Digital Commons Network^™

Family Support And Supporting Families, Courtney G. Joslin

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

Understanding Standing, Andrew F. Hessick

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fletcherian Standing, Merits, And Spokeo, Inc. V. Robins, Howard M. Wasserman

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Common Law Right To Information, Joe Regalia

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

A once-thriving doctrine, today the common law right to information has been largely forgotten by U.S. courts at both the state and federal level. But courts have not paused to question whether the common law right still has a role to play in modern litigation. One reason may be the dearth of case law explaining the common law right's operation. Another may be that courts believe this doctrine has been eradicated by the advent of freedom of information laws. This article first brings together the disparate authority on the common law right in an attempt to pin down the precise …

Utilizing Credit Reports For Employment Purposes: A Legal Bait And Switch Tactic, James D. Phillips, David D. Schein

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

In our previous article, "Holding Credit Reporting Agencies Accountable: How the Financial Crisis May be Contributing to Improving Accuracy in Credit Reporting" we reviewed the legal history of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), its amendments, and the federal case law by circuit. We suggested that the ability of consumers to ensure the accuracy and security of their credit reports might lead to an expansion of the litigation surrounding accurate credit reporting. This article takes the discussion further by exploring the ever-expanding use of credit reports in the employment law arena. We review the state legislation limiting the use of …

Testamentary Capacity Litigation In Virginia, F. Philip Manns Jr.

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

In Rust v. Reid, a 1918 case involving testamentary capacity, the Supreme Court of Virginia wrote the "cases upon this subject are almost without number, and they are not to be reconciled," but Rust referred to "all of the decisions of this court on the subject of competency of jurors," which also had been at issue in the case. However, in its decision in Rust, the Court easily could have leveled the same self-criticism about its cases deciding (1) which party bears the burden of proof in testamentary capacity litigation; (2) whether a presumption of testamentary capacity exists; and (3) …

Troxel Revisited: A New Approach To Third-Party Childcare, Jeffrey A. Parness

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

This article will first explore the new de facto parent state laws originating in both statutes and cases. These laws often limit current parental decisionmaking about childcare due to an earlier conscious or implicit ceding of parental authority. The article will then examine current third-party childcare laws, including those specially addressing stepparents and grandparents. The analysis will show that such laws typically do not comparably limit current parental decisionmaking due to earlier ceding of parental authority, making third-party childcare more difficult because of requirements like "harm or potential harm to the child." Finally, the article suggests a new approach to …

Forfeiting Federalism: The Faustian Pact With Big Tobacco, Ryan D. Dreveskracht

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

This article discusses the effects of the largest legal settlement in United States history: the so-called Master Settlement Agreement , or "MSA." Part I discusses the settlement generally, and its intended effect on the U.S. tobacco market. Parts II through IV discuss the unintended consequences of the settlement.' Part II considers how states got into their current disarray, and how a perceived state windfall of billions of dollars ended up putting states on what by all accounts now appears to be very real risk of insolvency. Part III examines how the major tobacco companies are using the states' dire financial …

A Physician's Apology: An Argument Against Statutory Protection, Nancy L. Zisk

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

After a review of a physician's ethical duty to disclose and the empirical evidence of how open and honest communication between patient and physician actually benefits both the patient and the treating physician, the paper questions whether apologies by health care providers need the protection afforded by these laws. Section II reviews the history of the medical profession's tendency toward silence and the reasons for that silence. Section III examines the state statutes passed to encourage the breaking of this silence. Section IV reviews the state rules of evidence that have traditionally been applied to determine whether or not statements …

Dna Without Warrant: Decoding Privacy, Probable Cause And Personhood, Ken Strutin

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

In Part I, this article explores the challenges to privacy, personhood and probable cause raised by DNA collection as identification sanctioned in Maryland v. King. Part II considers the presumed infallibility of DNA testing that undergirds the Supreme Court's embracement of genetic identification. Lastly, in Part III, this article will try to decipher the Court's Fourth Amendment logic in denying privacy to the information in human cells but embracing them in cell phones in Riley v. California

Gender Equity In The 21st Century: Keynote Address, Chai Feldblum

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

You have heard a lot this morning about the need in 1964 for Congress to enact prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of race, national origin and religion. I am going to use my time, therefore, to talk about gender equity: the addition of the sex discrimination prohibition in Title VII, the advances that have occurred since passage of that law, and the miles that we still have to go to achieve full gender equity.

