Law Commons^™

Fireside Chat With Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton And Professor Nikolas Bowie: A Discussion About The Relevance And Impact Of State Constitutional Law, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Expanding The Ban On Forced Arbitration To Race Claims, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

When Congress passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (“EFASASHA”) in March 2022, it signaled a major retreat from the Supreme Court’s broad enforcement of agreements to force employees and consumers to arbitrate discrimination claims. But the failure to cover protected discriminatory classes other than sex, especially race, tempers any exuberance attributable to the passage of EFASASHA. This Article prescribes an approach for employees and consumers to rely upon EFASASHA as a tool to prevent both race and sex discrimination claims from being forced into arbitration by employers and companies. This approach relies upon procedural …

Patient Autonomy, Public Safety, And Drivers With Cognitive Decline, Sharona Hoffman, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

With a growing elderly population, cognitive decline in drivers has become a significant public safety concern. Currently, over thirty-two million individuals who are seventy or older have driver’s licenses, and that number is growing quickly. In addition, almost ten percent of U.S. seniors (those sixty-five and older) have dementia, and an additional twenty-two percent have mild cognitive impairment. Between a quarter and a half of individuals with mild to moderate dementia still drive. As cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, and decision-making skills deteriorate, a driver's ability to operate a vehicle safely can be compromised. This not only puts the …

Target(Ed) Advertising, Derek E. Bambauer

UF Law Faculty Publications

Targeted advertising—using data about consumers to customize the ads they receive—is deeply controversial. It also creates a regulatory quandary. Targeted ads generate more money than untargeted ones for apps and online platforms. Apps and platforms depend on this revenue stream to offer free services to users, if not for their financial viability altogether. However, targeted advertising also generates significant privacy risks and consumer resentment. Despite sustained attention to this issue, neither legal scholars nor policymakers have crafted interventions that address both concerns, and existing regulatory regimes for targeted advertising have critical gaps.

This Article makes three key contributions to the …

Fears, Faith, And Facts In Environmental Law, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Environmental law has long been shaped by both the particular nature of environmental harms and by the actors and institutions that cause such harms or can address them. This nation’s environmental statutes remain far from perfect, and a comprehensive law tailored to the challenges of climate change is still elusive. Nonetheless, America’s environmental laws provide lofty, express protective purposes and findings about reasons for their enactment. They also clearly state health and environmental goals, provide tailored criteria for action, and utilize procedures and diverse regulatory tools that reflect nuanced choices.

But the news is far from good. Despite the ambitious …

Unavoidability In U.S. Privacy Law, Laura M. Moy

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Why is U.S. privacy law structured the way it is, with a series of sectoral laws rather than a cross-sectoral law or laws? Why does U.S. privacy law protect information shared in certain contexts—such as information shared with an attorney, a healthcare provider, or a financial provider—rather than particular types of information? One possibility is that sectoral laws apply to contexts in which people typically share highly “sensitive” information containing intimate secrets or with the potential to harm them financially or psychologically.

But this Article argues that there is something else at play—that in fact, an under-discussed and underappreciated factor …

The Lawlessness Of Sackett V. Epa, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

When the Supreme Court speaks on a disputed statutory interpretation question, its words and edicts undoubtedly are the final judicial word, binding lower courts and the executive branch. Its majority opinions are the law. But the Court’s opinions can nonetheless be assessed for how well they hew to fundamental elements of respect for the rule of law. In particular, law-respecting versus law-neglecting or lawless judicial work by the Court can be assessed in the statutory interpretation, regulatory, and separation of power realms against the following key criteria, which in turn are based on some basic rule of law tenets: analysis …

Digital Inclusion For People With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Review Of The Current Legal Models And Doctrinal Concepts, James Hutson, Piper Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Objective: Today, a significant part of professional tasks are performed in the digital environment, on digital platforms, in virtual and other meetings. This necessitates a critical reflection of traditional views on the problem of accessible environment and digital accessibility, taking into account the basic universal needs of persons with disabilities.

Methods: A gap between the traditional legal perspective on special working conditions for persons with disabilities and the urgent need of a digital workplace (digital environment) clearly shows lacunas in the understanding of accessibility, which are identified and explored with formal-legal and doctrinal methods. The multifaceted aspects of …

Symposium On Transformative Gender Law: A Roger Williams Law Review Event 11-3-2023, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Cyber Plungers: Colonial Pipeline And The Case For An Omnibus Cybersecurity Legislation, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The May 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline was a wake-up call for a federal administration slow to realize the dangers that cybersecurity threats pose to our critical national infrastructure. The attack forced hundreds of thousands of Americans along the east coast to stand in endless lines for gas, spiking both prices and public fears. These stressors on our economy and supply chains triggered emergency proclamations in four states, including Georgia. That a single cyberattack could lead to a national emergency of this magnitude was seen by many as proof of even more crippling threats to come. Executive Director of …

