Law Commons^™

No Cap: Analyzing The Kansas Supreme Court’S Decision To Overturn Caps On Non-Economic Damages In Hilburn V. Enerpipe Ltd., Raymond T. Rhatican

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

In the summer of 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state legislature’s cap on non-economic damages violated the state constitution’s right to trial by jury. In doing so, the Kansas high court overturned its own precedent in Miller v. Johnson, finding that the “inviolate” right to trial by jury is not subject to legislative meddling. Kansas also joined several other states, including Missouri, in rejecting a strained fact-law distinction employed by most states which uphold such caps in the face of right to jury challenges against the backdrop of “inviolate” constitutional language. There is little to no “rational …

A Little Overlap Never Hurt Anyone: Overlapping Ip Rights And Oracle Am., Inc. V. Google Llc, Evan Weidner

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

Intellectual property (“IP”) protections have traditionally been mutually exclusive; an innovator who obtains one type of protection could not obtain another on the same invention. Though the possibility of overlapping IP rights has changed substantially over the years, the general opinion remained one of disapproval until recently. In Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google LLC, the Federal Circuit voiced approval of overlapping IP rights. This article examines the history of overlapping IP rights and advocates that the Federal Circuit’s acceptance of such an overlap is the proper standard.

Table Of Contents

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tax Ethics And Legal Indeterminacy, Bret N. Bogenschneider

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

The modern framework of professional tax ethics is often given in reference to famous quotations of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes or Judge Learned Hand. The common quote from Holmes is that “the very meaning of a line in the law is that you may intentionally go as close to it as you can if you do not pass it”; Hand’s quote is that “there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible . . . [a taxpayer] is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not …

The Right Of Reattribution, Brian L. Frye

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

In some countries, copyright gives authors a “right to withdraw” works they disapprove. While the United States has no right to withdraw, it does have a practical equivalent. Authors can simply stop publishing a work, and refuse to allow anyone else to publish it. Of course, existing copies will still circulate. Still, restricting the supply of a work can still help reduce its public profile. After all, out of sight, out of mind. But there’s a problem. The whole purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to create works of authorship for the public to consume. Indeed, the government uses …

On The Effort To Discover And Eliminate Offshore Tax Abuse, Christian Hodgson

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

The practice of tax evasion includes dumping money into secretive offshore accounts to shield financial assets from discovery. U.S. taxpayers have used jurisdictions with low tax rates and secretive banking practices to store unreported financial assets. If the taxpayer chose not to report foreign assets, the existence of these accounts often remained undetected by the U.S. The uncollected taxes from these accounts was a justification for congressional action. The ability of the wealthy to take advantage of tax evasion and avoidance could be contributing to wealth inequality. The congressional response to offshore tax evasion includes the Bank Secrecy Act of …

The Law Can Be Dangerous To Lawyers’ Mental Health, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

The legal system sometimes provides important benefits such as helping people solve difficult problems, making institutions function properly, and promoting justice. But the process needed to achieve these goals often is extremely stressful for litigants. Not only do parties suffer stress, but also do lawyers, law students, and law professors. So we all need to take care of ourselves and others.

How To Calculate And Use Batnas And Bottom Lines With Lira, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This blog post provides an overview of the book, Litigation Interest and Risk Assessment: Help Your Clients Make Good Litigation Decisions, which I co-authored with Michaela Keet and Heather Heavin. The book describes how practitioners can (1) avoid common decision-making errors in litigation, (2) anticipate likely court outcomes, (3) communicate with clients about what’s most important to them, (4) help them make better decisions, (5) negotiate and mediate more effectively, and (6) learn about technological tools to help make decisions in litigation.

Instead of focusing only on the value of the best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA), the …

The Emerging Statutory Proximate Cause Doctrine, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Publications

The year 2011 marked the birth of a new idea. The United States decided Staub v. Proctor Hospital and for the first time invoked common law proximate cause in the context of federal employment discrimination law. It is rare in jurisprudence to be present at the birth of an idea and then see that idea develop over its first decade. This Article charts the emerging proximate cause doctrine from its early days as a baby doctrine. Now, the doctrine is pre-adolescent, with all of the changes and turmoil that phrase entails.

