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Full-Text Articles in Law

Revising Washington's Corporate Practice Of Medicine Doctrine, Lisa Rediger Hayward Apr 1996

Revising Washington's Corporate Practice Of Medicine Doctrine, Lisa Rediger Hayward

Washington Law Review

Current Washington law prohibits the corporate practice of medicine. The courts have interpreted this doctrine to prohibit the employment of physicians by any entity, other than a professional corporation or health maintenance organization, even if the corporation only performs business functions. This Comment discusses the corporate practice of medicine doctrine in Washington and its usefulness in the modem health care environment. It argues that two of the doctrine's underlying justifications are effectuated more sensibly by current regulatory provisions and that the doctrine should be retained only to prevent lay interference with physician autonomy in medical decisions. This Comment recommends that …


Abuse Of Judicial Review: The Unwarranted Demise Of The Sexually Violent Predators Statute By Young V. Weston, Nathaniel L. Taylor Apr 1996

Abuse Of Judicial Review: The Unwarranted Demise Of The Sexually Violent Predators Statute By Young V. Weston, Nathaniel L. Taylor

Washington Law Review

In Young v. Weston, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington struck down Washington's Sexually Violent Predators statute which allows involuntary commitment of persons classified as sexual predators. This Note analyzes the arguments that the court put forth when it determined that the statute was unconstitutional. This Note argues that the case was wrongly decided because the statute is a constitutionally sound exercise of the State's police power.


The Federal Advisory Committee Act: An Obstacle To Ecosystem Management By Federal Agencies, Sheila Lynch Apr 1996

The Federal Advisory Committee Act: An Obstacle To Ecosystem Management By Federal Agencies, Sheila Lynch

Washington Law Review

Ecosystem management, the new guiding concept for federal land management, requires collaboration and information sharing across ownership boundaries, facilitation of changes in social values, and adaptation to new scientific and social information. Particularly in the western states, the federal land management agencies have been involved to varying degrees in innovative collaborative processes with the goal of implementing ecosystem management. However, the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which places numerous procedural requirements on certain federal interactions with non-federal parties, has been cited as an obstacle to federal participation in these efforts. This Comment presents an analytic framework for determining when FACA …


Police Power, Gifts, And The Washington Constitution: A Framework For Determining The Validity Of Property Rights Legislation, Gregory M. Mohrman Apr 1996

Police Power, Gifts, And The Washington Constitution: A Framework For Determining The Validity Of Property Rights Legislation, Gregory M. Mohrman

Washington Law Review

In November 1995, Washington voters rejected Initiative 164, a revolutionary property rights law that would have required governmental entities to compensate landowners for any loss in property value due to regulations on land use, unless those regulations were designed to prevent a public nuisance. Despite the initiative's defeat at the polls, a strong property rights movement is likely to prompt legislators to consider implementing a percentage-loss formula for determining when regulators owe compensation to property owners. This Comment discusses the inherent police power of the state to regulate property use in the public interest and argues that percentage-loss laws would …


An Explanation Of Japan's Product Liability Law, Thomas Leo Madden Mar 1996

An Explanation Of Japan's Product Liability Law, Thomas Leo Madden

Washington International Law Journal

Japan has been contemplating the implementation of a product liability system since 1972. After much discussion, the Product Liability Law (Law No. 85 (1994)) was finally promulgated on July 1, 1994. It came into force one year later on July 1, 1995. In Japanese the law is called Seizōbutsu Sekinin Hō. The original article explains the law's historical significance and practical impact. It is commentary in style and is meant to serve as a basic guideline to help both consumers and businesses understand their respective rights and obligations under this new law.


