Law Commons^™

News Reporting On Trump's Covid-19 Treatments: Should Broadcasters Have To Disclose Their Being Potentially Dangerous?, Dr. Joel Timmer

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, President Trump touted a number of treatments that many medical professionals considered dangerous. These treatments include hydroxychloroquine and disinfectants, which if misused could cause a patient’s death. This prompted Free Press to file an emergency petition with the FCC, arguing that broadcasters who report on Trump’s claims about these treatments without highlighting their dangers could be in violation of the Commission’s broadcast hoax rule. Free Press also requested the FCC require that broadcasters include disclaimers when reporting on such claims. This article examines whether the broadcast hoax rule has been …

Table Of Contents

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

No abstract provided.

The Thickness Of Blood: Article I, Section 7, Law Enforcement, And Commercial Dna Databases, Hannah Parman

Washington Law Review

Law enforcement agencies increasingly use online commercial and open source DNA databases to identify suspects in cases that have long since gone cold. By uploading crime scene DNA to one of these websites, investigators can find family members who have used the website and build a family tree leading back to the owner of the original DNA. This is called “familial DNA searching.” The highest profile use of this investigative method to date occurred in California, but law enforcement in Washington State has been quick to begin utilizing the method as well. However, article I, section 7 of the Washington …

Suspects, Cars & Police Dogs: A Complicated Relationship, Brian R. Gallini

Washington Law Review

Officers are searching and arresting vehicle occupants without a warrant with increasing regularity. For justification, this Article demonstrates, lower courts across the country unconstitutionally expand the scope of the Fourth Amendment’s automobile exception—often in the context of a positive dog alert. But Supreme Court jurisprudence specifically limits the scope of the automobile exception to warrantless searches of cars and their containers. In other words, the probable cause underlying the automobile exception allows police to search a vehicle and its containers—nothing more.

Despite that clear guidance, this Article argues that a growing number of lower courts nationwide unconstitutionally rely on the …

Teamwork Or Collusion? Changing Antitrust Law To Permit Corporate Action On Climate Change, Dailey C. Koga

Washington Law Review

In an era of apprehension about climate change and the future of our planet, private companies are increasingly recognizing their role in increasing sustainability and lowering carbon emissions. To address this growing concern, some industry leaders are taking unilateral action to implement sustainable practices, but other companies have made agreements to fight emissions together. However, the Sherman Antitrust Act forbids agreements in restraint of trade. Further, antitrust law traditionally has refused to recognize ethical or moral justifications as legitimate reasons to permit anticompetitive agreements. As society’s concern for the planet grows and elected leaders move slower than needed to address …

Sonograms And Speech: Informed Consent, Professional Speech, And Physicians' First Amendment Rights, Oliana Luke

Washington Law Review

Abortion is an extremely divisive topic that has caused waves of litigation. The right to access abortion has traditionally been challenged based on due process, equal protection, and privacy grounds. However, in a more recent string of cases, physicians have been challenging laws that require the physician to narrate an ultrasound before an abortion as an abridgment of their First Amendment rights. These cases require courts to balance the government’s ability to reasonably regulate a physician through professional licensing with the physician’s First Amendment protections against government-compelled speech. This Comment argues that, to balance these ideals and survive First Amendment …

Super-Statutory Contracting, Kristelia A. García

Washington Law Review

The conventional wisdom is that property rules induce more—and more efficient—contracting, and that when faced with rigid property rules, intellectual property owners will contract into more flexible liability rules. A series of recent, private copyright deals show some intellectual property owners doing just the opposite: faced with statutory liability rules, they are contracting for more protection than that dictated by law, something this Article calls “super-statutory contracting”—either by opting for a stronger, more tailored liability rule, or by contracting into property rule protection. Through a series of deal analyses, this Article explores this counterintuitive phenomenon, and updates seminal thinking on …

Predictive Facts, Brent Ferguson

Washington Law Review

A substantial portion of constitutional law rests on untested factual predictions made by the Supreme Court. Such forecasts have played a large role in a wide range of case outcomes, helping the Court decide questions such as whether corporations have the right to spend money on elections and what evidence may be used in criminal cases despite Fourth Amendment violations.

