Law Commons^™

Does Docket Size Matter? Revisiting Empirical Accounts Of The Supreme Court's Incredibly Shrinking Docket, Michael Heise, Martin T. Wells, Dawn M. Chutkow

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Drawing on data from every Supreme Court Term between 1940 and 2017, this Article revisits, updates, and expands prior empirical work by Ryan Owens and David Simon (2012) finding that ideological, contextual, and institutional factors contributed to the Court’s declining docket. This Article advances Owens and Simon’s work in three ways: broadening the scope of the study by including nine additional Court Terms (through 2017), adding alternative ideological and nonideological variables into the model, and considering alternative model specifications. What emerges from this update and expansion, however, is less clarity and more granularity and complexity. While Owens and Simon emphasized …

When Contact Kills: Indigenous Peoples Living In Voluntary Isolation During Covid, Sital Kalantry, Nicholas Koeppen

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

During the global pandemic, people around the world are at risk of serious illness and death from contact and proximity to other people. But Indigenous peoples, particularly those in voluntary isolation, have always faced that risk. International organizations have relied on the right to self-determination as the primary legal grounds to justify the principle of no-contact for Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. This Essay argues that the right to life and right to health when properly contextualized are stronger bases to push states to prevent outsiders from contacting people living in voluntary isolation.

Zoning For Families, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Is a group of eight unrelated adults and three children living together and sharing meals, household expenses, and responsibilities—and holding themselves out to the world to have long-term commitments to each other—a family? Not according to most zoning codes—including that of Hartford, Connecticut, where the preceding scenario presented itself a few years ago. Zoning, which is the local regulation of land use, almost always defines family, limiting those who may live in a dwelling unit to those who satisfy the zoning code’s definition. Often times, this definition is drafted in a way that excludes many modern living arrangements and preferences. …

A Theory Of Factfinding: The Logic For Processing Evidence, Kevin M. Clermont

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Academics have never agreed on a theory of proof. The darkest corner of anyone’s theory has concerned how legal decisionmakers logically should find facts. This Article pries open that cognitive black box. It does so by employing multivalent logic, which enables it to overcome the traditional probability problems that impeded all prior attempts. The result is the first-ever exposure of the proper logic for finding a fact or a case’s facts.

The focus will be on the evidential processing phase, rather than the application of the standard of proof as tracked in my prior work. Processing evidence involves (1) reasoning …

Dealing With Disruption: Emerging Approaches To Fintech Regulation, Saule T. Omarova

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

“Fintech” refers to a variety of digital assets, technologies, and infrastructure that deal with the operation of today’s financial markets. The regulation of this presents both legal and regulatory challenges. This article examines the regulatory responses to fintech disruption; specifically, the “experimentation” approach, the “incorporation” approach, and the “accommodation” approach. These approaches provide a baseline for further discussion and policy analysis in response to “Fintech.”

Sovereign Debt, Private Wealth, And Market Failure, Odette Lienau

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that the norms and legal practices of global finance in the arenas of sovereign debt and private wealth have led to a significant market failure, in particular the over-supply of sovereign borrowing and a related misallocation of global capital away from its most productive uses. It suggests that this deficiency rests on two related elements: First, a separation of the risks and benefits of sovereign state control, which has resulted from a failure to properly and coherently define the lines between ‘public’ and ‘private’ across the international financial arenas of sovereign borrowing and private client banking. And, …

Affordable Renewables - Unjust And Unreasonable?, Grace Brosofsky

Cornell Law Review

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)-an independent agency tasked with ensuring 'just and reasonable" energy rates-has begun to use energy market payment systems to prop up fossil fuels. FERC has issued orders that prevent renewables from competing with fossil fuels by forcing renewables to bid into energy markets at artificially high rates. FERC has argued that state clean energy subsidies distort energy markets by "suppressing prices" and pushing "needed" fossil fuel generators out of the market. According to FERC, a federal intervention is necessary to protect "market integrity" and ensure that consumers can access reliable electricity.

