Law Commons^™

Dispensing With Wills' Act Formalities For Substantively Valid Wills, J. Rodney Johnson

Law Faculty Publications

This article's thesis is that if it can be established by clear and convincing evidence (i) that a writing was intended to be a will, (ii) that the putative testator had the requisite capacity, and (iii) that the writing was not the product of fraud, duress or undue influence, then the writing ought to be admitted to probate as a will, even though it might fail to comply with some of the formalities contained in the statute of wills. Those who accept this thesis will agree that the present practice ofrequiring strict compliance with the formalities of the statute of …

Blood Bank And Blood Products Manufacturer Liability In Transfusion-Related Aids Cases, Dana J. Finberg

University of Richmond Law Review

Can a blood bank or a blood products manufacturer be held liable if a patient contracts AIDS through a transfusion of blood or a blood product? And, if so, should the bank or manufacturer be held liable? As of February 1989, approximately 200 cases touching on this issue were pending in the United States.

Remembering A.L. Philpott, Gerald L. Baliles

University of Richmond Law Review

The University of Richmond Law Review's dedication of its 1992 Annual Survey of Virginia Law to the late A.L. Philpott, Speaker of the House of Delegates, is a thoughtful and fitting tribute to a T.C. Williams alumnus and dear friend of the University, and a distinguished public leader in the life of the Commonwealth.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Bankruptcy Law, Michael A. Condyles

University of Richmond Law Review

This survey article reviews and analyzes legislative and judicial developments that have occurred in bankruptcy law between April, 1991 and April, 1992. The article is intended to alert the general practitioner to significant recent developments in the bankruptcy area. Legislative changes made to Virginia statutory law and federal bankruptcy decisions issued within the Fourth Circuit are the focus of this article.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Legal Issues Involving Children, Robert E. Shepherd Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

Three events in the past year significantly impacted the way the legal system treats children. First, the family court experiment being conducted under the auspices of the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Judicial Council was concluded. Second, the General Assembly established a state-wide, community-based, inter-agency system to deliver services to children and youth. Third, the Virginia Supreme Court promulgated the first set of statewide rules governing proceedings in juvenile and domestic relations district courts. The year's other developments were not as systemic or far reaching as those above, although recommendations flowing from the Youth Services Commission's' legislatively-mandated study of …

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Wills, Trusts, And Estates, J. Rodney Johnson

University of Richmond Law Review

The 1992 session of the General Assembly enacted legislation dealing with wills, trusts, and estates that added, amended, or repealed a number of sections of the Code of Virginia (the Code). In addition, in the year ending June 1, 1992, there were five cases from the Supreme Court of Virginia and two from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which involve issues of interest to both the general practitioner and the specialist in wills, trusts, and estates. This article analyzes each of these legislative and judicial developments.

On The Passing Of A.L. Philpott, Theodore V. Morrison Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

With the passing of Albert Lee Philpott last year I lost my mentor, constant friend, and the source of the greatest influence on my service in public office.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Administrative Law, James N. Christman

University of Richmond Law Review

This article covers changes made to the Virginia Administrative Process Act (VAPA) during the 1992 session of the General Assembly. It also covers selected recent cases from Virginia courts dealing with state administrative procedure decided between August 30, 1990 and September 17, 1992.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Business And Corporate Law, George Clemon Freeman Iii.

University of Richmond Law Review

This article surveys major developments between May, 1991 and June 1, 1992 that affect business and corporate law in Virginia. Part I discusses major decisions in United States courts. Part II reviews major decisions in Virginia courts. Part III summarizes laws enacted by the Virginia General Assembly during the 1992 Session.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Environmental Law, Theodore R. Kingsley, Carole M. Agee

University of Richmond Law Review

This article addresses significant developments in Virginia law pertaining to air quality, water quality and solid and hazardous waste which have occurred between the publication of the 1990 survey and May 1, 1992.

Cameras In Virginia Courtroom, Teresa D. Keller

University of Richmond Law Review

On July 1, 1992, Virginia joined forty other states by allowing cameras into state courtrooms on a permanent basis. A pilot program had been underway since 1987, allowing news coverage by television cameras, audio recorders, and still cameras in a handful of state courtrooms. Lawmakers had extended the experiment twice, delaying a permanent decision in the face of varying opinions about the success of the program. The Supreme Court of Virginia issued two reports over the five year span indicating the pilot program had produced a negative effect on the judicial process. Broadcasters, on the other hand, consistently claimed the …

Expanding The Judicial Power Of The Administrative Law Judge To Establish Efficiency And Fairness In Administrative Adjudication, C. Stuart Greer

University of Richmond Law Review

How is an administrative law judge ("ALJ") to know his role in the modern bureaucracy? On the one hand, the law requires the ALJ to adjudicate legal disputes between the government agency and the individual, and on the other hand, a black-robed member of the judicial branch in- structs him that he is out of his jurisdiction. Who wins in this decades-long battle for turf?