Generalist Judges And Advocates' Jargon, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

Clerking is a privilege. Fresh out of law school and eager to begin their careers, law clerks at any level of the federal or state judiciary covet the opportunity to learn from a judge’s reservoir of knowledge. But law clerks who anticipate careers writing as advocates are also well-positioned to learn about something that a judge may not know when briefs or other adversary submissions land on the desk.

That “something” concerns jargon, this article’s focus because its use by advocates can impede the court’s understanding of a case’s facts and law. “Jargon” refers to “special words or expressions that …

Description

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Mediation’S Future, Erin R. Archerd

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

A No-Contest Discharge For Uncollectible Student Loans, Brook E. Gotberg, Matthew Bruckner, Dalie Jimenez, Chrystin Ondersma

Faculty Publications

Over forty-four million Americans owe more than $1.6 trillion in student loan debt. This debt is nearly impossible to discharge in bankruptcy. Attempting to do so may require costly and contentious litigation with the Department of Education. And because the Department typically fights every case, even initial success can be followed by years of appeals. As a result, few student loan borrowers attempt to discharge their student loan debt in bankruptcy.

In this Article, we call on the Department of Education to develop a set of ten easily ascertainable and verifiable circumstances in which it will not contest a debtor’s …

Killing The Cat's Paw, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Publications

In federal employment discrimination law, courts apply the label "cat's paw" to describe certain cases. Judge Richard Posner first used the term cat's paw in the context of federal discrimination jurisprudence, invoking a fable about an enterprising monkey who tricks a cat into getting hot chestnuts from a fire.' As the cat removes the hot chestnuts from the fire, the monkey eats them, leaving the cat with nothing except burnt paws.

In its traditional form, a cat's paw case is one in which a biased individual passes along negative information about a worker to an "unbiased" decisionmaker. The "unbiased" decisionmaker …

Into The Weeds: Modern Discrimination Law, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Publications

Modern discrimination law is the law of minutiae. Judicial energy is not primarily focused on large questions about why workplace inequality exists or how to prevent it. It is not even focused on whether the plaintiff in a particular case was treated differently because of a protected trait. Instead, judicial energy centers on interpreting and applying an ever-growing phalanx of complicated court-created ancillary doctrines.

Since the 1970s, the federal courts have created a number of frameworks to analyze discrimination claims. Each framework provides a roadmap for proving a certain theory of discrimination. Over time, the courts have added bells and …

The Nagoya Protocol And The Legal Structure Of Global Biogenomic Research, Sam F. Halabi, Michelle Rourke, Gian Luca Burci, Rebecca Katz

Faculty Publications

As life sciences technologies have advanced, so too has the potential for these international collaborations to lead to breakthrough medicines, enhance food security, and protect ecological systems. The linchpin of this progress is the development of high throughput genetic sequencing technologies. Researchers are now able to generate and compare large stretches of DNA - 1 million bases or more - from different sources quickly and inexpensively. Such comparisons can yield massive amounts of information about the role of inheritance in susceptibility to infection and illness as well as responses to environmental influences. In addition, the ability to sequence genomes more …

Early Access To Unapproved Medicines In The United States And France, Erika Lietzan

Faculty Publications

In 2018, President Trump signed a federal "right to try" law, claiming that it would give desperately ill patients earlier access to unapproved medicines, by allowing the patient, doctor, and drug company to arrange for access without federal oversight. Critics of the law argued that it would not meaningfully increase access to experimental medicines, because federal oversight was not the obstacle in the first place. And they were correct. U.S. law already permitted companies to provide terminally ill patients with early access to unapproved medicines. The problem was instead that companies did not take advantage of this option. This Article …

Dead-Locked: Evaluating Judge-Imposed Death Sentences: Under Missouri's Death Penalty Statute, Michael J. Essma

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

The Man Behind The Curtain: How Mandatory Arbitration Impedes The Advancement Of Lgbtq+ Rights, Devon M. Loerch

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Legal Origin And Court Involvement: A U.S.-Israeli Comparison Of Commercial Arbitration, Annabelle Attias

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

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Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Faculty List

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

Faculty List

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Pouring A Little Psychological Cold Water On Online Dispute Resolution, Jean R. Sternlight

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Delivery Of Justice In A Self-Service Society, Michael L. Buenger

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

The Dispute Resolution Movement Needs Good Theories Of Change, John Lande

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Designing Online Dispute Resolution, Janet K. Martinez

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Will Discovery Kill Arbitration?, Kevin Mason

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.