Law Commons^™

A Different Approach To Agency Theory And Implications For Esg, Jonathan Bonham, Amoray Riggs-Cragun

Seattle University Law Review

In conventional agency theory, the agent is modeled as exerting unobservable “effort” that influences the distribution over outcomes the principal cares about. Recent papers instead allow the agent to choose the entire distribution, an assumption that better describes the extensive and flexible control that CEOs have over firm outcomes. Under this assumption, the optimal contract rewards the agent directly for outcomes the principal cares about, rather than for what those outcomes reveal about the agent’s effort. This article briefly summarizes this new agency model and discusses its implications for contracting on ESG activities.

Overseeing The Administrative State, Jill E. Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

In a series of recent cases, the Supreme Court has reduced the regulatory power of the Administrative State. Pending cases offer vehicles for the Court to go still further. Although the Court’s skepticism of administrative agencies may be rooted in Constitutional principles or political expediency, this Article explores another possible explanation—a shift in the nature of agencies and their regulatory role. As Pritchard and Thompson detail in their important book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court was initially skeptical of agency power, jeopardizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s ambitious New Deal plan. The Court’s acceptance …

The Sec, The Supreme Court, And The Administrative State, Paul G. Mahoney

Seattle University Law Review

Pritchard and Thompson have given those of us who study the SEC and the securities laws much food for thought. Their methodological focus is on the internal dynamics of the Court’s deliberations, on which they have done detailed and valuable work. The Court did not, however, operate in a vacuum. Intellectual trends in economics and law over the past century can also help us understand the SEC’s fortunes in the federal courts and make predictions about its future.

A Hard Pill To Swallow: The Abysmal Mental Health Standards Of Detained Immigrant Children In The United States, Rama Bankesly

Seattle University Law Review

After setting foot into the U.S., unaccompanied children must learn to navigate academic and legal systems while receiving little support and carrying the heavy burden of effects of trauma on their mental health. They need access to mental health care from qualified professionals, but as this Comment will explain, they systematically fail to receive care, as can be seen in cases like Doe v. Shenandoah Valley Juv. Ctr. Comm’n. In Shenandoah, an unaccompanied child arrived in the U.S. and was placed in a facility that failed to provide remotely adequate mental health care and in fact was subjected …

Churching Nimbys: Creating Affordable Housing On Church Property, Patrick E. Reidy, C.S.C.

Journal Articles

In recent years, faith communities across the United States have begun to create affordable housing on church property, inspired by sincerely held religious beliefs. Some are building microhomes behind their houses of worship. Others are converting residences once used by religious ministers—from rectories to abbeys to convents—into units for seniors and low-income families. Still others are repurposing their vacant schools, church parking lots, and undeveloped parcels of land for denser multifamily structures, from townhouses to apartment buildings. Within housing-advocacy circles and among faith communities, these continent-wide efforts to create affordable housing on church property have manifested an affirmative declaration: “Yes, …

Municipal Abortion Bans: When Local Control Clashes With State Power, Laura D. Hermer

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Anti-abortion activists are using different strategies in different states. Some focus on restricting zoning for abortion clinics. Others address the licensure of abortion providers. Some purport to create a cause of action for private individuals to sue neighbors and others in their municipality who get an abortion. Still, others seek to enforce the federal Comstock Act, alleging that it prohibits the mailing of abortifacients and preempts state abortion law to the contrary.

This Article evaluates the likely success of each of these strategies in two states in which they are currently being tried: Nebraska and New Mexico. Part I will …

Appoint Judge Ana De Alba To The Ninth Circuit, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

The United States Senate must rapidly appoint Eastern District of California Judge Ana de Alba to the Ninth Circuit. This appellate tribunal is a preeminent regional circuit, which faces substantial appeals, has the largest complement of jurists, and clearly includes a massive geographic expanse. The nominee, whom President Joe Biden designated in spring 2023, would offer remarkable gender, experiential, ideological, and ethnic diversity realized primarily from serving productively with the California federal district, and state trial, courts after rigorously litigating for one decade in a highly regarded private law firm. For over fifteen years, she deftly excelled in law’s upper …

The Right To Trial By Jury Shall Remain Inviolate: Jury Trials In Civil Actions In Georgia’S Courts, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

Trials, though rare, “shape almost every aspect of procedure,” and the jury trial is a distinctive feature of civil litigation in the United States. The Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ‘preserves’ the right to jury trial “[i]n suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars.” Even though this amendment does not apply to the states, courts in the states “honor the right to the extent it is created in their constitutions or local statutes.”

