Law Commons^™

Cut! . . . Out Of Credit Arbitration The Case For Giving Hollywood Directors A Formalized Dispute Resolution Procedure For Conflicts Of Attribution, Madeline Giles

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Dropping The Other Shoe: Personal Jurisdiction And Remote Technology In The Post-Pandemic World, Jenny Bagger

UC Law Journal

As the question of how new technology factors into the personal jurisdiction analysis remains unresolved, the vast increase in the reliance on remote technology that the COVID-19 pandemic spurred urges a definitive answer. Even when the pandemic comes to its end, the shift it caused towards remote interactions and the question of how these interactions affect personal jurisdiction will continue as society enters the post-pandemic world. The now-outdated Internet-specific test that lower courts created more than twenty years ago has caused more confusion than clarity and no longer suits the technology of a rapidly evolving society. As the new norm, …

Studying Nonobviousness, Jason Rantanen, Lindsay Kriz, Abigail A. Matthews

UC Law Journal

Many scholars have observed that an empirical study is only valid to the extent it is reliable. Yet assessments of the reliability of empirical legal studies are rare. The closest most scholarship comes is to compare the results of their studies to those of others. As a result, in many legal fields, including intellectual property law, scholars lack a grounded understanding of how valid or reliable empirical legal studies really are.

This Article examines the reliability of empirical studies of judicial decisions by closely comparing two recent studies of the patent law doctrine of nonobviousness. We find these studies provide …

Thirteenth Amendment Echoes In Fourteenth Amendment Doctrine, Christopher W. Schmidt

UC Law Journal

This Article argues that to better understand the historical development of Fourteenth Amendment antidiscrimination doctrine, we should look to the Thirteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment was drafted in response to debates over the meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment; it was widely understood at the time of ratification as building upon the constitutional commitments embodied in the Thirteenth Amendment; and assumptions about liberty and equality more commonly associated with the Thirteenth Amendment have had a recurring, if underappreciated, influence on judicial interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I trace these Thirteenth Amendment influences on the Fourteenth Amendment from Reconstruction to some of …

Avatars And Derivative Works: Harmonizing The Interests Of Creators And Consumers, Reina Shinohara

UC Law Journal

As we spend more of our days online, we are seeing a shift in content moving towards a progressively simulated reality. The virtual worlds of video games and other online communities have become a norm for many, with an influx of creative content derived from those spaces being widely shared and enjoyed by millions across the country. As instances of works featuring virtual worlds and our virtual representations within those worlds become more frequent, it becomes imperative that there be a clear delineation on what protections govern those expressions within and concerning those virtual spaces. Can an avatar be copyrighted? …

Identifying And Countering Fake News, Mark Verstraete, Jane R. Bambauer, Derek E. Bambauer

UC Law Journal

Fake news presents a complex regulatory challenge in the increasingly democratized and intermediated on-line information ecosystem. Inaccurate information is readily created by actors with varying goals, rapidly distributed by platforms motivated more by financial incentives than by journalistic norms or the public interest, and eagerly consumed by users who wish to reinforce existing beliefs. Yet even as awareness of the problem grew after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the meaning of the term “fake news” has become increasingly disputed and diffused. This Article first addresses that definitional challenge, offering a useful taxonomy that classifies species of fake news based on …

The Political Economy Of Foreign Sovereign Immunity, Maryam Jamshidi

UC Law Journal

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”) prohibits civil litigation against foreign states, their agencies, and instrumentalities unless one of several enumerated exceptions to immunity applies. The most important of these exceptions is for the commercial activity of foreign sovereigns. While underappreciated, various capitalist interests have comported with and been furthered by the FSIA. Applying a political economy lens, this Article demonstrates how the statutory framework for private litigation against foreign sovereigns has aligned with interests and prerogatives associated with particular stages of capitalist development—as evidenced by the historical evolution of foreign sovereign immunity doctrine and the FSIA’s eventual passage; the …

Trade Secrecy And Innovation In Forensic Technology, Eli Siems, Katherine J. Strandburg, Nicholas Vincent

