of the person with dementia should be respected, and healthcare decision-making laws generally reflect this principle. These laws direct surrogate decisionmakers to follow instructions in living wills or to decide on the basis of the wishes and values of the person before the onset of dementia.But other prominent scholars have questioned whether surrogates should …

Don't Go In The Water: On Pathological Jurisdiction Splitting, Jamison E. Colburn

Faculty Scholarship

Waters and water rights have endured (or induced) a uniquely pathological tendency in our tradition to split up the authority to declare the operative legal interests therein. By studying three seemingly unrelated areas of waters and water rights law, this tendency is brought out in its essence and linked to explicit foundations and likely causes. Ultimately, this kind of extreme jurisdiction splitting is rendering our waters ungovernable, forcing even the most basic legal questions to go undecided. The last part of the article introduces three different reform pathways but cautions against the search for quick fixes of any kind.

Who Is A Refugee?: Twenty-Five Years Of Domestic Implementation And Judicial Interpretation Of The 1969 Oau And 1951 Un Refugee Conventions In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Tiyanjana Maluwa, Anton Katz Sc

Faculty Scholarship

As a party to the UN Refugee Convention and the OAU Refugee Convention, South Africa is obligated to apply international refugee law when addressing the protection needs of asylum seekers in the country. The Refugees Act, 1988 encapsulates the cardinal principles of the two conventions. This essay discusses how government officials and judges have interpreted and applied these principles in asylum application cases. These cases demonstrate that officials are either not always fully conversant with the legal obligations, incumbent upon the government arising from both international law and domestic law or purposefully ignore them. For the most part, officials tend …

Res Ipsa Loquitur: Reducing Confusion Of Creating Bias?, John E. Lopatka, Jeffrey Kahn

Faculty Scholarship

The so-called doctrine of res ipsa loquitur has been a mystery since its birth more than a century ago. This Article helps solve the mystery. In practical effect, res ipsa loquirtur, though usually thought of as a tort doctrine, functions as a rule of trial practice that allows jurors to rely on circumstantial evidence surrounding an accident to find the defendant liable. Standard jury instructions in negligence cases, however, fail to inform jurors that they are permitted to rely upon circumstantial evidence in reaching a verdict. Why, then, is another, more specific circumstantial evidence charge necessary or desirable?

We …

Liquid Gold, Katrice Bridges Copeland

Faculty Scholarship

According to federal health and census data, addiction treatment was a $21 billion business in 2003. By 2020, it is expected to double to $42 billion. The opioid crisis has fueled the growth of the industry by increasing the demand for residential drug treatment programs. Astronomical growth of an industry, however, often invites bad actors.

Bad actors have swarmed the residential drug treatment industry. One category of bad actors includes patient brokers, who recruit drug addicts with health insurance to residential drug treatment centers for sizeable kickbacks. Another category of bad actors are the owners and operators of treatment centers …

Forum Shopping Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Claims, Chris French

Faculty Scholarship

Insurance disputes are typically governed by state law, and state insurance laws vary considerably, with some states being favorable to policyholders and others being unfavorable. With forum shopping, a plaintiff often has many choices regarding where it can bring a lawsuit, including multiple states in which to bring the case and whether to bring the case in federal or state court. Of the over 1000 COVID-19 business interruption insurance lawsuits filed thus far, more than 700 of them have been filed in, or removed to, federal court, with more than 250 of the cases filed as class actions. Many of …

Church Taxes And The Original Understanding Of The Establishment Clause, Mark Storslee

Faculty Scholarship

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education, it has been widely assumed that the Establishment Clause forbids government from 'aiding' or subsidizing religious activity, especially religious schools. This Article suggests that this reading of the Establishment Clause rests on a misunderstanding of Founding-era history, especially the history surrounding to church taxes. Contrary to popular belief, the decisive argument against those taxes was not an unqualified assertion that subsidizing religion was prohibited. Rather, the crucial argument was that church taxes were a coerced religious observance: a government-mandated sacrifice to God, a tithe. Understanding that argument helps …

The Origins And Legacy Of The Fourth Amendment Reasonableness Balancing Model, Kit Kinports

Faculty Scholarship

The overwhelming majority of the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment cases over the past fifty years have been resolved using a warrant presumption model, which determines the constitutionality of a search or seizure by asking whether law enforcement officials had probable cause and a warrant, or some exception to those requirements. But three decisions, beginning in 2001, mysteriously deviated from that approach and applied a reasonableness balancing model, upholding the searches in those cases after considering the totality of the circumstances and weighing the competing government interests against the defendant’s privacy interests. This balancing approach has justifiably been criticized as amorphous, …

