Law Commons^™

Unconstitutional Quartering, Governmental Immunity, And Van Halen's Brown M&M Test, Tom W. Bell

Tom W. Bell

The jurisprudence of the Third Amendment, which limits the quartering of troops in private homes, effectively consists of just one case: Engblom v. Carey. But what a case! In addition to showcasing an unjustly neglected corner of our constitutional heritage, Engblom demonstrates the troubling effects of a dubious legal doctrine: governmental immunity. Though the court of appeals had held New York officials potentially liable for violating the Third Amendment when they had quartered National Guard troops in the dormitory rooms of striking prison guards, the lower court on remand in Engblom denied the plaintiffs a remedy. Why? Because throughout the …

"Everybody Knows What A Picket Line Means": Picketing Before The British Columbia Court Of Appeal, Judy Fudge, Eric Tucker

Eric M. Tucker

The general hostility of courts towards workers’ collective action is well documented, but even against that standard the restrictive approach of the British Columbia Court of Appeal stands out. Although this trend first became apparent in a series of cases before World War II in which the court treated peaceful picketing as unlawful and narrowly interpreted British Columbia’s Trade Union Act (1902), which limited trade unions’ common law liability, this study will focus on the court’s post-War jurisprudence. The legal environment for trade union activity was radically altered during World War II by PC 1003, which provided unions with a …

Judges As Rulemakers, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

In Do Cases Make Bad Law?, Frederick Schauer raises some serious questions about the process of judicial lawmaking. Schauer takes issue with the widely held assumption that judge-made law benefits from the court's focus on a particular real-world dispute. Writing with characteristic eloquence, Schauer argues that the need to resolve a concrete dispute does not enhance the ability of judges to craft sound rules, but instead generates cognitive biases that distort judicial development of legal rules. Schauer's observations about the risks of rulemaking in an adjudicatory setting are very persuasive. Yet his overall assessment of the common law process may …

A Comparative View Of Standards Of Proof, Kevin M. Clermont, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

In common-law systems, the standard of proof for ordinary civil cases requires the party who bears the burden of proof to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the facts alleged are true. In contrast, the prevailing standard of proof for civil cases in civil-law systems is indistinguishable from the standard for criminal cases: the judge must be firmly convinced that the facts alleged are true. This striking difference in common-law and civil-law procedures has received very little attention from either civilian or comparative scholars. The preponderance standard applied in common-law systems is openly probabilistic and produces, on average, …

Objeto Imposible Jurídicamente Y Objeto Ilícito. La Supuesta Eliminación De La Causa Del Negocio Jurídico –Y En Particular Del Contrato– Por Obra De La Jurisprudencia Judicial, Rómulo Morales

Rómulo Martín Morales Hervias

Mediante la Casación Nº 3189-2012-Lima-Norte emitida por la Sala Civil Permanente de la Corte Suprema, se equipara erróneamente el objeto imposible jurídicamente y el objeto ilícito en el caso de los contratos sobre bienes ajenos, y considera que el resultado del negocio jurídico es su causa, su fin o su finalidad. Tales aseveraciones son erróneas por cuanto dichos contratos no son nulos, sino perfectamente válidos, pero ineficaces parcialmente porque las cosas ajenas son comerciables.

Keepings, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The Role Of The Profit Imperative In Risk Management, Christopher French

Christopher C. French

A Comparative View Of Standards Of Proof, Kevin M. Clermont, Emily Sherwin

Kevin M. Clermont

In common-law systems, the standard of proof for ordinary civil cases requires the party who bears the burden of proof to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the facts alleged are true. In contrast, the prevailing standard of proof for civil cases in civil-law systems is indistinguishable from the standard for criminal cases: the judge must be firmly convinced that the facts alleged are true. This striking difference in common-law and civil-law procedures has received very little attention from either civilian or comparative scholars. The preponderance standard applied in common-law systems is openly probabilistic and produces, on average, …

Punishment Without Culpability, John F. Stinneford

John F. Stinneford

For more than half a century, academic commentators have criticized the Supreme Court for failing to articulate a substantive constitutional conception of criminal law. Although the Court enforces various procedural protections that the Constitution provides for criminal defendants, it has left the question of what a crime is purely to the discretion of the legislature. This failure has permitted legislatures to evade the Constitution’s procedural protections by reclassifying crimes as civil causes of action, eliminating key elements (such as mens rea) or reclassifying them as defenses or sentencing factors, and authorizing severe punishments for crimes traditionally considered relatively minor. The …

Eminent Domain, Exactions, And Railbanking: Can Recreational Trails Survive The Court’S Fifth Amendment Takings Jurisprudence, Danaya C. Wright