To End Divisions: Reflections On The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Dr. Julian Maxwell Hayter

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

By focusing on a number of the CRA's key titles - without belittling the act's importance to Latinos, women, et al.- this commentary illustrates how the act moved beyond eliminating segregation; it addresses how the racial climate of the early 1960s shaped public policy. Broadly, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 sought to change the balance of racial (and genderbased) power in the America by using federal law to finally protect African Americans' right to live equal lives. After 1964, for the first time since Reconstruction, race was national policy agenda. This agenda and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 …

Chinese Foreign Direct Investment Into Africa In The Context Of Brics And Sino-African Bilateral Investment Treaties, Catherine Elkemann, Oliver C. Ruppel

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

China is now the second largest economy in the world after the United States of America and is deemed to be the most influential member of the group of leading emerging economies, the so called BRICS partnership consisting of Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa. According to the latest World Investment Report published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (“UNCTAD”), China is also the second largest recipient of inward foreign direct investment (“IFDI”) and the third in terms of outward foreign direct investment (“OFDI”). In this context, Africa is emerging as an important destination …

No Freedom In A Ship Of Fools: A Democratic Justification For The Common Core State Standards And Federal Involvement In K-12 Education, Neelam Takhar

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

One of the most important functions of the government is the provision of a free public education. While Brown v. Board of Education removed one obvious barrier to equal education opportunities—that of racially segregated education—it left in place another: the obstacle faced by poor school districts that wish to provide an education to their students on equal terms with the education offered by wealthier school districts. The disparities in the quality of education between districts and states are becoming more and more obvious as a growing obstacle to equity. The new Common Core State Standards, which are a single set …

Reproductive Health Care Resources & Decision Making For Women In A "Delivery Desert" In Maine, Gianna C. Dejoy

Honors Theses

This case study examines the reproductive health care resources available to women living in a “delivery desert” context in Maine, as well as the personal and cultural factors that influence their reproductive health behaviors. Through ethnographic methodology and in-depth interviews, I demonstrate how cultural influences converge with issues of quality health care accessibility to affect reproductive health outcomes. The island is isolated from reliable, quality biomedical care, with the nearest hospital offering labor and delivery services located over an hour’s drive away. I define this situation as a “delivery desert”, describing the phenomenon of centralizing maternity care which endangers pregnant …

Development Of A Genetic Over-Expression System For The Freshwater Sponge Ephydatia Muelleri, Joe Walsh

Honors Theses

The aim of this work is to develop an over-expression system for Ephydatia muelleri. Preliminary work by Klaske Schippers (Schippers, 2013) showed sponges were induced to transcribe reporter genes driven by the widely used cytomegalovirus promoter (CMV). Building off Schippers work, newly identified native Ephydatia promoters were identified from the genome and verified to drive expression ofreporter genes. Validated over-expression vectors and transfection technology will allow researchers around the world who are working with this organism to ask questions about cell specification, gene regulation and animal development.