Fostering Patient Safety: Importance Of Nursing Documentation, Shamsa Samani, Salma Amin Rattani

School of Nursing & Midwifery

Background: Nurses are professionally accountable for assessing and documenting patients’ vital signs. Nurses failing to fulfill this responsibility position their patients at risk. This paper presents two real-life cases pertaining to patients’ safety resulting in fatal outcomes, leading to the professional, legal, and ethical liability of nurses as the providers of patient care.
Objective: This paper focuses on the role of organizational culture in fostering patient safety specifically in monitoring and documentation of patients’ vital signs and early recognition of warning signs.
Methodology: A comprehensive literature search was conducted using various databases, examining the significance of vital signs monitoring and …

Federal Environmental Justice Legislation And Regulations, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Considering A Right To Repair Software, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

The right to repair movement aims to extend the usability of products by allowing a consumer (or a repair professional acting on the consumer’s behalf) to fix broken products. Implicitly, the movement’s focus has been on hardware—on the right to repair cars, tractors, and phones. But as more and more of the functionality of goods comes from software, it is important to consider whether we need a right to repair software. There are practical challenges to software repair. For example, fixing software is more difficult and treacherous than fixing hardware. Complicating matters further, more and more software is embedded in …

The Supreme Court Review Act: Fast-Tracking The Interbranch Dialogue And Destabilizing The Filibuster, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

This Essay presents an analysis of the Supreme Court Review Act, a bill that was recently introduced in Congress. The Act would create a streamlined legislative process for bills responding to new Supreme Court decisions that interpret federal statutes or restrict constitutional rights. By facilitating legislative responses to controversial cases, the Act would promote the “dialogue” that commentators and the courts themselves have used as a model for interbranch relations. The Essay describes how the proposed Supreme Court Review Act would work, discusses some of its benefits, addresses its constitutionality, and raises some questions about its implementation and effects.

If We Build It, Will They Legislate? Empirically Testing The Potential Of The Nondelegation Doctrine To Curb Congressional "Abdication", Daniel E. Walters, Elliott Ash

Faculty Scholarship

A widely held view for why the Supreme Court would be right to revive the nondelegation doctrine is that Congress has perverse incentives to abdicate its legislative role and evade accountability through the use of delegations, either expressly delineated or implied through statutory imprecision, and that enforcement of the nondelegation doctrine would correct for those incentives. We call this the Field of Dreams Theory—if we build the nondelegation doctrine, Congress will legislate. Unlike originalist arguments for the revival of the nondelegation doctrine, this theory has widespread appeal and is instrumental to the Court’s project of gaining popular acceptance of a …

6th Annual Stonewall Lecture 2-2-2023, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Jazz Improvisation And The Law: Constrained Choice, Sequence, And Strategic Movement Within Rules, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article argues that a richer understanding of the nature of law is possible through comparative, analogical examination of legal work and the art of jazz improvisation. This exploration illuminates a middle ground between rule of law aspirations emphasizing stability and determinate meanings and contrasting claims that the untenable alternative is pervasive discretionary or politicized law. In both the law and jazz improvisation settings, the work involves constraining rules, others’ unpredictable actions, and strategic choosing with attention to where a collective creation is going. One expects change and creativity in improvisation, but the many analogous characteristics of law illuminate why …

Federal Rules Of Private Enforcement, Luke Norris, David L. Noll

Law Faculty Publications

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were made for a different world. Fast approaching their hundredth anniversary, the Rules reflect the state of litigation in the first few decades of the twentieth century and the then-prevailing distinction between "substantive" rights and the "procedure" used to adjudicate them. The role of procedure, the rulemakers believed, was to resolve private disputes fairly and efficiently. Today, a substantial portion of litigation in federal court is brought under regulatory statutes that deploy private lawsuits to enforce public regulatory policy. This type of litigation, which scholars refer to as "private enforcement," is the engine for …

Sieracki Lives: A Portrait Of The Interplay Between Legislation And The Judicially Created General Maritime Law, Thomas C. Galligan Jr.

Journal Articles

In American maritime law, the interplay between the courts and Congress is complex and iterative. A significant body of American admiralty law, the general maritime law, has been judicially created and developed. But Congress has also enacted a number of important statutes governing maritime commerce and the rights of maritime workers, such as the Longshore and Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act (“LHWCA”). The back and forth between the courts and Congress in interpreting those statutes and gauging their impact on and consistency with the general maritime law is ongoing. One important area where the courts development of the general maritime law …

Responding To The New Major Questions Doctrine, Christopher J. Walker

Articles

The new major questions doctrine has been a focal point in administrative law scholarship and litigation over the past year. One overarching theme is that the doctrine is a deregulatory judicial power grab from both the executive and legislative branches. It limits the president’s ability to pursue a major policy agenda through regulation. And in the current era of political polarization, Congress is unlikely to have the capacity to pass legislation to provide the judicially required clear authorization for agencies to regulate major questions. Especially considering the various “vetogates” imposed by Senate and House rules, it is fair to conclude …

