Digital Commons Network^™

What Does The Decline In The U.S. Dollar’S Global Role Mean For Cryptocurrencies?, Carol R. Goforth

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Cryptocurrencies were at the forefront of a number of newsworthy events in 2021. One of those stories suggests that Bitcoin might be well-positioned to replace the U.S. dollar as the most popular global reserve currency. This article reviews what it means to be a reserve currency, as well as the costs and benefits for the United States to have its dollar serve as the medium of exchange for most international commercial transactions and to have it held by so many governments, central banks, and financial institutions. It then evaluates whether recent events that weaken the dollar’s influence and popularity create …

Missing Link: League Punishments Of Team Executives, Michael A. Mccann

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Is it lawful for a professional sports league to punish an executive of a team when that executive isn’t employed by the league and, unlike a player, isn’t a member of a union that collectively bargains with the league?

The answer to this question has long been presumed as “yes,” despite the non-employing league lacking a contractual link to the executive—a third party—it fines, suspends, or even bans from employment with businesses owned by others.

This Article challenges that presumption. It does so by applying employment law, franchise law, and private association law to the unique relationship between sports leagues …

Turning Over Stones: Advocating For Stronger Reporting Requirements For Opportunity Zones, Blake Stocke

Saint Louis University Law Journal

In 2017, Congress passed Sections 1400Z-1 and 1400Z-2 into the Internal Revenue Code, effectively codifying new tax legislation dubbed ‘Opportunity Zones.’ This legislation, which received bipartisan support, was meant to provide investors with a tax break to incentivize investment in low-income communities. The Opportunity Zone program is a substantial tax expenditure for Congress, and one that proponents believe can attract investment into parts of the United States suffering from diminutive economic growth. However, critics doubt this program will benefit those living in distressed communities, and fear that Opportunity Zones will instead promote gentrification while giving wealthy investors unnecessary tax breaks. …

Masthead

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Teaching Environmental Law After Trump, Doug Williams

Saint Louis University Law Journal

This Article addresses some of the challenges in teaching environmental law after the administration of President Donald Trump. The Trump Administration mounted a relentless, aggressive, and largely deregulatory overhaul of the nation’s major environmental regulatory efforts, particularly the efforts of the prior Obama Administration. Many of these efforts by the Trump Administration have been challenged in court, some successfully, while others have been reversed or are in the process of reversal by the administration of President Joseph Biden. For teachers of environmental law, these actions present opportunities to demonstrate how regulatory agencies (under the direction of presidents), rather than Congress, …

Doing Law School Wrong: Case Teaching And An Integrated Legal Practice Method, Gregory J. Marsden, Soledad Atienza

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Since its inception, the Langdellian case method has been used to teach legal analysis and reasoning to generations of U.S. law students. For nearly as long, business school faculty have used their own version of the case method to teach management decision-making. In law school, a “case” is an appellate court decision, which students must analyze in preparation for Socratic questioning. To business students, a “case” is a narrative problem they must solve before debating and defending their solutions in a moderated classroom discussion.

This Article asserts that neither of these two methods are optimal to prepare students for bar …

Table Of Contents

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A New Kind Of Mma Fight: Balancing Statutory Damages For Works In Compilations After The Music Modernization Act And The Rise Of Streaming Services, Alex Beezley

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Due to the ambiguous language of Section 504(c) of the Copyright Act of 1976, judges and legal scholars have been confounded for decades about how statutory damages should be distributed when the copyright of multiple items in a compilation has been infringed. Several circuits hold that separate statutory damages awards can be given for each item in a compilation that has been infringed if the items each have an economic value. In contrast, the Second Circuit holds that only one statutory damages award can be given for an infringed compilation unless the items contained within have been issued separately.

This …

Breaking The Cultural Cycle Of Sexual Harassment In The Professional Sports Industry: Time To Step Up Prevention & Punishment, Lauren Sullivan

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The National Football League’s Washington Football Team, now known as the Washington Commanders, faces an abundant amount of franchise issues, but its toxic workplace environment full of sexual harassment towers above the rest. This is just the most recent example of a professional sports team mistreating its women employees. Year after year, sexual harassment allegations resurface, revealing a contemplation of whether the current “solutions” for curbing sexual harassment in the professional sports industry are effective.