Danaya C. Wright

This article attempts to locate the legal aspects of recreational trail development within the increasingly powerful property rights movement. The most complex result of this rising property rights rhetoric is a clear shift in constitutional takings doctrine to be more sympathetic to landowners' arguments. Thus, the interplay of takings decisions and trails development will be the focus of most of this article. Part II provides a brief account of the legal structure of governmental land use controls and the current state of takings jurisprudence to form a basic background for the different ways in which recreational trails have been developed. …

The Shifting Sands Of Property Rights, Federal Railroad Grants, And Economic History: Hash V. United States And The Threat To Rail-Trail Conversions, Danaya C. Wright

Danaya C. Wright

This Article is an analysis of a federal circuit case from 2005 that has spawned some disturbing precedents in the area of federal transportation and railbanking policy. Specifically, the National Trails System Act (NTSA) provides a mechanism for preserving unused railroad corridors for future reactivation while allowing interim recreational trail and mixed utiity use along the corridor. Converting rail corridors to recreational trails is a very popular process and communities across the country are demanding more and more conversions, as people seek the amenities of linear parks and greenways. Hash v. United States, however, deals with the property rights underlying …

Emerging Limitations On The Rights Of The Child: The U.N. Convention On The Rights Of The Child And Its Early Case Law, Jonathan Todres

Jonathan Todres

No abstract provided.

Common Law Remedies And Protection Of The Environment, Julian C. Juergensmeyer

Julian C. Juergensmeyer

No abstract provided.

Derecho Y Empresas Familiares, Daniel Echaiz Moreno

Daniel Echaiz Moreno

No abstract provided.

Case For A Constitutional Definition Of Hearsay: Requiring Confrontation Of Testimonial, Nonassertive Conduct And Statements Admitted To Explain An Unchallenged Investigation, The , James L. Kainen

James L. Kainen

Crawford v. Washington’s historical approach to the confrontation clause establishes that testimonial hearsay inadmissible without confrontation at the founding is similarly inadmissible today, despite whether it fits a subsequently developed hearsay exception. Consequently, the requirement of confrontation depends upon whether an out-of-court statement is hearsay, testimonial, and, if so, whether it was nonetheless admissible without confrontation at the founding. A substantial literature has developed about whether hearsay statements are testimonial or were, like dying declarations, otherwise admissible at the founding. In contrast, this article focuses on the first question – whether statements are hearsay – which scholars have thus far …

Measuring The Transplantation Of English Commercial Law In A Small Jurisdiction: An Empirical Study Of Singapore’S Insurance Judgments Between 1965 And 2012, Christopher Chen

Christopher Chao-hung CHEN

This article seeks to measure the development of law after transplanting common law and statutes from another country by conducting an empirical study of the citation of precedents and demography of disputes of insurance cases in Singapore. This article recognizes that there are justifications for Singapore to transplant English insurance law. However, this research shows that the transplantation of English commercial law into a small jurisdiction, even within the common law family, may cause the law to be in a static state if courts do not have enough cases to maintain the development of law or to consider new development …

Satyam - Asatyam: Appreciating The Class Action Provision In The Companies Act, 2013 And Its Impact On Investor Protection, Subhro Sengupta, Siddharth Tiwari

Subhro Sengupta

This essay tries to fully appreciate the introduction of the class action clause in the Companies Act, 2013 and to identify the changes in terms of remedies for investor pre and post the statutory provision. In doing so, we analyze the U.S. District Court judgement on Satyam that currently provides one of the best academic discourses on the Indian class action scenario. We go through the provisions of the SEBI Act and the Securities & Contract (Regulations) Act which previously barred class action, and further delving into the legal provisions & alternatives in India, U.K. and U.S. We look into …

Sources Of Law And Pluri-Lingualism (In Greek), Nikitas E. Hatzimihail

Nikitas E Hatzimihail

This study (which replaces an earlier article published at the law journal Χρονικά Ιδιωτικού Δικαίου - Chronicles of Private Law, vol. 12 (2012)) examines issues arising from the translation of authoritative legal texts (constituting sources of law in the legal system under consideration), with an emphasis on legislation.

The first part of the article examines instances where authoritative texts of the same legal instrument co-exist in two or several languages, notably in the case of international uniform law instruments, such as the Vienna Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

The second part addresses instances of an instrument being …

What Has Sharia Got To Do With Arbitration, Mohamed Raffa

Mohamed Raffa Dr.

In Arbitration, parties do not seek revenge as in criminal proceedings, they are there to seek equitable justice in compensation. In Sharia, rules are set to eliminate equitable injustice. For cultural differences as well as misconceptions due in large to the influence of Sharia based local laws and the complicated enforcement schemes, many foreign investors have been reluctant to seat their arbitrations in countries that apply Sharia or to attach themselves to a contract with a ‘Sharia Arbitration’ clause.

