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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Ballad Of Harry James Tompkins, Brian L. Frye
The Ballad Of Harry James Tompkins, Brian L. Frye
Akron Law Review
On July 27, 1934, Harry James Tompkins lost his arm, supposedly when an unsecured refrigerator car door on a train operated by the Erie Railroad Company hit him in the head. Tompkins won a $30,000 judgment in federal court, but in Erie v. Tompkins (1938), the United States Supreme Court famously reversed, holding that federal courts sitting in diversity must apply state substantive law, not federal "general common law." While many scholars have studied Erie v. Tompkins, few have studied the facts of the case, and none have questioned Tompkins's account. This article argues that Tompkins and his witnesses …
Remedies, Equity & Erie, Caprice L. Roberts
Remedies, Equity & Erie, Caprice L. Roberts
Akron Law Review
This article addresses how a federal court sitting in diversity jurisdiction should approach remedies issues, particularly where the law-equity divide lingers. Treatment of remedies raises tricky problems for federal judges regarding what law to apply. It matters because of separation-of-powers, federalism, jury trial implications, forum shopping, and fairness to litigants. Because, after all, the choice of federal versus state forum should not dictate the outcome. Further, notwithstanding calls to eliminate vestiges of equity’s unique characteristics and requirements, the gravitational pull of equity remains. There is value in continuing to honor equitable principles. And there is value in federal judges cultivating …
Beyond The Elements: Erie And The Standards For Preliminary And Permanent Injuctions, Michael T. Morley
Beyond The Elements: Erie And The Standards For Preliminary And Permanent Injuctions, Michael T. Morley
Akron Law Review
Federal courts frequently avoid deciding whether federal or state law governs the availability of injunctive relief for state-law claims by simply declaring that both sets of standards are the same. Although federal and state standards for injunctions often incorporate similar elements, those elements often are phrased in somewhat different terms and relate to each other in different ways. Even when federal and state standards involve facially identical elements, federal and state courts often interpret and apply them differently based on completely distinct bodies of precedent that can lead to different outcomes. Because state and federal standards arise from, and refer …
The Erie/Sears/Compco Sqeeze: Erie's Effects On Unfair Competition And Trade Secret Law, Sharon K. Sandeen
The Erie/Sears/Compco Sqeeze: Erie's Effects On Unfair Competition And Trade Secret Law, Sharon K. Sandeen
Akron Law Review
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Supreme Court's famous decision in Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, this article explores the consequences of that decision on the development of unfair competition law in the United States. It details efforts by lawyers and legislators to grapple with those consequences and provides an overview of the evolution of unfair competition law in the U.S. since Erie, with a particular focus on trade secret law.
Jurisdiction Stripping Of The Federal Circuit?, Shubha Ghosh
Jurisdiction Stripping Of The Federal Circuit?, Shubha Ghosh
Akron Law Review
This article examines how the Federal Circuit addresses state commercial and contract law in its patent law jurisprudence. Instead of deferring to state law, the court creates its own federal common law of contracts and assignments, creating parallels with the debates arising from the 1938 Erie decision. This federal common law is inconsistent with the need for uniformity in the law governing patent transactions. To resolve this issue, Congress may consider stripping Federal Circuit jurisdiction over state contract law claims. This article examines the pros and cons of this proposal.
Brandeis's Ip Federalism: Thoughts On Erie At Eighty, Joseph Scott Miller
Brandeis's Ip Federalism: Thoughts On Erie At Eighty, Joseph Scott Miller
Akron Law Review
Justice Brandeis is, in intellectual property law’s precincts, most famous for his lone dissent in International News Service v. Associate Press, the misappropriation case one can find in virtually every I.P. survey casebook (and many property law casebooks as well). But in the wider legal world, Brandeis is likely most famous for his earthquake opinion in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins. Do Brandeis’s opinions in these two cases speak to each other? Can considering them together inform broader reflections on the texture of our federalism in the I.P. context? This piece, prepared in connection with the “Erie …
At The Intersection Of Erie And Administrative Law: Front-Loading The Erie Question Into The Adoption Of A Federal Rule, Jeffrey L. Rensberger
At The Intersection Of Erie And Administrative Law: Front-Loading The Erie Question Into The Adoption Of A Federal Rule, Jeffrey L. Rensberger
Akron Law Review
The Supreme Court regularly faces Erie issues involving the displacement of state law by a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure. Under Hanna v. Plummer, federal rules displace state law if they were intended to apply to the matter at issue and are valid. But in such cases, the Court has already encountered the rule once before, at the time it adopted the rule and transmitted it to Congress. Why is the Erie question decided at the back end of the process rather than at its front? If the question of whether a rule is intended to displace state law …
Adrift On Erie: Characterizing Forum-Selection Clauses, Kermit Roosevelt Iii, Bethan R. Jones
Adrift On Erie: Characterizing Forum-Selection Clauses, Kermit Roosevelt Iii, Bethan R. Jones
Akron Law Review
Erie is one of our most famous cases, but also one of the most mysterious. It has become something of a Rorschach test, a pattern onto which scholars project their own concerns. This article presents a simple view of Erie as a case about power: first, who has the power to make certain laws and second, who has the power to interpret them. From this perspective, Erie has nothing to do with substance-procedure characterization—the topic now understood to be governed by Erie analysis. Indeed, early post-Erie cases describe Erie as concerned with power. The substance-procedure distinction enters the picture …
Erie And Constitutional Structure: An Intellectual History, Craig Green
Erie And Constitutional Structure: An Intellectual History, Craig Green
Akron Law Review
Erie's meaning has changed many times during its eighty-year history, and this essay provides a brief intellectual history about those serial transformations. Most modern lawyers have completely forgotten the radicalism of Erie's constitutional reasoning in 1938. The legal process school defanged Erie's original meaning, even as scholars simultaneously redefined the term "constitutional" itself. Erie's cultural significance dropped as the legal process school faded. But it has resurfaced among twenty-first-century conservatives as a pillar of federalism (the "old myth") as well as separation of powers (the "new myth"). Especially given Erie's profound reputation as an iconic precedent, the legal community must …
The Erie Doctrine: A Flowchart, Michael S. Green
The Erie Doctrine: A Flowchart, Michael S. Green
Akron Law Review
The following is a complete flowchart for Erie problems. Although it differs from past efforts in many respects, perhaps the most important difference is that it accommodates all the jurisdictional contexts in which Erie problems can arise in federal court, not just diversity jurisdiction. My hope is that this flowchart will help demystify Erie, by showing that Erie problems are, by and large, standard choice-of-law problems, much like those faced by state courts.
Erie As A Way Of Life, Ernest A. Young
Erie As A Way Of Life, Ernest A. Young
Akron Law Review
This essay—presented as the keynote address to the University of Akron School of Law’s conference on “Erie at 80”—considers the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins on the broader landscape of American law. I begin with Erie’s contribution to our modern, positivist understanding of the nature of law. That understanding, however, is under threat from pervasive tendencies, on both the political Left and Right, to collapse the distinction between law as a set of positivist choices adopted by government and law as the principles that we think are just, right, and true. …