Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Law
Still Living After Fifty Years: A Census Of Judicial Review Under The Pennsylvania Constitution Of 1968, Seth F. Kreimer
Still Living After Fifty Years: A Census Of Judicial Review Under The Pennsylvania Constitution Of 1968, Seth F. Kreimer
All Faculty Scholarship
The year 2018 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1968. The time seems ripe, therefore, to explore the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s exercise of judicial review under the 1968 Pennsylvania Constitution. This Article constitutes the first such comprehensive exploration.
The Article begins with an historical overview of the evolution of the Pennsylvania Constitution, culminating in the Constitution of 1968. It then presents a census of the 372 cases in which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has vindicated distinctive Pennsylvania Constitutional rights under the Constitution of 1968.
Analysis of these cases leads to three conclusions:
1. Exercise of independent constitutional …
High-Stakes Interpretation, Ryan D. Doerfler
High-Stakes Interpretation, Ryan D. Doerfler
All Faculty Scholarship
Courts look at text differently in high-stakes cases. Statutory language that would otherwise be ‘unambiguous’ suddenly becomes ‘less than clear.’ This, in turn, frees up courts to sidestep constitutional conflicts, avoid dramatic policy changes, and, more generally, get around undesirable outcomes. The standard account of this behavior is that courts’ failure to recognize ‘clear’ or ‘unambiguous’ meanings in such cases is motivated or disingenuous, and, at best, justified on instrumentalist grounds.
This Article challenges that account. It argues instead that, as a purely epistemic matter, it is more difficult to ‘know’ what a text means—and, hence, more difficult to regard …
The Bylaw Puzzle In Delaware Corporate Law, David A. Skeel Jr.
The Bylaw Puzzle In Delaware Corporate Law, David A. Skeel Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
In less than a decade, Delaware’s legislature has overruled its courts and reshaped Delaware corporate law on two different occasions, with proxy access bylaws in 2009 and with shareholder litigation bylaws in 2015. Having two dramatic interventions in quick succession would be puzzling under any circumstances. The interventions are doubly puzzling because with proxy access, Delaware’s legislature authorized the use of bylaws or charter provisions that Delaware’s courts had banned; while with shareholder litigation, it banned bylaws or charter provisions that the courts had authorized. This Article attempts to unravel the puzzle.
I start with corporate law doctrine, and find …
Class Actions And The Counterrevolution Against Federal Litigation, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang
Class Actions And The Counterrevolution Against Federal Litigation, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang
All Faculty Scholarship
In this article we situate consideration of class actions in a framework, and fortify it with data, that we have developed as part of a larger project, the goal of which is to assess the counterrevolution against private enforcement of federal law from an institutional perspective. In a series of articles emerging from the project, we have documented how the Executive, Congress and the Supreme Court (wielding both judicial power under Article III of the Constitution and delegated legislative power under the Rules Enabling Act) fared in efforts to reverse or dull the effects of statutory and other incentives for …
Federal Securities Fraud Litigation As A Lawmaking Partnership, Jill E. Fisch
Federal Securities Fraud Litigation As A Lawmaking Partnership, Jill E. Fisch
All Faculty Scholarship
In its most recent Halliburton II decision, the Supreme Court rejected an effort to overrule its prior decision in Basic Inc. v. Levinson. The Court reasoned that adherence to Basic was warranted by principles of stare decisis that operate with “special force” in the context of statutory interpretation. This Article offers an alternative justification for adhering to Basic—the collaboration between the Court and Congress that has led to the development of the private class action for federal securities fraud. The Article characterizes this collaboration as a lawmaking partnership and argues that such a partnership offers distinctive lawmaking advantages. …
Federal Court Rulemaking And Litigation Reform: An Institutional Approach, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang
Federal Court Rulemaking And Litigation Reform: An Institutional Approach, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang
All Faculty Scholarship
The purpose of this article is to advance understanding of the role that federal court rulemaking has played in litigation reform. For that purpose, we created original data sets that include (1) information about every member of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules who served from 1960 to 2013, and (2) every proposal for amending the Federal Rules that the Advisory Committee approved for consideration by the Standing Committee during the same period and that had implications for private enforcement. We show that, beginning in 1971, when a succession of Chief Justices appointed by Republican Presidents have chosen committee members, …
The Rise And Fall And Resurrection Of American Criminal Codes, Paul H. Robinson
The Rise And Fall And Resurrection Of American Criminal Codes, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
This brief essay summarizes the virtues of the modern American codification movement of the 1960s and 70s, putting it in a larger global context, then describes how these once-enviable codes have been systematically degraded with thoughtless amendments, a process of degradation that is accelerating each year. After exploring the political dynamics that promote such degradation, the essay suggests the principles and procedures for fixing the current codes and, more importantly, structural changes to the process that could avoid the restart of degradation in the future.
Catalogs, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein
Catalogs, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein
All Faculty Scholarship
It is a virtual axiom in the world of law that legal norms come in two prototypes: rules and standards. The accepted lore suggests that rules should be formulated to regulate recurrent and frequent behaviors, whose contours can be defined with sufficient precision. Standards, by contrast, should be employed to address complex, variegated, behaviors that require the weighing of multiple variables. Rules rely on an ex ante perspective and are therefore considered the domain of the legislator; standards embody a preference for ex post, ad-hoc, analysis and are therefore considered the domain of courts. The rules/standards dichotomy has become a …
Rhetoric Of Disputes In The Courts, The Media, And The Legislature, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.
Rhetoric Of Disputes In The Courts, The Media, And The Legislature, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Feeney Amendment And The Continuing Rise Of Prosecutorial Power To Plea Bargain, Stephanos Bibas
The Feeney Amendment And The Continuing Rise Of Prosecutorial Power To Plea Bargain, Stephanos Bibas
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Compounding Or Creating Confusion About Supplemental Jurisdiction? A Reply To Professor Freer, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Stephen B. Burbank, Thomas M. Mengler
Compounding Or Creating Confusion About Supplemental Jurisdiction? A Reply To Professor Freer, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Stephen B. Burbank, Thomas M. Mengler
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
A Coda On Supplemental Jurisdiction, Stephen B. Burbank, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Thomas M. Mengler
A Coda On Supplemental Jurisdiction, Stephen B. Burbank, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Thomas M. Mengler
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Of Rules And Discretion: The Supreme Court, Federal Rules And Common Law, Stephen B. Burbank
Of Rules And Discretion: The Supreme Court, Federal Rules And Common Law, Stephen B. Burbank
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Note, The Preemption Doctrine: Shifting Perspectives On Federalism And The Burger Court, William W. Bratton
Note, The Preemption Doctrine: Shifting Perspectives On Federalism And The Burger Court, William W. Bratton
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.