Gambling On Our Financial Future: How The Federal Government Fiddles While State Common Law Is A Safer Bet To Prevent Another Financial Collapse, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Is The Use Of Calling Emerson A Pragmatist: A Brief And Belated Response To Stanley Cavell, Allen P. Mendenhall

Allen Mendenhall

This essay investigates the relationship between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the context of the common law. Holmes’s Emersonian writings, in particular his dissents, fall within the theoretical framework of agonism, which Harold Bloom refers to as a revisionary and Emersonian “program.” Agonism as a political and aesthetic theory maintains that sites of contestation can be productive rather than destructive; it suggests that confrontational relationships can be at once mutually offsetting and generative. Drawing from the Greek word for an athletic competition, agonism applied to rhetoric underscores the importance of mutuality to conflict: writers struggling against …

Public Lands And The Federal Government’S Compact-Based “Duty To Dispose”: A Case Study Of Utah’S H.B. 148 – The Transfer Of Public Lands Act, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Recent legislation passed in March 2012 in the State of Utah — the “Transfer of Public Lands Act and Related Study,” (“TPLA”) also commonly referred to as House Bill 148 (“H.B. 148”) — has demanded that the federal government, by December 31, 2014, “extinguish title” to certain public lands that the federal government currently holds (totaling an estimated more than 20 million acres). It also calls for the transfer of such acreage to the State and establishes procedures for the development of a management regime for this increased state portfolio of land holdings resulting from the transfer. The State of …

"La Transposición De La Directiva 2011/83/Ue Al Derecho Del Reino Unido: 'The (Information, Cancellation And Additional Charges) Regulations 2013'", Luis González Vaqué

Luis González Vaqué

En este artículo se describe y explica sucintamente la transposición al Derecho del Reino Unido de la Directiva 2011/83/UE, de 25 de octubre de 2011, sobre los derechos de los consumidores, por la que se modifican la Directiva 93/13/CEE y la Directiva 1999/44/CE y se derogan las Directivas 85/577/CEE y 97/7/CE, teniendo en cuenta las tres principales áreas cubiertas por la citada Directiva 2011/83/UE: la información que los comerciantes deben facilitar al consumidor, el derecho de desistimiento en los contratos a distancia y los contratos celebrados fuera de un establecimiento y las medidas para impedir los costes encubiertos.

"Unfair Practices In The Food Supply Chain", Luis González Vaqué

Luis González Vaqué

No abstract provided.

Attribution Of Liability For Workplace Injuries Caused By Non-Employees- Recent Developments In The Law Of Non-Delegable Duty, Neil J. Foster

Neil J Foster

What I do in this paper is to open up in a fairly preliminary way an area of the law relating to attribution of liability that, while it has been around for a long time, I think is increasingly being misunderstood by scholars and the courts. I will mostly focus on the application of this principle in relation to workplace injuries, partly because that constitutes a significant area of its past and present application.

A Suggestion For The Renewal Of The Canon Law, Robert E. Rodes

Robert Rodes

No abstract provided.

The Federal Common Law Of Nations, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark

Anthony J. Bellia

Courts and scholars have vigorously debated the proper role of customary international law in American courts: To what extent should it be considered federal common law, state law, or general law? The debate has reached something of an impasse, in part because various positions rely on, but also are in tension with, historical practice and constitutional structure. This Article describes the role that the law of nations actually has played throughout American history. In keeping with the original constitutional design, federal courts for much of that history enforced certain rules respecting other nations' perfect rights (or close analogues) under the …

State Courts And The Making Of Federal Common Law, Anthony J. Bellia

Anthony J. Bellia

The authority of federal courts to make federal common law has been a controversial question for courts and scholars. Several scholars have propounded theories addressing primarily whether and when federal courts are justified in making federal common law. It is a little-noticed phenomenon that state courts, too, make federal common law. This Article brings to light the fact that state courts routinely make federal common law in as real a sense as federal courts make it. It further explains that theories that focus on whether the making of federal common law by federal courts is justified are inadequate to explain …

The Erie Doctrine Revisited: How A Conflicts Perspective Can Aid The Analysis, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

I have taught Civil Procedure for the past twenty-five years. Having returned to teaching Conflict of Laws last year, after not having taught that course since the mid-1980s, I was interested in re-examining the Erie doctrine from the vantage point of both of these subject areas. My goal was to see whether a combination of learning from these two related disciplines would introduce additional coherence into the analysis of this topic.

In one sense, the Erie doctrine and traditional choice of law determinations present analogous questions, since they both involve making a selection between competing legal rules. Choice of law …

Addressing The Incoherency Of The Preemption Provision Of The Copyright Act Of 1976, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

Section 301 of the Copyright Act of 1976 expressly preempts state law actions that are within the "general scope of copyright" and that assert claims that are "equivalent to" the rights conferred by the Act. The Act eliminated the previous system of common law copyright for unpublished works, which had prevailed under the prior 1909 Copyright Act. By federalizing copyright law, the drafters of the statute sought to achieve uniformity and to avoid the potential for state protection of infinite duration. The legislative history of § 301 stated that this preemption provision was set forth "in the clearest and most …