Current remedies, both in a legal and societal context, have inhibited efforts by women for equal treatment from the teams who employ them. When allegations …

Table Of Contents

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Crt Of Black Lives Matter, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Critical Race Theory (“CRT”), or at least its principles, stands at the core of most prominent social movements of today—from the resurgence of the #MeToo Movement, which was founded by a Black woman, Tarana Burke, to the Black Lives Matter Movement, which was founded by three Black women: Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Cullors. In fact, Critical Race Theorists have long defined CRT itself as a movement, one that has not only provided theoretical interventions regarding the relationship between race, racism, power, and the law, but that has also encouraged and, in fact, inspired and guided social movements. This …

Where Black Lives Matter Less: Understanding The Impact Of Black Victims On Sentencing Outcomes In Texas Capital Murder Cases From 1973 To 2018, Jelani Jefferson Exum, David Niven

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The systemic disregard for Black lives in America was on full display when footage of a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd went viral. Mr. Floyd’s resultant death set off protests declaring that Black Lives Matter throughout the nation and across the world. While national attention rightfully turned to demanding police accountability for undue violence, the prevailing conversation also incorporated at least a declared concern for addressing institutionalized racism within the criminal justice system and other American institutions. The term of the day became “antiracism.” With regard to police killings, the lesson is that police officers disproportionately …

The Assault On Critical Race Theory As Pretext For Populist Backlash On Higher Education, Danielle M. Conway

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The rightwing is carrying out its most recent effort to install an authoritarian regime in America, which has been boosted by Donald Trump’s white supremacist rhetoric and actions before, during, and after his four years holding the Office of the President of the United States. Resolute in the effort to destabilize American Democracy by forcing on to the populist, among other messages, “The Big Lie,” the rightwing is committed to a coordinated strategy of attacking and delegitimizing democratic institutions for the purpose of retaining economic and political power.

The attack on Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) is one element of the …

Critical Race Theory & The Gospels, Anthony Paul Farley

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Commodities can speak. They pray constantly for release. The slave is the commodity that speaks. This Essay is the slave’s prayer for release, for resurrection. The slave is imprisoned, entombed, in the commodity form, a form in which it appears as a thing that is exchangeable for other things, not an end-in-itself.

Yesterday is not gone. Emancipation has yet to take place. The conceits of the modern era are all around us written in ruin and in specters of future ruin. Critical Race Theory is a flower in the midst of ruin. Critical Race Theory is said to be radical? …

Critical Race Theory And The Low-Wage Workplace: The Story Of Janitorial Services In California, Leticia M. Saucedo

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Critical race and racial capitalism theories posit that systems and structures in the workplace reinforce each other to create oppressive conditions for groups of workers based on race, national origin, and/or sex. Some of these structures are reproduced from other areas of work and have roots in exploitative labor conditions. Civil rights lawyers attempting to use existing laws or develop new laws to root out these structures face obstacles within and outside the judicial system. This Essay focuses on two laws recently passed in California to protect vulnerable workers: the California Property Service Workers Protection Act, which seeks to protect …

Preservation Letters And Fourth Amendment Seizures: A Response To Professor Kerr, Michael L. Levy

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The Stored Communications Act (18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq.) requires an Internet Service Provider to preserve the contents of a user account upon receiving a request from a government agency. The maximum period of preservation is 180 days. However, the government agency cannot get access to the copy, unless it presents proper legal process, usually a search warrant. During this time, the user has complete access to their account. In a recent article, Professor Orin Kerr has advanced a thesis that copying pursuant to the government’s preservation requests under the Stored Communications Act is a Fourth Amendment seizure. This …

Legislative Push Towards Supersession In Missouri: Why The State Attorney General Should Not Be Statutorily Granted Concurrent Jurisdiction With Locally Elected Prosecutors, Josef Nilhas

Saint Louis University Law Journal

There is a current trend of electing progressive or “reform-minded” prosecutors over “tough-on-crime” prosecutors in local elections across the country. Traditionally, prosecutors have possessed wide discretion over which cases to prosecute or not, and the law presumes that “prosecutors make discretionary decisions disinterestedly, unaffected by their own self-interest or the interest of others.” However, recently in Missouri, state officials have pushed for providing the state attorney general with concurrent jurisdiction over certain cases. In particular, the Missouri Senate passed a provision through an amendment to House Bill 2 (“HB2”) that would allow the State Attorney General to take over homicide …