Scholars have not yet studied the frequency of such predictions, the problems they create, or the functions they serve. The literature has looked more closely at court decisions that depend on conclusions of legislative fact—facts not specific to a certain …

Protecting Protected Activity, Daiquiri J. Steele

Washington Law Review

The United States Supreme Court recently rolled back protections in employment retaliation cases by requiring plaintiffs to prove that their protected activity was the but-for cause of adverse actions by their employers. As a result, employers may escape liability even though the employee-plaintiffs have proven that employers had an impermissible motive in taking adverse actions. In doing so, the Court undermined the underlying statutes’ retaliation provisions created to help enforce the underlying statute, leading to a court-instituted failure to protect activity that Congress sought to protect.

While legal scholars have paid much attention to the establishment of a but-for causation …

Restoring Reasonableness To Workplace Religious Accommodations, Dallan F. Flake

Washington Law Review

When Congress amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 1972 to require employers to reasonably accommodate employees’ religious practices absent undue hardship to their business, it intended to protect employees from being forced to choose between their jobs and their religious beliefs. Yet in the decades since, courts have cut away at this right to the point it is practically nonexistent. Particularly concerning is the growing tendency of courts to read reasonableness out of the accommodation requirement, either by conflating reasonableness and undue hardship so that an accommodation’s reasonableness depends solely on whether it would cause the employer …

Ring, Amazon Calling: The State Action Doctrine & The Fourth Amendment, Grace Egger

Washington Law Review Online

Video doorbells have proliferated across the United States and Amazon owns one of the most popular video doorbell companies on the market—Ring. While many view the Ring video doorbell as useful technology that protects the home and promotes safer neighborhoods, the product reduces consumer privacy without much recourse. For example, Ring partners with cities and law enforcement agencies across the United States thereby creating a mass surveillance network in which law enforcement agencies can watch neighborhoods and access Ring data without the user’s knowledge or consent. Because Amazon is not a state actor, it is able to circumvent the due …

Washington's One-Size-Fits-All Unemployment Compensation Eligibility In Cases Of Voluntary Separation, Julia Fleming

Washington Law Review Online

Washington State’s Employment Security Act allows individuals who voluntarily left their jobs to be eligible for unemployment benefits if they quit their position with “good cause.” In structuring this Act, the state’s legislature has confined the definition of good cause to a one-size-fits-all list consisting of eleven circumstances. Consequently, if a situation arises that forces an individual to quit their job, yet does not fall into one of those eleven outlined circumstances, the Employment Security Department will disqualify the individual from receiving unemployment benefits. In comparison with other states’ unemployment laws, Washington’s system is quite limited, allowing no discretion under …

Unregistered Patents, Miriam Marcowitz-Bitton, Emily Michiko Morris

Washington Law Review

Although all should be treated equally under the law, patent law has long been known to favor some less than others. Patentable technology is highly heterogeneous, covering everything from minute improvements in electronics to pioneering new artificial organs, but patent protection itself is purely a one-size-fits-all system. Patents thus overreward some while underrewarding others. On the one hand, patents overreward low-investment, low-value inventions by granting them the same twenty-year term of protection as those that required much higher investments and yield much higher social value. The resulting glut of low-quality patents has contributed greatly to the “patent crisis” of opportunistic …

Never Mistake Law For Justice: Releasing Indigent Defendants From Legal Purgatory, R.K. Brinkmann

Washington Law Review

Washington courts impose two mandatory legal financial obligations (LFOs) on almost anyone who pleads guilty to or is convicted of a crime: a $100 DNA sample fee and a crime victim penalty assessment of $250 for misdemeanors and $500 for felonies. These fines run afoul of the Social Security Act, which bars attachment of Social Security benefits to pay debts, including LFOs. As a result, defendants whose sole source of income is Social Security benefits are not obligated to pay their mandatory LFOs. But such defendants cannot obtain certificates of discharge to clear their conviction records and thus complete their …

Seeking (Some) Climate Justice In State Tort Law, Karen C. Sokol

Washington Law Review

Over the last decade, an increasing number of path-breaking cases have been filed throughout the world, seeking to hold fossil fuel industry companies and governments accountable for their actions and inactions that have contributed to the climate crisis. This Article focuses on an important subset of those cases—namely, the recent surge of cases brought by states, cities, and counties all over the United States alleging that the largest fossil fuel industry actors, including ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron, are liable in state tort law for harms caused by climate change.