Digital Nudges: Contours And Challenges, Avishalom Tor

Book Chapters

Digital nudges—that is, significantly behavioral interventions that use software and its user-interface design elements—are an increasingly pervasive feature of online environments that shapes behavior both online (e.g., changing online privacy settings) and offline (e.g., taking a flu vaccine due to a text message reminder). Although digital nudges share many characteristics of their offline counterparts, they merit particular attention and analysis for two important reasons: First, the growing ubiquity of digital nudges makes encountering them nearly unavoidable in daily life, thereby bringing into sharper relief the promise and perils of nudges more generally. Second, the potentially greater potency of digital—compared to …

Utilizing Legal Expertise To Positively Impact Coastal Communities, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Out Of Bounds?: Abortion, Choice Of Law, And A Modest Role For Congress, Susan Frelich Appleton

Scholarship@WashULaw

This invited contribution to a symposium on the multiple intersections of family law and constitutional law grapples with the emerging problems of jurisdictional competition and choice of law in interstate abortion situations in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—as abortion-hostile states seek to impose restrictions beyond their borders and welcoming states seek to become havens for abortion patients, regardless of their domicile. Grounded in a conflict-of-laws perspective, the essay lays out the interstate abortion chaos invited by Dobbs and the threat to our federal system that it presents, given Congress’s failure to codify a national right to …

Pink Tax And Other Tropes, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Law reform advocates should be strategic in deploying tax tropes. Through an examination of five common tax phrases—the “nanny tax,” “death tax,” “soda tax,” “Black tax,” and “pink tax”—this Article demonstrates that tax rhetoric is more likely to influence law when used to describe specific economic injustices resulting from actual government duties, as opposed to figurative inequalities. In comparison, slogans describing figurative taxes are less likely to influence law and human behavior, even if they have descriptive force in both popular and academic literature as a short-hand for group-based disparities. This Article catalogues and evaluates what makes for effective tax …

Protecting Low-Income Consumers In The Era Of Digital Grocery Shopping: Implications For Wic Online Ordering, Qi Zhang, Priyanka Patel, Caitlin M. Lowery

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is now expected to allow participants to redeem their food benefits online, i.e., via online ordering, rather than only in-store. However, it is unclear how this new benefit redemption model may impact participants’ welfare since vendors may have an asymmetric information advantage compared with WIC customers. The WIC online ordering environment may also change the landscape for WIC vendors, which will eventually affect WIC participants. To protect WIC consumers’ rights in the new online ordering model, policymakers need an appropriate legal and regulatory framework. This narrative review provides that …

Understanding The Role Of Transportation In Human Trafficking In California, Kezban Yagci Sokat

Mineta Transportation Institute

Human trafficking, a form of modern slavery, is the recruitment, transport, and/or transfer of persons using force, fraud, or coercion to exploit them for acts of labor or sex. According to the International Labor Organization, human trafficking is the fastest growing organized crime with approximately $150 billion in annual profits and 40.3 million individuals trapped in slave-like conditions. While it is not compulsory to involve transportation for human trafficking, the transportation industry plays a critical role in combating human trafficking as traffickers often rely on the transportation system to recruit, move, or transfer victims. This multi-method study investigates the role …

Social Media Harms And The Common Law, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article finds fault with the judiciaries' failure to create a set of common law norms for social media wrongs. In cases concerning social media harms, the Supreme Court and lower courts have consistently adhered to traditional pre-social media principles, failing to use the power of the common law to create a kind of Internet Justice.

Part I of this article reviews social media history and explores how judicial decisions created a fertile bed for social media harm to blossom. Part II illustrates social media harms across several doctrinal disciplines and highlights judicial reluctance to embrace the realities of social …

Washington State Sausage Making: Attempting To Measure The Efficiency Of The Legislature, Jonathon Church

PPPA Paper Prize

This paper explores the validity and justification for using how a bill dies in the Washington State legislative process to better critique and measure government efficiency. The information was gathered through interviews with former and current members of the State Legislature and from first-hand experience while working as an intern during the 2022 legislative session. Part one of the paper utilizes multiple sources to present a detailed description of the various ways in which a bill can fail to make it through the legislative process during the regular session. Part two then expands on how these obstacles in a bill's …

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden, Gregory W. Bowman, Brooklyn Crockton

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Stephen Wermiel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

It is an honor and a pleasure to help the American UniversityLegislationandPolicy Brief carry on its fine tradition of scholarly inquiry into important issues facing the nation, the legislatures and the public policy arena. AULPB is an important forum within WCL for student authors to examine cutting edge, timely issues. It is also a focal point, beyond the bounds of the WCL campus, for authors to consider a broad range of pressing issues that combine law and policy questions.