Disability Law Compliance Manual, Kathe A. Klare

University of Richmond Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law by President Bush on July 26, 1990, is viewed by many as the most significant civil rights legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As a result of census data, national polls, and other studies, there was a recognition that persons with disabilities, as a group, have been relegated to an inferior status in all realms of society. Thus, persons with disabilities have been, and remain, severely disadvantaged in achieving social interactions and vocational, economic and educational goals. The enactment of the ADA seeks to provide persons with disabilities the …

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Guardianship Laws: Reform Efforts In Virginia, Harriette Haile Shivers

University of Richmond Law Review

During the decade following 1978, six statewide initiatives addressed the need for reform in the Virginia guardianship system. In 1988, the General Assembly established a joint subcommittee to evaluate the status of guardianship in the Commonwealth and to make recommendations to enhance the existing program to ensure the protection of citizens who entrust their lives and property to the guardianship system. Additionally, prompted by the urgent need for a public response to the shortage of available guardians, the General Assembly directed the Department of Social Services to examine the possibility of reserving public guardianship for use only as a last …

The Supreme Court: Final Arbiter Of Our Nation's Legal Disputes, Strom Thurmond

University of Richmond Law Review

"I have had the opportunity to review twenty-three Supreme Court nominations during my thirty-seven years in the Senate."

The Role Of The Supreme Court, Charles E. Grassley

University of Richmond Law Review

Many people think of the Supreme Court exclusively as a place to safeguard individual rights. Without question, this is an important duty of the Court. However, the Supreme Court serves many other institutional functions as well. These crucial responsibilities are often overlooked, not only by the public, but by those who closely watch the Supreme Court at work.

The Supreme Court's Role: Guarantor Of Individual And Minority Group Rights, Nadine Strossen

University of Richmond Law Review

We have just celebrated the Bicentennial of the United States Bill of Rights, a marvelous document that not only has been used to secure a broad range of freedoms for many people in this country, but also has inspired and served as a model for liberty-loving peoples the world over. However, the freedoms enunciated in the Bill of Rights - as well as in other Constitutional provisions - are not self-enforcing.

Conservative Supreme Court: Its Impact On Traditional Values, Donald E. Wildman, Benjamin W. Bull

University of Richmond Law Review

Most court watchers agree that the changing composition of the Supreme Court will ineluctably favor the interests of traditional values organizations like the American Family Association. The next decade will surely see the Court return to a more balanced approach in line with the preservation of family values. Certainly some will characterize the new Court as more conservative. To the extent that it will emphasize core principles in the Constitution as the bedrock from which it must proceed, it will be conservative. Yet this is simply a return of the Court to its intended function: interpretation and application of law …

The Supreme Court: New Hope For The Restoration Of Federalism, Beverly Lahaye, Ellen O. Smith

University of Richmond Law Review

The recent philosdphical shift of the Supreme Court toward a more restrained or "conservative" approach to constitutional adjudication brings with it hope for the revitalization of federalism as a constitutional and political principle.

Balancing The Federal Judiciary, Anne Bryant

University of Richmond Law Review

Since the American Association of University Women first published the associational brief "Balancing the Federal Judiciary" in 1988, two new Associate Justices (David Souter and Clarence Thomas) have joined the Supreme Court. The Court has continued to chip away at the rights of women and minorities, with damaging decisions in areas such as reproductive rights (e.g., Webster v. Reproductive Health Services) and employment discrimination(e.g., Wards Cove Packing Company v. Atonio). With a conservative majority in place on the Supreme Court until well into the next century and Reagan and Bush appointees comprising more than half of the nation's federal judges, …

Reagan, Bush And The Supreme Court, Arthur J. Kropp

University of Richmond Law Review

What may be the most significant achievement of the Reagan-Bush years is one we have only begun to appreciate: the radical revolution in the federal courts. After nearly three terms of conservative presidents bent on remaking the federal judiciary, the courts have been transformed. They are far more conservative, and, despite Administration rhetoric to the contrary, decidedly more activist.