UC Law Journal

Trade secrecy is a major barrier to public scrutiny of probabilistic software tools that are increasingly used at all stages of the criminal system, from policing and investigation through trial and sentencing. Such tools allow prosecutors to leverage imperfect forensic evidence, such as DNA mixtures, smudged fingerprints, and grainy video footage. Probabilistic software tools unavoidably rely on potentially contestable assumptions, parameters, and implementation choices. Judicially recognized trade secrecy in criminal cases impedes scrutiny of these tools by defendants and the public. Previous critics have focused on secrecy’s potential to undermine the integrity and fairness of the criminal justice system, invoking …

When Hospitals Sue Patients, Isaac D. Buck

UC Law Journal

Grimly demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals serve as the central hub of American health care. Increasingly exercising market power, setting clinical standards, and fostering innovation, hospitals’ influence over health care delivery and access is unmatched. They are the behemoth in the delivery chain, exerting unrivaled control.

As such, hospitals have naturally become the locus of the worst of the collision between consumerism and universality, between cost and access—a gloomy setting for citizens who simply cannot afford the health care they need to flourish, or to survive. Indeed, the price of American health care—a cost that is increasingly borne by …

Weaponizing Culture To Undermine International Women’S Rights, Lan Cao

UC Law Journal

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”) remains an emblem of hope and change in a world filled with continuing human rights violations. Its promise, enshrined in 1948, is as relevant then as it is now—that the international community would no longer allow a state’s brutal treatment of its own citizens to go unchallenged under the mantle of “sovereignty.”

But the UDHR is being challenged by authoritarians and dictators who rightly see the UDHR as an international check on their tyranny. It is also being questioned by Western communitarians who ironically see the UDHR’s enshrinement of international human rights as …

Liberty And Democracy Through The Administrative State: A Critique Of The Roberts Court’S Political Theory, Blake Emerson

UC Law Journal

The values of liberty and democracy repeatedly arise in recent Supreme Court opinions on administrative law. The conservative Justices have argued that the power vested in government agencies threatens individual freedom and collective self-government. This Article critiques these Justices’ use of political theory. It shows that the Justices do not faithfully and even-handedly apply the complex tradition of American political thought on which they rely. They invoke several different and competing aspects of liberty and democracy to criticize the administrative state. But because the Justices do not disentangle the various aspects of these two values from one another, they draw …

Making A Constitutional “Son Of Sam” Law: Netflix’S Booming True Crime Business, Justin Burnworth

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Meron Wendwesen, Katrina Uyehara

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Nobody’S Business: A Novel Theory Of The Anonymous First Amendment, Jordan Wallace-Wolf

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Namelessness is a double-edged sword. It can be a way of avoiding prejudice and focusing attention on one’s ideas, but it can also be a license to defame and misinform. These points have been widely discussed. Still, the breadth of these discussions has left some of the depths unplumbed, because rarely is the question explicitly faced: what is the normative significance of namelessness itself, as opposed to its effects under different conditions? My answer is that anonymity is an evasion of responsibility for one’s conduct. Persons should ordinarily be held responsible for what they do, but in some cases, where …

Deepfake Reckoning: Adapting Modern First Amendment Doctrine To Protect Against The Threat Posed To Democracy, Alyssa Ivancevich

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A New Prescription For The Opioid Epidemic: 360- Degree Accountability For Pharmaceutical Companies And Their Executives, Rebecca A. Delfino

UC Law Journal

We can no longer ignore this—a national crisis resulting in almost one million American deaths, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, ravaging the health care system, and devastating state and local communities. This narrative describes the COVID-19 pandemic and something else: the epidemic of opioid addiction and abuse. In the last twenty years, the opioid epidemic claimed the lives of more than 700,000 people at the cost of more than 500 billion dollars to the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the opioid epidemic worse, causing a staggering increase in opioid-related overdose deaths. Even now, on average, 140 people die …

Dismantling The Master’S House: Establishing A New Compelling Interest In Remedying Systemic Discrimination, Chris Chambers Goodman, Natalie Antounian

UC Law Journal

This Article proposes a new compelling interest to justify affirmative action policies. Litigation has been successful, to a point, in preserving affirmative action, but public support of the diversity and inclusion rationales for race-conscious policies is waning. Equity abhors a vacuum, and so this Article promotes a return to remedial justifications for affirmative action programs and policies. It begins with an overview of the strict scrutiny standard, providing background on what constitutes compelling government interests, and what meets the narrowly tailoring element. After exploring the Court’s dismantling of the societal discrimination justification for affirmative action programs, this Article makes the …