This Note argues that …

Virtual Briefing At The Supreme Court, Jeffrey L. Fisher, Allison Orr Larsen

Cornell Law Review

The open secret of Supreme Court advocacy in a digital era is that there is a new way to argue to the Justices. Today's Supreme Court arguments are developed online: they are dissected and explored in blog posts, fleshed out in popular podcasts, and analyzed and re-analyzed by experts who do not represent the parties or have even filed a brief in the case at all. This "virtual briefing" (as we call it) is intended to influence the Justices and their law clerks but exists completely outside of traditional briefing rules. This article describes virtual briefing and makes a case …

Volume 105, Number 1 Table Of Contents And Front Matter

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Emerging Practices And Developments In The Field Of Law Reporting: Lessons From Kenya, Teddy J.O. Musiga

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

Many users and/or consumers of law reports grapple with two major questions. The first question revolves around the issue why some judicial decisions are referred to as reported decisions, while others are referred to as unreported decisions. This question therefore deals with the dichotomy between reported judicial decisions and unreported judicial decisions. The second question flows from the first and relates to which categories of decisions appear in law reports (and therefore are classified as ‘reported’) and which ones do not (and therefore are classified as ‘unreported’). Put the other way around, that second question becomes: what are the criteria …

A Computational Analysis Of Constitutional Polarization, David E. Pozen, Eric L. Talley, Julian Nyarko

Cornell Law Review

This Article is the first to use computational methods to investigate the ideological and partisan structure of constitutional discourse outside the courts. We apply a range of machine- learning and text-analysis techniques to a newly available data set comprising all remarks made on the U.S. House and Senate floors from 1873 to 2016, as well as a collection of more recent newspaper editorials. Among other findings, we demonstrate (1) that constitutional discourse has grown increasingly polarized over the past four decades; (2) that polarization has grown faster in constitutional discourse than in nonconstitutlonal discourse; (3) that conservative-leaning speakers have driven …

Extending United States V. Mendoza: Why Defensive Nonmutual Issue Preclusion Is Unavailable Against The Federal Government, Jake E. Goodman

Cornell Law Review

Imagine a situation where the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is Looking to enforce the antifraud provision of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against two different companies, arising out of the same transaction. Now suppose the SEC sues Company A ftrst. However, the court finds no violation based on the factual determinations of the transaction and renders a judgment refusing to impose liability against Company A. Unsatisfied, the SEC decides to sue Company B under the same provision. Company B, however, believes the factual issues were already litigated and determined against Company A and wants to preclude relitigation …

The Audiences Of Statutes, David S. Louk

Cornell Law Review

Although a maxim of statutory drafting is to identify the relevant audience and draft so that the audience can "get the message," conventional theories of statutory interpretation often overlook important considerations about how statutes communicate and delegate to a diverse range of intended audiences. Statutes exist to change the conduct and behavior of many kinds of intended audiences, including administrative agencies, state and local governments, law enforcement officers, corporations, interest groups, lawyers, and laypeople. Influenced by lessons from the philosophies of law and language, this Article contends that Judicial statutory interpretation serves an important yet underappreciated role in providing a …

Challenging H-1b Denials In Federal Courts: Trends And Strategies, Hun Lee, Stephen W. Yale-Loehr

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The denial rate for H-1B petitions has quadrupled over the past few years, increasing from six percent in fiscal year (FY) 2015 to twenty-four percent in FY 2018. After President Trump issued his ‘‘Buy American and Hire American’’ executive order in April 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has effectively raised the standard of proof on H-1B petitions.

USCIS has used several reasons to deny H-1B petitions, including claims that the employer failed to show that a position qualifies as a ‘‘specialty occupation,’’ impermissibly assigned employees to third-party worksites, or failed to pay the required wage.

Under USCIS’s recent …

The People V The Patents And Companies Registration Agency Ex-Partes Finsbury Investment Limited And Zambezi Portland Cement Limited 2017/Ccz/R003 Selected Judgment No. 28 Of 2018, Chanda Chungu

SAIPAR Case Review

The dispute related to how to commence judicial review proceedings in Zambia. The applicant in this matter commenced judicial review proceedings in the High Court of Zambia by way of applying for leave. In between the period after the High Court granted leave to hear the merits of the judicial review and the hearing date, the Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA), the Respondent filed an application to discharge the leave granted. It was at this point that the Applicants filed summons, to have the matter referred to the Constitutional Court to determine whether or not the requirement for leave …

Oversight Failure In Securities Markets, Yesha Yadav

Cornell Law Review

According to statute, securities exchanges play an essential role in ensuring compliance with applicable laws and industry standards. Long imagined as unique in their institutional capacity to bring traders together, collect information and exclude problem participants from the marketplace, exchanges have offered an efficient source of private discipline for public regulators. The classic conception of the exchange, however, no longer holds true in today's markets. Rather than concentrate activity within a handful of exchanges, equity markets are fragmented across a network of thirteen exchanges and around forty lightly regulated, off-exchange alternative venues (colloquially, "dark pools"). This Article shows that the …

The People V The Patents And Companies Registration Agency Ex-Partes Finsbury Investment Limited And Zambezi Portland Cement Limited 2017/Ccz/R003 Selected Judgment No. 28 Of 2018, O'Brien Kaaba

SAIPAR Case Review

The matter came to the Constitutional Court by referral from the High Court. The Applicant applied for leave to issue judicial review process and leave was granted by the High Court. While the main application for judicial review was still pending, the Respondent filed an application to discharge the leave granted to the Applicant. The Applicant opposed this motion and then applied to have the matter referred to the Constitutional Court.