Revisiting The Client Conundrum: Whom Does Lawyer For A Government Represent, And Who Gives Direction To That Governmental Lawyer?, Hugh D. Spitzer

Articles

The issue of identifying a government attorney’s client is age-old, and Washington’s Rules of Professional Conduct provide somewhat different answers for lawyers who are government employees and for those who are with private firms. The matter becomes even more interesting when a government entity’s attorney is a publicly-elected legal official: an attorney general, prosecuting attorney, or city attorney in the case of Seattle and a number of other cities around the country. Others have written thoughtful pieces on the topic from a national perspective, and there is at least one excellent but slightly outdated piece by District of Columbia municipal …

In The Name Of Patent Stewardship: The Federal Circuit’S Overreach In Commercial Law, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has admirably commandeered its stewardship of patent law-Congress bestowed the Federal Circuit with exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals since 1982-the court has unabashedly extended its reach, unwelcomed, into commercial law. Camouflaged in the name of patent stewardship, the Federal Circuit's foray into commercial law has yielded unexpected and unjustifiable results. This Article argues that, paradoxically, to maintain its stewardship of patent law, the Federal Circuit should not invoke patent law to rationalize its decisions concerning commercial law, which have dramatically altered established commercial law. This encroachment into commercial law, which …

Financing Innovation: Legal Development Of Intellectual Property As Security In Financing, 1845–2014, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

There is a need for both traditional and online lenders to appreciate the intellectual property assets held by small businesses. The intellectual property assets should be included in the analytics in assessing the overall health of a business seeking a loan or a line of credit for its new innovative product, idea, or vision. The Article ends with a brief conclusion that in order to maintain the United States’ innovative edge, attention to the access to financing by small businesses must be at the center of the discussion, and intellectual property must be recognized as part of that center.

Pragmatism Rules, Elizabeth G. Porter

Articles

The Roberts Court’s decisions interpreting the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are reshaping the litigation landscape. Yet neither scholars, nor the Court itself, have articulated a coherent theory of interpretation for the Rules. This Article constructs a theory of Rules interpretation by discerning and critically examining the two starkly different methodologies the Roberts Court applies in its Rules cases. It traces the roots of both methodologies, explaining how they arise from — and reinforce — structural, linguistic, and epistemological tensions inherent in the Rules and the rulemaking process. Then, drawing from administrative law, it suggests a theoretical framework that accommodates …

In The Stewardship Of Business Model Innovation, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Pbgc Wins A Case Whenever The Debtor Keeps Its Pension Plan, Israel Goldowitz, Garth Wilson, Erin Kim, Kirsten Bender

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federal agency charged with insuring private-sector defined benefit pension plans, has long had a prominent role in corporate bankruptcies. PBGC focuses its effort on the continuation of pension plans, in true reorganizations and in sales of businesses. To this end, ERISA has made it more difficult for a sponsor to terminate a plan in its own economic interest. For example, a sponsor’s latitude to terminate an underfunded plan was limited to circumstances involving the sponsor’s financial distress. Likewise, the termination premium, which was added to ERISA in recent years, is an obligation that survives …

Towards The Development Of Governance Principles For The Administration Of Social Protection Benefits: Comparative Lessons From Dutch And American Experiences, Frans Pennings, Paul M. Secunda

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

The purpose of this article is to introduce a new approach to social protection benefit provision through an analysis and comparison of two of the advanced benefit systems in the world. Both the Dutch and American examples teach us that meaningful social benefit protection is possible, consistent, and necessary within market-based societies.

Our recommendation is that advanced-market societies start a discussion on social protection benefits based on the dual principles of federalism/subsidiarity and fiduciary duty. Federalism provides that the national/federal government should provide the principles and minimal framework for benefit provision, while regional authorities, employers, and insurance companies should be …

Finding The Middle Ground On A Slippery Slope: Balancing Autonomy And Protection In Mandatory Reporting Of Elder Abuse, Benjamin Pomerance

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

Millions of older Americans suffer from physical, mental, emotional, or financial abuse. Frequently, their abusers are family members, close friends, or other individuals who occupy positions of trust in their elderly victims’ lives. Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors, elder abuse is a tragically underreported crime. Experts estimate that for every case of elder abuse revealed to law enforcement authorities, five more cases go unreported, allowing the abuse to continue unchecked.