The Article begins with a synthesis of the history of …

License To Offend: How The Nlra Shields Perpetrators Of Discrimination In The Workplace, Molly Gibbons

Washington Law Review

Congress established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or the Board) to enforce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or the Act) and ensure fair labor practices in workplaces across the United States. The NLRA protects employees from discipline while engaging in union activity. Under the NLRA, employers and unions must collectively bargain in good faith. Either party may only walk away from the table when another party’s conduct makes good faith bargaining impossible. However, the NLRB’s determination of what conduct constitutes bad faith bargaining and protected union speech is inconsistent with federal anti- discrimination laws. This discrepancy means employers …

The Law Of Blockchain, Georgios Dimitropoulos

Washington Law Review

Blockchain technology is a new general-purpose technology that poses significant challenges to the existing state of law, economy, and society. Blockchain has one feature that makes it even more distinctive than other disruptive technologies: it is, by nature and design, global and transnational. Moreover, blockchain operates based on its own rules and principles that have a law-like quality. What may be called the lex cryptographia of blockchain has been designed based on a rational choice vision of human behavior. Blockchain adopts a framing derived from neoclassical economics, and instantiates it in a new machinery that implements rational choice paradigms using …

Distorted Drug Patents, Erika Lietzan, Kristina M.L. Acri Née Lybecker

Washington Law Review

Drug patents are distorted. Unlike most other inventors, drug inventors must complete years of testing to the government’s specifications and seek government approval to commercialize their inventions. All the while, the patent term runs. When a drug inventor finally launches a medicine that embodies the invention, only a fraction of the patent life remains. And yet, conventional wisdom holds—and empirical studies show—that patent life is essential to innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, perhaps more so than any other inventive industry. Congress tried to address this in 1984, authorizing the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to “restore” a portion of the …

Erie Slapp Back, Jack B. Harrison

Washington Law Review

Dozens of states have enacted anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) laws to counter SLAPP suits, or lawsuits filed to silence a defendant who has spoken out against a plaintiff. The primary goal of a SLAPP suit is not to win on the merits, but rather to discourage the defendant from exercising their right to free speech by threatening excessively expensive litigation. State anti-SLAPP laws provide for special motions to dismiss, discovery limitations, and fee shifting, all designed to allow a defendant to expeditiously dispose of the SLAPP suit before engaging in costly discovery.

This Article discusses the development of …

Notpetya, Not Warfare: Rethinking The Insurance War Exclusion In The Context Of International Cyberattacks, Katherine S. Wan

Washington Law Review

When an insurer wants to avoid coverage of a specific type of loss, it must explicitly exclude the loss in its policy. The war exclusion is a typical exclusion found in insurance policies that excuses insurers from covering losses caused by war or warlike actions. Courts interpreting the exclusion have traditionally held that war must consist of hostilities between sovereign nations. Despite the rise of state-sponsored cyberattacks, the United States has been hesitant to officially declare war in response. Even still, insurers argue that their war exclusions should apply to these new cyber losses. Courts are now tasked with reanalyzing …

Data Protection In Disarray, Thomas D. Haley

Washington Law Review

Businesses routinely lose or misuse individuals’ private information, with results that can be devastating. Federal courts often leave those individuals without legal recourse by dismissing their lawsuits for lack of standing, even though plaintiffs in these cases provide stronger showings of harm than courts usually require. Using an original data set, this Article shows how standing analysis in these cases has gone awry and argues that the standing inquiry in today’s data-protection cases harms both public policy and standing doctrine.

This Article makes three contributions to literatures in federal courts and privacy. First, it shows that current federal court practice …

The Abandoned Wards Of Admiralty: The Supreme Court’S Course Change On The Availability Of Punitive Damages To Seamen In Unseaworthiness Claims, Hillary Smith Weise

Washington Law Review

This Comment compares Dutra Group v. Batterton and Tabingo v. American Triumph LLC, two significant but contradictory admiralty decisions on the availability of punitive damages in unseaworthiness claims. It argues that the Washington State Supreme Court’s decision in Tabingo—that punitive damages should be permissible in unseaworthiness claims—is far better from both policy and doctrinal standpoints. From a doctrinal perspective, maritime law has traditionally permitted punitive damages in admiralty cases. Therefore, it would have been more appropriate for the Court to adhere to the principle that it is better to allow a remedy in admiralty proceedings so long as …

