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Navigating A Post-Windsor World: The Promise And Limits Of Marriage Equality, Nancy J. Knauer May 2014

Navigating A Post-Windsor World: The Promise And Limits Of Marriage Equality, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

When the 2013 landmark decision in U.S. v. Windsor invalidated part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), it was hailed as a landmark civil rights victory, but its implementation has been far from seamless. The federal government has not applied a uniform rule for marriage recognition, applying a state-of-domicile rule for some purposes (Social Security) and a broader state-of-celebration rule for others (e.g., federal tax matters). Moreover, Windsor did not directly address the state-level marriage prohibitions that remain in place in the majority of states. As a result, the United States continues to be a patchwork of marriage laws …


The Beginning Of The End Of Coverture: A Reappraisal Of The Married Woman’S Separate Estate, Allison Anna Tait Mar 2014

The Beginning Of The End Of Coverture: A Reappraisal Of The Married Woman’S Separate Estate, Allison Anna Tait

Allison Anna Tait

Before statutory enactments in the nineteenth century granted married women a limited set of property rights, the separate estate trust was, by and large, the sole form of married women’s property. Although the separate estate allowed married women to circumvent the law of coverture, historians have generally viewed the separate estate as an ineffective vehicle for extending property rights to married women. In this Article, I reappraise the separate estate’s utility and argue that Chancery’s separate estate jurisprudence during the eighteenth century was a critical first step in the establishment of married women as property-holders. Separate estates guaranteed critical financial …


On Trust And Transubstantiation: Mitigating The Excesses Of Ownership, Avihay Dorfman Jan 2014

On Trust And Transubstantiation: Mitigating The Excesses Of Ownership, Avihay Dorfman

Avihay Dorfman

The legal institution of trust gives rise to two basic sets of question. The first set concerns the respective rights held by the trustee and the beneficiary with respect to the trust property — do these rights feature a structure characteristic of property, contract, or something in between. The second concerns the normative relationship between the trustee and the beneficiary themselves — what explains the existence and content of the obligations owed by the trustee to the beneficiary, especially the fiduciary duty of loyalty, according to which the trustee is expected to act in the sole, rather than merely the …