A Social-Conservative Comment On The New Supreme Court, Gary L. Bauer

University of Richmond Law Review

I recall seeing a column, not long ago, which referred to the Supreme Court as increasingly "a right-wing playground." Liberal groups may be able to raise funds off this impression, but if conservatives rely on it, they are in for a rude awakening when the gavel falls.

Raiding The Establishment: New Perspectives On Takeover Law, Samuel N. Levin

University of Richmond Law Review

This essay offers a brief description of certain factors influencing the development of the law governing corporate acquisitions. In its most basic terms, the central issue in this field boils down to who should control the wealth and power of our country. The issue encompasses choices based on political, economic and social values. It is my thesis that implicit favoring of establishment groups over "outsiders" underlies recent judicial and legislative actions bolstering management's ability to fend off unwanted acquisitions.

In Defense Of A Principled Judiciary, Edward E. Mcateer

University of Richmond Law Review

For decades, the justices themselves undermined the honor which ought to be afforded the third branch of the federal government as they regularly exceeded the proper, limited but vitally important role they ought to play. October term after October term, the justices acted as a permanent constitutional convention, disrupting legislative accommodations and settled precedent with regularity.

Mireles V. Waco: The Supreme Court Prescribes The Bitter Pill Of Judicial Immunity And Summary Reversal, Linwood I. Rogers

University of Richmond Law Review

This language opened Justice Douglas' stinging dissent in the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision of Pierson v. Ray, holding that section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act did not abolish the common law doctrine of judicial immunity. Eleven years later, the Court expanded and redefined the scope of the doctrine of judicial immunity in Stump v. Sparkman. The Stump Court attached immunity to actions of a judicial nature taken by a judge in his judicial capacity where such actions were not taken in the clear absence of all jurisdiction. But rather than clarifying the doctrine of judicial immunity, the …

Who's In Charge Of U.S. Indian Policy?: Congress And The Supreme Court At Loggerheads Over American Indian Religious Freedom, David E. Wilkins

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

The federal government's three branches—executive, legislative, judicial, and that unwieldy mass known simply as "the bureaucracy" have, during the last half-decade—1987-1991—produced a dizzying crop of laws, policies, proclamations, regulations, and court decisions which have served simultaneously to 1) reaffirm tribal sovereignty; 2) permit and encourage greater state interference within Indian Country; 3) enhance federal legislative authority over tribes; and 4) deny constitutional free-exercise protections both to individual Indians and to tribes.

On the legislative side, Congress has established the experimental Tribal Self-Governance Demonstration Project which is a major step towards restoring the tribal right of self-determination, and is discussing the …

Internal Tribal Fragmentation: An Examination Of A Normative Model Of Democratic Decision-Making, David E. Wilkins

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

A recent commentary by Gerald A. Alfred in the spring 1991 edition of the Northeast Indian Quarterly dealt with a subject matter which is either ignored or radically exaggerated when it is broached in Indian Country: political fragmentation (or segments or cleavages) and ideological conflict within North American Indian tribes and the ramifications of such internal conflict on tribal identity.

This paper, after restating Alfred's major points about Mohawk segmentation at Kahnawake, describes and then analyzes a viable alternative democratic decision-making model which has been specifically designed to address the problems of how not only to restore, but also to …

The Paradox Of United State Democracy, C. A. Gearty

University of Richmond Law Review

This program is about a paradox at the heart of American democracy. We take it for granted that elected officials, like President Bush and members of Congress, run America. In fact, many of the country's most important decisions are taken by nine unelected lawyers accountable to no one. It is a paradox which is increasingly under scrutiny as more and more Americans are coming to question the power of their Supreme Court.

It's Not Love, But It's Not Bad: A Response To Critics Of Prepaid College Tuition Plans, J. Timothy Philipps, Ed R. Haden

University of Richmond Law Review

Two years ago one of the authors published an article surveying the tax ramifications of prepaid college tuition plans, with a focus on the Michigan plan - the Michigan Education Trust ("MET"). That article took a generally positive view of such plans in general and of MET in particular. It discussed three basic themes: 1) the uncertainty of existing tax law with respect to prepaid tuition plans requires clarifying congressional legislation; 2) the position of the Internal Revenue Service ("Service") with respect to prepaid tuition plans, as enunciated in a private letter ruling addressed to MET, is flawed; and 3) …