The Georgia Constitution provides that “[t]he right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate,” and Georgia’s appellate courts have shown …

Students For Fair Admissions: Affirming Affirmative Action And Shapeshifting Towards Cognitive Diversity?, Steven A. Ramirez

Seattle University Law Review

The Roberts Court holds a well-earned reputation for overturning Supreme Court precedent regardless of the long-standing nature of the case. The Roberts Court knows how to overrule precedent. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Court’s majority opinion never intimates that it overrules Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court’s leading opinion permitting race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Instead, the Roberts Court applied Grutter as authoritative to hold certain affirmative action programs entailing racial preferences violative of the Constitution. These programs did not provide an end point, nor did they require assessment, review, periodic expiration, or revision for greater …

The Death Of The Evolving Standards Of Decency, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Eighth Amendment Punishments Clause is in jeopardy. The constitutionality of punishments is usually judged according to the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” And in evaluating these standards, the Court has traditionally looked to changing societal views on punishment. This is a living constitution approach to interpretation, and the Eighth Amendment is the only area of law in which the Court has consistently and explicitly ap-plied such an approach. But a living constitution approach is diametrically opposed to the current Court’s focus on originalism. This is the first originalist Court in history, and …

Confusion, Chaos, And Conflict In U.S. Law And Health Care After Dobbs, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision caused a proliferation of contradictory state laws and judicial decisions that are producing confusion for health care providers, which in turn limits access to care for all patients of reproductive age. This paper documents the rapidly changing legal landscape to investigate and contextualize the significance of these inter‑state conflicts and illustrate how inequities deepen when health care is left in the hands of state governments without national law to provide guardrails. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, including legal, medical, and public health research, this essay considers how traditional federalism theory, which encourages sub‑government variation, does …

Applying The Public Trust Doctrine To Local Governments, Talia O. Thuet

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Under the public trust doctrine, the government holds public lands in trust for the public and cannot unreasonably restrict citizens from accessing them or otherwise breach its duties as a trustee. The public trust doctrine is often thought of as a state law doctrine. However, local governments own a significant portion of public land. Some local governments argue that the public trust doctrine does not apply to them because the state is the proper trustee under the public trust doctrine. This Comment argues that the public trust doctrine applies to local governments. State law preempts local government law on matters …

Can State Legislatures Strip Federal Courts Of Jurisdiction To Review State Laws?, Matthew I. Hall, Eliza K. Hall

Scholarly Works

For more than a century, federal courts have relied on the Ex parte Young doctrine to provide authority to protect individual constitutional rights against state infringement. Ex parte Young provides the primary mechanism for federal judicial review of allegedly unconstitutional state laws, permitting persons whose federal rights are affected by state law to seek an injunction in federal court against the state officials charged with enforcing the law. By some accounts, the Ex parte Young doctrine is an exception to sovereign immunity; by others, it is merely an example of the “traditional tool of equity” known as the anti-suit injunction. …

Estrella V. Janney Montgomery Scott Llc, 296 A.3d 97 (R.I. 2023)., Kayla M. Brown

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Finnimore & Fisher Inc. V. Town Of New Shoreham, 291 A.3d 977 (R.I. 2023)., Austin F. Gibilisco

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

2023 Rhode Island Public Laws

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Barrier Breakers: Celebrating The Rhode Island Supreme Court’S First Female Majority, Kailey E. Chalmers

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Premier Land Dev. V. Kishfy, 287 A.3d 19 (R.I. 2023)., Samantha Rhodes

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Morillo, 285 A.3d 995 (R.I. 2022)., Ryan J. Becker

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Battle Over Gender-Affirming Healthcare For Transgender Minors: Analyzing Anti-Transgender Healthcare Bills In Arkansas And Texas, Brandon Calton

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Bankruptcy & Commercial Law, Sally Mcdonald Henry

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This Article analyzes and discusses cases—arising from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Bankruptcy Courts in Texas, the Texas Supreme Court, and the Texas Courts of Appeals—that resolved some fascinating and important issues in the areas of bankruptcy and commercial law during this Survey period.

Civil Procedure: Pre-Trial & Trial, Amanda Sotak, Don Colleluori, Andrew C. Whitaker

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Insurance Law, J. Price Collins, Janet Tolbert, Ashley Gilmore

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This Article describes and analyzes major developments in insurance law that occurred in Texas between December 1 and November 30 of 2023.

Survey Of Recent Mandamus Decisions Of The Texas Supreme Court, Douglas S. Lang

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Franchise Law, Deborah S. Coldwell, Kristina Pierre-Louis, Sam Mallick, Wilson Miller, Chris Hamborsky

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Partnership Law, Troy Christensen, Jeff Dorrill, Matthew Schindel, Madeline Ballard, James Barnett

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This Article summarizes and discusses meaningful joint venture cases decided by the Texas Courts of Appeals between December 1, 2022, and November 30, 2023. This Article focuses on fiduciary duty issues, the interrelationship between certain partnership and bankruptcy laws, fraud claims in the joint venture arena, the application of arbitration clauses in joint venture agreements, and the separate existence of related joint ventures, among other issues.

Wills & Trusts, Gerry W. Beyer

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article discusses developments relating to the Texas law of intestacy, wills, estate administration, trusts, and other estate planning matters during the Survey period of December 1, 2022, through November 30, 2023. The reader is warned that not all newly enacted statutes or decided cases during the Survey period are presented, and not all aspects of each statute or case are analyzed. You must read and study each statute or case’s full text before relying on it or using it as precedent. The discussion of most cases includes a moral, that is, the important lesson to be learned from the …

Real Property, J. Richard White, Amanda Grainger

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Professional Liability, Shelby Taylor, R. Max Ward, Josh Sherman

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This Article describes and analyzes major developments in professional liability law that occurred in Texas between December 1, 2022, and November 30, 2023.