Suburban Sprawl Or Suburban Villages? Defining Planning Principles For New Land Development In Indonesia, Stephen Day Mar 1996

Suburban Sprawl Or Suburban Villages? Defining Planning Principles For New Land Development In Indonesia, Stephen Day

Washington International Law Journal

Indonesian land use regulations are increasingly designating areas where urban growth is either targeted or excluded, echoing a similar trend in other Pacific Rim nations. Yet as with growth planning in the United States, there is a near total lack of regulatory direction guiding the form or pattern of urban development within the target areas. Sprawling suburban development, essentially patterned after midcentury-style American models, is rapidly consuming the most desirable developable land. Although significant policy goals and legislation are emerging that may provide the basis for suburban land planning principles, neither the central nor provincial governments have consistently articulated such …


Why Japan's New Products Liability Law Isn't, Andrew Marcuse Mar 1996

Why Japan's New Products Liability Law Isn't, Andrew Marcuse

Washington International Law Journal

The statutory language of Japan's 1994 Products Liability Act envisions a strict liability regime that would replace the previous negligence-based regime. This Comment reviews the development of the previous products liability regime, then analyzes the 1994 Products Liability Act in relation to Civil Code articles 415, 570, and 709 as well as EC Directive 85/374, and the 1975 Draft Model Law on Products Liability. The Comment concludes that because the 1994 Products Liability Act incorporates the Civil Code articles and their judicial interpretations, without addressing any of several structural and procedural barriers to suit, the 1994 Products Liability Act cannot …


Legal Protection Of Trade Secrets In The People's Republic Of China, Yuan Cheng Mar 1996

Legal Protection Of Trade Secrets In The People's Republic Of China, Yuan Cheng

Washington International Law Journal

The increasing need for an adequate legal framework for the protection of trade secrets in the People's Republic of China led to the 1993 promulgation of the Law for Countering Unfair Competition ("LCUC"). The LCUC has removed some of the barriers to obtaining effective remedies. Under the LCUC, the injured party can rely on a legal definition of "trade secrets," sue third parties, and expect that authorities will investigate violations. Nevertheless, barriers to adequate protection for trade secrets remain. In discussing the legal framework for trade secrets protection, this Article illustrates how the ambiguity of the LCUC's relationship with other …


Russian Dumping Of Radioactive Wastes In The Sea Of Japan: An Opportunity To Evaluate The Effectiveness Of The London Convention 1972, James R. Mccullagh Mar 1996

Russian Dumping Of Radioactive Wastes In The Sea Of Japan: An Opportunity To Evaluate The Effectiveness Of The London Convention 1972, James R. Mccullagh

Washington International Law Journal

By dumping 900 tons of radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan on October, 13, 1993, the Russian navy violated the moratorium on low-level radioactive waste dumping of the London Convention (the international treaty controlling ocean dumping). However, legal liability under the London Convention, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and international customary law arguably does not attach to this activity. Indeed, even though the London Convention was amended in November of 1993 to prohibit all ocean dumping of radioactive waste, Russia remains legally entitled to use the ocean as a disposal site for low-level …


Deforestation In Cambodia And Malaysia: The Case For An International Legal Solution, Heather A. Wolf Mar 1996

Deforestation In Cambodia And Malaysia: The Case For An International Legal Solution, Heather A. Wolf

Washington International Law Journal

The logging of tropical timber for the export market is the primary cause of deforestation in Southeast Asia. The problem of controlling the tropical timber trade has been addressed on both the national and international level. The existing legal mechanisms, however, have proven to be inadequate. A new multilateral agreement based on the import and export permit system of the Basel Agreement is necessary to control the timber trade and to aid in halting deforestation.


Phonorecords And Forfeiture Of Common-Law Copyright In Music, Mark A. Bailey Jan 1996

Phonorecords And Forfeiture Of Common-Law Copyright In Music, Mark A. Bailey

Washington Law Review

A highly disputed issue surrounding the Copyright Act of 1909 is whether the public distribution and sale of recordings of a musical work constitutes "publication." Historically, unless the author followed the Act's formal requirements for obtaining statutory protection, publication injected the musical work irrevocably into the public domain. In a 1995 decision, La Cienega Music Co. v. ZZ Top, the Ninth Circuit unwisely broke from the tradition and common understanding in the music industry by holding that phonorecord distribution is a publication of musical compositions. After examining the history and purpose of the Copyright Act, as well as the …


Implications Of Foundational Crisis In Mathematics: A Case Study In Interdisciplinary Legal Research, Mike Townsend Jan 1996

Implications Of Foundational Crisis In Mathematics: A Case Study In Interdisciplinary Legal Research, Mike Townsend