To combat this secrecy surrounding elder abuse, federal and state lawmakers enacted statutes requiring certain people— or, in some jurisdictions, all people—to report instances of suspected elder abuse …

Creating A "Building A Disability Rights Information Center For Asia And The Pacific Clinic": Pedagogy And Social Justice, Michael L. Perlin, Catherine Barreda, Katherine Davies, Mehgan Gallagher, Nicole Israel, Stephanie Mendelsohn

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

This article describes the work done by the lead author and his students in the creation of the Disability Rights Information Center for Asia and the Pacific (DRICAP), as part of the work the lead author has been doing with colleagues (especially Yoshikazu Ikehara, Esq., director of the Tokyo Advocacy Law Office) for several years to create a Disability Rights Tribunal for Asia and the Pacific (DRTAP). DRICAP’s centerpiece is the creation of a website collecting statutes, regulations, scholarly articles, advocacy news, and case law from selected Asian and Pacific nations. This work was done through a clinic created by …

Essay: A Positive Perspective On Regulation Of The Workplace Relationship, Dana M. Muir

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

Positive Organizational Scholarship studies how business organizations and their employees excel and thrive. It takes the opposite perspective from the traditional organizational research that examines negative deviance and how that deviance inhibits organizational performance. Like traditional organizational scholars, legal scholars (as well as lawyers, legislators, judges, and regulators) typically focus on problems. Examples abound in the field of employment law. For example, to what extent does employment discrimination still exist and how can it be eliminated? And, what constraints prevent Americans from achieving retirement security and how can those constraints be eliminated? This Essay proposes that we examine the Positive …

Through The Lens Of Innovation, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Articles

The legal system constantly follows the footsteps of innovation and attempts to discourage its migration overseas. Yet, present legal rules that inform and explain entrepreneurial circumstances lack a core understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship. By its nature, law imposes order. It provides rules, remedies, and classifications that direct behavior in a consistent manner. Entrepreneurship turns on the contrary. It entails making creative judgments about the unknown. It involves adapting to disarray. It thrives on deviation as opposed to traditional causation. This Article argues that these differences matter. It demonstrates that current laws lock entrepreneurs into inefficient legal routes. Through …

The Brief & Expansive History (And Future) Of The Mooc: Why Two Divergent Models Share The Same Name, Rolin Moe

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

Within popular media, the massive open online course (MOOC) is presented as a novel idea created by maverick professors and further developed with a goal to further democratize education on bases of quality and cost. The perception of this sequence of events as modular history has perpetuated a difficulty in developing MOOC-related research and critique within the fields of distance and online education. At the center of this struggle is the MOOC acronym: its initial development was in 2008, and its use today happens in opposition to the theoretical and pedagogical elements of the 2008 MOOC. This paper endeavors to …

The Dark Side Of The Mooc - A Critical Inquiry On Their Claims And Realities, Markus Deimann

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

Building on the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, this paper utilises critical discourse analysis to examine claims attached to MOOCs in New York Times articles published between 2012 and 2013. Discourse analysis is proposed as a valuable tool enabling the understanding of MOOCs as historically constituted and socially constructed “events” with hidden meanings masked by rhetoric slogans. Noting that language is not just the reflection of social and psychological life but rather constructs social realities, this work posits how both media and commercial MOOC providers have constructed an “education is broken” narrative which states (1) traditional universities are no …

Down The Rabbit Hole: An Initial Typology Of Issues Around The Development Of Moocs, Apostolos Koutropoulos, Panagiotis Zaharias

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

MOOCs have experienced an unprecedented explosion of publicity. This publicity indicates both optimism that they may be the panacea for whatever ails higher education, as well as caution and trepidation that this may in-fact be some sort of new fad in higher education. In this wave of optimism, and subsequent wave of pessimism, we believe that there is something good to examine about MOOCs and that they do hold potential for certain educational arenas. That said, we don’t want to blindly dive into the MOOC optimism camp. We have critically examined the literature, from both academic peer-reviewed and academic press …