Jury Nullification Instructions As Structural Error, Susan Yorke

Washington Law Review

Jury nullification is a legal problem child. Aberrant but built into the Constitution, rebellious but merciful, lawless but often just, it defies easy categorization. Courts have been reluctant to discuss this unruly character, preferring that it remain in the shadows. When federal and state laws diverge, however, the problem of nullification rears its head, sometimes prompting courts to undertake the delicate task of talking about the unmentionable. This Article examines what courts can say about nullification—and what should happen on appeal if they say too much.

It is a basic tenet of criminal procedure that a trial court cannot direct …

All Bets Are Off: Preempting Major League Baseball’S Monopoly On Sports Betting Data, Beatrice Lucas

Washington Law Review

Major League Baseball is in the process of collectivizing data used in sports betting. This could be exempt from antitrust scrutiny if the conduct falls within the “business of baseball.” Such an exemption raises the question of whether collecting official league data is sufficiently attenuated from the “business of baseball” to be subject to antitrust law, and if so, whether MLB violates the Sherman Act by excluding competitors from the league data market. This Comment makes a two-fold argument. First, it argues that the “business of baseball” should be constrained to cover activities directly linked to putting on baseball games. …

Reflection On Shale Gas Fracking Risk Assessment And Management In The United States, Yosra Abid

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the current technology of choice for developing most shale gas reserves. This technology allows increased production of natural gas from formerly inaccessible shale formations. One of the primary environmental impacts of concern for fracking is its potential to contaminate water.

This paper focuses on the potential risks affecting the drinking-water resources throughout the complete lifecycle of a drilled and fractured well. Given the significant environmental concerns, fracking risk assessment (what we know about the risk), and fracking risk management (what we wish to do about the risk) appear to be indispensable steps for the enactment …

Table Of Contents

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Climate Change Action And Adaptation In Tokyo, Yuichiro Tsuji Prof.

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

This paper reviews an adaptation plan for the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The Japanese Government decided to remain in the Paris Agreement and began trying to reduce CO2 with technology after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. Nuclear power plants were closed, and some are still under safety review. Newly built thermal power plants will increase CO2 emissions, and the battle among the ministries hinders effective adaptation planning.

In 2012, the central government announced three basic approaches: risk management, comprehensive and general planning, and cooperating with local governments. However, the central government’s tactics still fall behind other countries’, and local …

Energy Transitions And The Future Of Nuclear Energy: A Case For Small Modular Reactors, Carl Stenberg

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

The world is undergoing a global energy transition that will transform societies from fossil-fuel dependency towards clean energy solutions to meet future energy demand. An assumption is that nuclear energy, as a low-emissions energy source, could play a vital role in a clean, low-carbon future. Most reactors operating in the United States today are large custom-made reactors (LRs). Because of unfair risk- perceptions and the forced internalization of negative externalities, LRs and nuclear energy industry have long-struggled to compete with other energy sources.

The deployment of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) make up for many of the inherent problems that exist …

Protecting The Rights Of People With Disabilities, Elizabeth Pendo

Chapters in Books

One in four Americans — a diverse group of 61 million people — experience some form of disability (Okoro, 2018). On average, people with disabilities experience significant disparities in education, employment, poverty, access to health care, food security, housing, transportation, and exposure to crime and domestic violence (Pendo & Iezzoni, 2019). Intersections with demographic characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and LGBT status, may intensify certain inequities. For example, women with disability experience greater disparities in income, education, and employment (Nosek, 2016), and members of underserved racial and ethnic groups with disabilities experience greater disparities in health status and access …

Defective Patent Deference, Tejas N. Narechania

Washington Law Review

The Supreme Court’s implicit deference to the Office of the Solicitor General in patent cases is well-documented: What the Solicitor General requests, the Solicitor General typically receives. But we know far less about how the Solicitor General arrives at these preferred policy positions, or why the Solicitor General comes to advocate for some outcomes over others. This is problematic. In practically every other corner of the administrative state, an agency earns substantial deference to its views only where robust procedural protections attend to the policymaking process, where the agency’s outcome reflects its substantive expertise, and where the agency may, through …