Saving The Sinking Ship: How The United States Can Create An Effective Content Moderation Policy By Looking Abroad, Zhi Yang Tan

UC Law Journal

Each day, the world creates another 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, with most of it being accessible by the average person through the smartphone they carry in their pocket. That data may often take the form of informative new articles or funny cat videos, but also hidden within that sea of information is content designed for more malicious purposes. While much of the world, and especially the U.S., has historically taken a laissez-faire approach to moderating online content, such an approach is quickly becoming outdated and ineffective as more people are exposed to disinformation or hate speech online, which can …

Dispute Resolution Commercial Transactions Along The Belt And Road: Creating Fair And Consistent Judgments, Sara Zokaei

UC Law Journal

For over forty years, China has promulgated national policies of opening-up and cooperation with other nations. Over the past eight years, China has been expanding its efforts to uphold these policy goals via the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global infrastructure project. With this increase in international economic activity and commercial transactions, China has recognized the need for judicial reform to better serve the legal needs of foreign parties. Given China’s preference for peaceful cooperation, arbitration, and mediation, reform was necessary to cater to the needs of foreign parties who prefer litigation.

In parallel with the Belt and Road Initiative, …

Taking Stock: Open Questions And Unfinished Business Under The Vawa Amendments To The Indian Civil Rights Act, Jordan Gross

UC Law Journal

The primary statutory tool for federal regulation of Tribal court criminal procedure is the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (ICRA). ICRA replicated most of the procedural protections in the Bill of Rights applicable to the States, as then interpreted by the Supreme Court. ICRA also sets out procedures Tribes must extend to criminal defendants in their courts, caps their sentencing authority, and defines their criminal jurisdiction.

Some parts of Indian country are the most dangerous places in the United States today, particularly for indigenous women and girls. They are exposed to a higher level of personal violence than any …

Privacy In Wearables: Innovation, Regulation, Or Neither, Kenny Gutierrez

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

No abstract provided.

U.S. State-Based Wilderness Law: An Evaluation, Miranda Holeton, David Takacs

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Tides Of Plastic: Using International Environmental Law To Reduce Marine Plastic Pollution, Mckayla Mcmahon

UC Law Environmental Journal

The oceans are drowning in plastic pollution. Although it is widely accepted that this pollution exists, international law falls short in protecting one of our most valued ecosystems. Countries differ in commitment and accountability, yet the ocean is a shared and valued resource. This paper seeks to differentiate the approaches made by Germany, Australia, and the Philippines to combat marine plastic and microplastic pollution. In the absence of robust international environmental law, individual country’s efforts can expand the customary principles and lead the international community to adopt effective, all-encompassing international policy. By mirroring successes and modifying individual country’s ineffective approaches, …

Centering Environmental Justice In California: Attempts And Opportunities In Ceqa, Lena Freij

UC Law Environmental Journal

Environmental justice communities and advocates have used the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) as a necessary tool to incorporate their concerns into agency decision-making. However, environmental justice is neither mentioned in the statutory language of CEQA, nor was it intended as a fundamental purpose of CEQA as an environmental review statute. Thus, in order to understand where CEQA reform would be most successful in serving communities that are disproportionately impacted by environmental burdens, CEQA’s history must be evaluated with comprehensive principles of environmental justice. As such, this paper explores why and how environmental justice principles can and should be implemented …

The Psychology Of Secret Settlements, Gilat Juli Bachar

UC Law Journal

The #MeToo movement called attention to the use of non-disclosure clauses in settlement agreements as a tool to silence victims of sexual wrongdoing by repeat offenders such as movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and Olympic gymnast doctor Larry Nassar. The exposure of such secret settlements prompted a fierce policy and scholarly debate on the legitimacy and desirability of NDAs. Though the risk of NDAs hindering accountability is hardly new, NDAs are now increasingly the subject of legislative action, in states ranging from California and New York to Nevada and Tennessee. But should all NDAs be banned or limited by sunshine-in- litigation …

Masthead

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Jenny Sui, Nick Wood

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

No abstract provided.

For The Betterment Of All Mankind: Claiming The Benefits Of Outer Space Through Intellectual Property Rights, Maeve Dineen

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

No abstract provided.