Table Of Contents

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Dismantling The Cage Of Binary Sports, Tracy Turner

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Occupational Segregation As A Driver Of Racial Health Disparities Among Black Women, Pilar C. Whitaker

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Heat Is On: Will Climate Change Suits Pressure The Supreme Court To Evolve Its Federal Question Jurisdiction?, Katie Hoffecker

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Covid And Consequences: How The Pandemic Changed Contract Interpretation And Litigation, Glenn Lutzky

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Biking In Indianapolis: An Ethnographic Analysis Of Obstacles And Solutions, Emory Lietz

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Indiana is known as the ""Crossroads of America"" for its historic investment in vehicle infrastructure. This focus on automobiles has shaped Indianapolis's urban landscape, to the dismay of many cyclists. Based on semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders in the Indianapolis cycling community, including urban planners, bike commuters, IndyGo employees, city government officials, and bike advocates, this project identifies and evaluates the current barriers that prevent Indianapolis residents from riding their bikes. These obstacles, which include infrastructural, safety, and social factors, make it more difficult than it ought to be to bike in Indy.

For my thesis project, I …

Re-Evaluating Turnover/Gross Receipts Taxes: Their Myths And Their Realities, Richard Pomp

Faculty Articles and Papers

Turnover taxes have a storied history dating back to ancient Athens, and are starting to make a comeback in the States. A gross receipts or turnover tax is levied every time a good or service “turns over,” that is, transferred from one entity to another for consideration. The resulting gross receipt is subject to tax. The tax base is “turnover” and the measure of the tax is “gross receipts.”

A turnover tax applies to both services and tangible items ranging from sales of business inputs to sales to end users alike; in essence it taxes business activity, whereas a retail …

Resisting The Siren Song Of Gross Receipts Taxes: From The Middle Ages To Maryland’S Tax On Digital Advertising-Abstract, Richard Pomp

Faculty Articles and Papers

A turnover tax, more commonly known as a gross receipts tax, has a long and sordid history. The tax has ancient roots, first appearing when economies were primitive and underdeveloped, with few alternatives for raising revenue. A turnover tax makes no pretense of taxing profits, income, consumption, wealth, or other bases that have come to be accepted as legitimate around the world. Instead, it taxes business activity, and is fundamentally different in concept, and inferior to, either a well-designed retail sales tax or a value-added tax.

Economists throughout the ages have nearly universally condemned turnover taxes; some even blame the …

Aggregate Stare Decisis, Kiel Brennan-Marquez

Faculty Articles and Papers

The fate of stare decisis hangs in the wind. Different factions of the Supreme Court are now engaged in open debate echoing decades of scholarship-about the doctrine's role in our constitutional system. Broadly speaking, two camps have emerged. The first embraces the orthodox view that stare decisis should reflect "neutral principles" that run orthogonal to a case's merits; otherwise, it will be incapable of keeping the law stable over time. The second argues that insulating stare decisis from the underlying merits has always been a conceptual mistake. Instead, the doctrine should focus more explicitly on the merits by diagnosing the …

Third-Party Moral Hazard And The Problem Of Insurance Externalities, Peter Siegelman, Gideon Parchomovsky

Faculty Articles and Papers

Insurance can lead to loss or claim creation not only by insureds but also by uninsured third parties. These externalities-which we call third-party moral hazard-arise because insurance creates opportunities both to extract rents and to recover otherwise unrecoverable losses. Using examples from health, automobile, kidnap, and liability insurance, we demonstrate that the phenomenon is widespread and important and that the downsides of insurance are greater than previously believed. We explain the economic, social, and psychological reasons for this phenomenon and propose policy responses. Contract-based methods that are traditionally used to control first-party moral hazard can be welfare reducing in the …

Eliding Original Understanding In Cedar Point Nursery V. Hassid, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

Cedar Point Nursey v. Hassid is a triumph of the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. In holding that temporary entries to land are takings without regard to duration, impact, or the public interest, the Court fulfilled the decades-long ambitions of anti-regulatory advocates of private property. Progressive and conservative scholars agree that the decision runs roughshod over precedent. This essay focuses on a less obvious aspect of Cedar Point: its flagrant departure from original understanding. American law at the time of the founding recognized a robust right to enter private property. Trespass law did not even reach entries unless they …