Incarceration Or E-Incarceration: California's Sb 10 Bail Reform And The Potential Pitfalls For Pretrial Detainees, Ashley Mullen

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Privacy As Pretext, Susan Hazeldean

Cornell Law Review

The terms of the debate over LGBT rights have shifted in recent years, particularly since the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land in Obergefell v. Hodges. Today, people against LGBT equality argue that curtailing LGBT rights is necessary to protect the rights of others. One potent rhetorical weapon used to oppose LGBT rights is the claim that antidiscrimination protections for LGBT people undermine privacy because they permit transgender people to use facilities that accord with their gender identity. This Article uses legal privacy theory to show that allowing transgender people into gendered facilities does not undermine …

Vol. 104, Number 7 Table Of Contents And Front Matter

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Does The Clear And Present Danger Test Survive Cost-Benefit Analysis?, Cass R. Sunstein

Cornell Law Review

Under American regulatory law, the dominant contemporary test involves cost-benefit analysis. The benefits of regulation must justify the costs; if they do, regulation is permissible and even mandatory. Under American free speech law, in sharp contrast, an important contemporary test for the regulation of speech involves "clear and present danger." In general, officials cannot censor or regulate political speech on the ground that the benefits of regulation justify the costs. They may proceed only if the speech is likely to produce imminent lawless action. In principle, it is not simple to explain why the free speech test does not involve …

Post-Denial Strategies: How To Get From "No" To "Yes", Diane M. Butler, Leslie K. Dellon, David Isaacson, Stephen W. Yale-Loehr

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) seems to be denying more petitions than ever these days. Cases that were solid approvals a few years ago now are receiving denials, even though the law and regulations have not changed. But don’t give up hope. Opportunities exist to overcome denials.

This practice advisory focuses on post-denial strategies for petitions filed with USCIS, not strategies in immigration court. The article discusses motions to reopen, motions for reconsideration, appeals to the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office (AAO), and litigation. This practice advisory also discusses when filing a new petition may be a better option, and …

Editor's Note, Tinenenji Banda

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 2, Issue 2 Table Of Contents

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 2, Issue 2 Masthead

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Konkola Copper Mines Plc V Nyasulu And 2000 Others Appeal No. 1/2012, Pamela Towela Sambo

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Vedanta Resources Plc And Konkola Copper Mines Plc V Lungowe And Others 2019 Uksc 20, Pamela Towela Sambo

SAIPAR Case Review

This case was initiated in the court of first instance, the England and Wales Technology and Construction Court (hereinafter referred to as the UK High Court Division) on 31 July 2015, by 1, 826 Zambian citizens who are resident in Chingola, Zambia. The claimants sought damages for personal injury, wide ranging environmental harm, damage to property, loss of income and amenity and enjoyment of land arising out of alleged pollution and environmental damage caused by the second appellant, Konkola Copper Mines (hereinafter referred to as ‘KCM’) at its Nchanga copper mine from about 2005 to date.

The first appellant, Vedanta …

Katz, Carpenter, And Classical Conservatism, Nicholas A. Kahn-Fogel

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

In 1967, in Katz v. United States, the Supreme Court adopted a privacy-based framework for determining whether government conduct constitutes a Fourth Amendment search. Under that standard, a search occurs when the government infringes on an expectation of privacy that "society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.'" Although the Court qualified its commitment to Katz in 2012 by asserting that an older, property-based approach survived Katz and remains the first-line test for identifying Fourth Amendment searches, most of the Court today is committed to preserving a role for the Katz standard. Yet, most of the justices have also recognized problems …

Alexander Bickel And The Demise Of Legal Process Jurisprudence, David Wolitz

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Contracting (Incompletely) For Success: Designing Pay For Success Contracts For Social Impact Bonds (Sibs), Deborah Burand

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

More than two dozen social impact bonds have been launched in the United States since the first was contracted by New York City in 2012. Dozens more of these transactions are in progress across the United States, and more are likely to come prompted, at least in part, by the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA) of 2018.

As the number of social impact bonds has grown, the architecture of the pay for success contracts that undergird social impact bonds is starting to take recognizable form in the United States. What explains the design of these pay …