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Full-Text Articles in Law

Federal Courts’ Recalcitrance In Refusing To Certify State Law Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Issues, Christopher French Jan 2022

Federal Courts’ Recalcitrance In Refusing To Certify State Law Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Issues, Christopher French

Journal Articles

Over 2,000 COVID-19 business interruption insurance cases have been filed in state and federal courts the past two years with most of the cases filed in or removed to federal courts. The cases are governed by state law. Rather than certify the novel state law issues presented in the cases to the respective state supreme courts that ultimately will determine the law applicable in the cases, each of the eight federal circuit courts to issue decisions on the merits in such cases to date has done so by making an Erie guess regarding how the controlling state supreme courts would …


Judicial Abstinence: Ninth Circuit Jurisdictional Celibacy For Claims Brought Under The Federal Declaratory Judgment Act, Steven Plitt, Joshua D. Rogers Jan 2004

Judicial Abstinence: Ninth Circuit Jurisdictional Celibacy For Claims Brought Under The Federal Declaratory Judgment Act, Steven Plitt, Joshua D. Rogers

Seattle University Law Review

This Article focuses upon abstention in the context of the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act ("FDJA"). Part I will discuss the various forms of abstention and the historical progression and development of the abstention doctrine in federal case law, setting the background for the expansive holding in Huth v. Hartford Insurance Company of the Midwest. Part II of the article will discuss the procedural history of Huth and the respective rulings of the district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as it relates to their application of the abstention doctrine. Part III will then analyze the numerous, and potentially …


Note, A Dialogue On The Political Question Doctrine, Thomas B. Mcaffee, Christopher A. Johnson Jan 1978

Note, A Dialogue On The Political Question Doctrine, Thomas B. Mcaffee, Christopher A. Johnson

Scholarly Works

Legal scholars have generally discussed the political question doctrine as part of the larger debate over the legitimacy of judicial review. Points of discordance aside, scholars have agreed that the doctrine is “a classic technique of judicial avoidance, a way of allowing a governmental decision to stand without involving the Court in supporting its legitimacy.” Thus, debate over the objectives, legitimacy and scope of the doctrine has traditionally proceeded from the unquestioned assumption that there exists a body of law which justifies judicial abstention from deciding some types of issues.

In recent years, however, some scholars have challenged the assumption …


The Duty To Decide Vs. The Daedalian Doctrine Of Abstention, Harlan S. Abrahams, Brian E. Mattis Jan 1977

The Duty To Decide Vs. The Daedalian Doctrine Of Abstention, Harlan S. Abrahams, Brian E. Mattis

Seattle University Law Review

It is the thesis of this article that the growing trend in the federal courts to refuse to exercise their assigned jurisdiction violates the doctrine of the separation of powers, and that the federal judiciary's excuses for refusing to perform their tasks do not pass constitutional muster. Specifically, this article will demonstrate that those excuses either do not rise to a level of constitutional concern sufficient to justify the trend or are based on a perversion of the admittedly constitutional concept of federalism, a concept affording the individual citizen a structural protection against arbitrary government in additionto the structural protection …


Federal Courts, Injunctions, Declaratory Judgments, And State Law: The Supreme Court Has Finally Fashioned A Workable Abstention Doctrine, Clair E. Dickinson Jan 1976

Federal Courts, Injunctions, Declaratory Judgments, And State Law: The Supreme Court Has Finally Fashioned A Workable Abstention Doctrine, Clair E. Dickinson

Cleveland State Law Review

The American judicial system is founded on several policies which act as guideposts for the courts. Among these is the policy that states should be as free from federal control as possible. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the view that federal courts have a duty to protect individuals from violations of their constitutional rights. These policies meet, and seemingly clash, when a plaintiff enters a federal court either to request a declaratory judgment that a state statute is unconstitutional or to seek an injunction against the enforcement of the statute. The balancing of these competing interests has …