Washington Law Review

As a result of a sequence of so-called foundational crises, mathematicians have come to realize that foundational inquiries are difficult and perhaps never ending. Accounts of the last of these crises have appeared with increasing frequency in the legal literature, and one piece of this Article examines these invocations with a critical eye. The other piece introduces a framework for thinking about law as a discipline. On the one hand, the disciplinary framework helps explain how esoteric mathematical topics made their way into the legal literature. On the other hand, the mathematics can be used to examine some aspects of …


Can Reverse Engineering Of Software Ever Be Fair Use? Application Of Cambell'S "Transformative Use" Concept, John A. Williams Jan 1996

Can Reverse Engineering Of Software Ever Be Fair Use? Application Of Cambell'S "Transformative Use" Concept, John A. Williams

Washington Law Review

Several years after Atari v. Nintendo and Sega v. Accolade, debate and confusion remain within the U.S. software industry and legal community concerning the appropriate application of copyright's fair use doctrine to reverse engineering of software. This Comment discusses why and how the U.S. Supreme Court's recent fair use analysis in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music should be applied to help resolve the reverse engineering issue. Not only would application of Campbell's approach promote consistency among courts and confidence within the software industry, but it also would safeguard copyright's ultimate objective: the advancement of society's growth in science and …


Copyright Protection For Architectural Design: A Conceptual And Practical Criticism, Gregory B. Hancks Jan 1996

Copyright Protection For Architectural Design: A Conceptual And Practical Criticism, Gregory B. Hancks

Washington Law Review

The Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act of 1990 (AWCPA) extended copyright protection to architectural design as part of Congress's effort to conform U.S. law to the Berne Convention. U.S. courts previously had treated architecture as a "useful article" and generally had denied it protection under the "separability" doctrine. The AWCPA treats architecture similarly to other categories of copyrightable subject matter. Conceptually, this is inappropriate because (I) architectural design is a professional service, (2) architecture is a part of our public environment, and (3) architecture's expressive aspects cannot be adequately separated from its useful aspects. As a practical matter, the AWCPA …


Attorney Malpractice Liability To Non-Clients In Washington: Is The New Modified Multi-Factor Balancing Test An Improvement?, Sheryl L.R. Miller Jan 1996

Attorney Malpractice Liability To Non-Clients In Washington: Is The New Modified Multi-Factor Balancing Test An Improvement?, Sheryl L.R. Miller

Washington Law Review

Most jurisdictions recognize a cause of action for legal malpractice against a non-client only where the attorney-client relationship is formed to benefit a third-party nonclient. This rule generally operates to preclude an attorney's potential liability to a client's adversary. Washington departed from the majority in 1992 in Bohn v. Cody, where the Washington Supreme Court found that an attorney did owe a duty to his client's adversary. Two years later, in Trask v. Butler, the supreme court modified Bohn's test for determining attorney malpractice liability to third parties to conform Washington's law with the majority of jurisdictions. …


Defamation, Reputation, And The Myth Of Community, Lyissa Barnett Lidsky Jan 1996

Defamation, Reputation, And The Myth Of Community, Lyissa Barnett Lidsky

Washington Law Review

The complex interaction between defamation, reputation, and community values defines the tort of defamation. A defamatory communication tends to harm a plaintiff's reputation in the eyes of the plaintiffs community. Thus, to determine whether a given statement is defamatory, courts must first identify the plaintiff's community and its norms—an inquiry that presents both theoretical and doctrinal difficulties in a heterogeneous and pluralistic society. Current approaches to identifying the plaintiff's community are particularly inadequate in two common types of cases: (1) cases in which the plaintiff belongs to a subcommunity espousing different values than those prevailing generally, and (2) cases in …


Sudden Impact: The Effect Of Dolan V. City Of Tigard On Impact Fees In Washington, Joseph D. Lee Jan 1996

Sudden Impact: The Effect Of Dolan V. City Of Tigard On Impact Fees In Washington, Joseph D. Lee

Washington Law Review

As state and federal funding for public improvements steadily declines and is outstripped by demand, municipalities are turning to impact fees to fund public projects. However, the growth of impact fees has resulted in an increasing number of legal challenges by developers and private land owners. This Comment examines the evolution of impact fees in Washington and explores the legal concerns raised by the fees in light of Dolan v. City of Tigard. The Comment concludes that some impact fee statutes satisfy Dolan's "rough proportionality" test, while others do not adequately meet the U.S. Supreme Court's requirements. Impact …