The Case Against Chevron Deference In Immigration Adjudication, Shoba Wadhia, Christopher Walker

Faculty Scholarship

The Duke Law Journal’s fifty-first annual administrative law symposium examines the future of Chevron deference—the command that a reviewing court defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute the agency administers. In the lead article, Professors Kristin Hickman and Aaron Nielson argue that the Supreme Court should narrow Chevron’s domain to exclude interpretations made via administrative adjudication. Building on their framing, this Article presents an in-depth case study of immigration adjudication and argues that this case against Chevron has perhaps its greatest force when it comes to immigration. That is because much of Chevron’s theory for congressional delegation …

Taxing Local Energy Externalities, Hannah Jacobs Wiseman

Faculty Scholarship

There is a fundamental problem of scale in the governance of industrial development. For some of the fastest-growing U.S. industries, the negative impacts of development fall primarily at the local level, and the benefits tend to accrue more broadly to states and the federal government. These governments accordingly have inadequate incentives to address the very localized negative externalities of development. Yet states also increasingly preempt most local control over some forms of development. This creates a regulatory void, in which state and federal regulations are inadequate, and local governments lack the power to use traditional Pigouvian tools such as regulation, …

Pennsylvania--Recent Developments In Pennsylvania Jurisprudence Related To Oil And Gas Leasing And Conveyancing, Ross Pifer

Faculty Scholarship

Pennsylvania is the largest producer of shale gas in the United States and is the second-largest natural gas-producing state overall. Owing to its strategic location atop the Marcellus and Utica Shale Formations, Pennsylvania’s position as a major natural gas producer is relatively new. Just a little over a decade ago, Pennsylvania ranked sixteenth among states in total natural gas production. With this rapid rise in the amount of natural gas development, there has been a corresponding increase in activity in courtrooms across Pennsylvania—both in state and federal courts. As a result, Pennsylvania oil and gas law has evolved within a …

Litigating Epa Rules: A Fifty-Year Retrospective Of Environmental Rulemaking In The Courts, Daniel Walters, Cary Coglianese

Faculty Scholarship

Over the last fifty years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found itself repeatedly defending its regulations before federal judges. The agency’s engagement with the federal judiciary has resulted in prominent Supreme Court decisions, such as Chevron v. NRDC and Massachusetts v. EPA, which have left a lasting imprint on federal administrative law. Such prominent litigation has also fostered, for many observers, a longstanding impression of an agency besieged by litigation. In particular, many lawyers and scholars have long believed that unhappy businesses or environmental groups challenge nearly every EPA rule in court. Although some empirical studies have …

Symmetry’S Mandate: Constraining The Politicization Of American Administrative Law, Daniel Walters

Faculty Scholarship

Recent years have seen the rise of pointed and influential critiques of deference
doctrines in administrative law. What many of these critiques have in
common is a view that judges, not agencies, should resolve interpretive disputes
over the meaning of statutes—disputes the critics take to be purely legal
and almost always resolvable using lawyerly tools of statutory construction.
In this Article, I take these critiques, and the relatively formalist assumptions
behind them, seriously and show that the critics have not acknowledged or
advocated the full reform vision implied by their theoretical premises. Specifically,
critics have extended their critique of judicial …

Come Hell Or High-Water: Challenges For Adapting Pacific Northwest Water Law, Lara Fowler, Robert T. Caccese

Faculty Scholarship

The Pacific Northwest region of the United States has been recognized as a leader in crafting water laws that work to balance human needs and ecological considerations. However, this region is experiencing changing dynamics that test the strength of existing water policies and laws. Such dynamics include increasing populations, new and exempt uses, quantification of tribal treaty rights, species protection, renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty, and the impacts of a changing climate. Together, these dynamics are stressing the legal framework, which remains vital to ensuring sustainable water supplies now and into the future. The history behind water resources management …

Prosecutors And Mass Incarceration, Shima Baradarab Baughman, Megan S. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

It has long been postulated that America’s mass incarceration phenomenon is driven by increased drug arrests, draconian sentencing, and the growth of a prison industry. Yet among the major players—legislators, judges, police, and prosecutors—one of these is shrouded in mystery. While laws on the books, judicial sentencing, and police arrests are all public and transparent, prosecutorial charging decisions are made behind closed doors with little oversight or public accountability. Indeed, without notice by commentators, during the last ten years or more, crime has fallen, and police have cut arrests accordingly, but prosecutors have actually increased the ratio of criminal court …