Law Commons^™

Bad Faith In Cyberspace: Grounding Domain Name Theory In Trademark, Property, And Restitution, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The year 2009 marks the tenth anniversary of domain name regulation under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) and the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Adopted to combat cybersquatting, these rules left a confused picture of domain name theory in their wake. Early cybersquatters registered Internet domain names corresponding with other’s trademarks to sell them for a profit. However, this practice was quickly and easily contained. New practices arose in domain name markets, not initially contemplated by the drafters of the ACPA and the UDRP. One example is clickfarming – using domain names to generate revenues from click-on …

Teaching Remedies As Problem-Solving: Keeping It Real, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

I began teaching Remedies as a problem-solving course over a decade ago. I was then in my third year of teaching and found that the Remedies course just wasn’t clicking. The students, mostly third-years, were bored with the Socratic method and seemingly resistant to the demands of this important course. My teaching grew more cumbersome as I waded deeper into the mire of the complexities of a transsubstantive field. Remedies class felt like a slog in the mud for all of us. After just a few years with the course, I thought there had to be a better way. I …

Bailouts, Bonuses, And The Return Of Unjust Gain, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In March 2009, ailing insurance giant triggered a national outcry when it paid out $165 million in government bailout funds for employee bonus incentives. President Obama called the bonus payments an “outrage” and promised that his administration would “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the taxpayers whole.” One possible answer lies with the remedy of restitution. Restitution, based on unjust enrichment, provides a common law solution that just might work. Unjust enrichment is a remedy directed at the defendant that requires the wrongdoer to return all ill-gotten gains. The goal is to return the defendant …

Ebay Rx, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

From a remedial perspective, the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C reopened the age-old question of what it means to award equitable relief. In eBay, the Court rejected a permanent injunction issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to protect a business-method patent that defendant eBay had infringed on its successful auction website. This essay diagnoses the remedial problem in eBay as the improper use of presumptions for equitable relief that effectively prioritizes selected legal rights. It offers a prescriptive cure for the problem in the traditional balancing of the …

Proportionality And The Supreme Court's Jurisprudence Of Remedies, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The evolution of the Supreme Court’s remedial jurisprudence evinces a quest for the ultimate judicial measure of appropriate relief, emerging as a norm of remedial proportionality. The Court’s decisions since 2000 on punitive damages, injunctions, and remedial legislation, all mandate a strict balance and precise measurement in the formulation of civil remedies. These cases have often fallen below the radar of general interest or have been ignored for their remedial significance. However, these cases demonstrate, somewhat surprisingly, the manner in which the Court has ventured into the arena of common-law remedies to unexpectedly alter the foundational principles of crafting remedies. …

The Continued Vitality Of Prophylactic Relief, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The categorization of a separate type of “prophylactic” injunction and its continued prevalence in the courts provides a framework by which to evaluate the legitimacy of broad injunctions. Such broad injunctive relief has been conventionally theorized as simple judicial activism, and has been attacked accordingly. The theory of prophylaxis provides an alternative narrative by which to evaluate injunctive relief in order to retain valuable and effective judicial remedies. Rather than striking down all broad injunctive relief as the dominant discourse demands, the concept of the prophylactic injunction provides language through which jurists and lawyers can navigate the real issues of …

Restriction Of Tort Remedies And The Constraints Of Due Process: The Right To An Adequate Remedy, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In the recent proliferation of tort reform statutes, the dangerous clause of remedial jurisdiction stripping has sneaked into the law. Reminiscent of federal statutes in other areas of the law, these jurisdictional provisions strip courts of all power to award punitive or non-pecuniary damages in excess of legislative limits. Many states have acted to restrict frivolous claims and excessive recoveries by cabining “McTorts” and “runaway juries.” Regardless of the merits of these policy questions, the use of the simple expedient of remedial jurisdiction to accomplish these purposes raises significant concerns. By arbitrarily restricting an individual’s right to a meaningful remedy, …

Bush V. Gore And The Distortion Of Common Law Remedies, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The book The Final Arbiter addresses the legal and political consequences of the Bush v. Gore decision. This article presented as Chapter 4 addresses the lasting impact of Bush v. Gore on the law of remedies. While others have focused on what the Court should or could have done in the case, this article focuses on what the Court actually did by analyzing the text of the decision and the remedial platform that formed the Court's consensus. The Court in Bush adopted a new model of prophylactic relief that provided too much, not too little relief. Yet this prophylactic remedy …

The Prophylactic Remedy: Normative Principles And Definitional Parameters Of Broad Injunctive Relief, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This article is the first complete normative and descriptive treatment of the modern civil rights remedy -- the prophylactic injunction. The prophylactic remedy is a public law injunction that uniquely restricts legal conduct that is affiliated with, but distinct from, the illegal wrong. The United States Supreme Court has utilized prophylactic remedies for over forty years, and has used the prophylactic paradigm to shape its jurisprudence on Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Prophylaxis, however, remains an ambiguous concept in the eyes of most scholars and lawyers. This article attempts to fill the academic void by exploring the doctrinal and …

Ubi Jus, Ibi Remedium: The Fundamental Right To A Remedy, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This essay is part of a symposium comprised of international remedies scholars addressing the topic of equitable relief in the fifty years since Brown v. Board of Education. It may be true as other scholars have argued that since the time of Brown, institutional defendants have won at the expense of plaintiffs. Defendants have learned that delay and defiance work. The U.S. Supreme Court has adopted a standard for ordering equitable relief that significantly defers to defendant wrongdoers at the plaintiffs' expense. Epithets of "activist courts" and "judicial legislation" have colored the existing scholarship and portrayed remedial action as illegitimate …

Justice Scalia Reinvents Restitution, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This essay criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court’s re-conceptualization of equitable restitution in the case of Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co. v. Knudson, 534 U.S. 204 (2002). In Great-West, a divided Court in an opinion by Justice Scalia held that “equitable relief” authorized by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) does not include claims for specific performance or restitution seeking money for breach of contract. Instead, the Court held that with respect to restitution, the term “equitable relief” includes only those restitutionary remedies which were historically available in courts of equity.

This Article levels two criticisms at …

Understanding Prophylactic Remedies Through The Looking Glass Of Bush V. Gore, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This is not just another article about Bush v. Gore. Rather, this article does something that no article has done: it analyzes the impact of the textual decision in Bush v. Gore on the law of remedies. Through an examination of Bush v. Gore, this article seeks to advance a new understanding of prophylactic remedies and their proper use by the courts. This examination provides not only a clearer understanding of the Bush decision, but more importantly, develops a better understanding of prophylactic remedies and how they can legitimately be used to provide meaning and redress for legal rights. This …

Congress' Section 5 Power And Remedial Rights, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

There has been continual conflict between the legislative and judicial branches regarding the authority of Congress to enact remedies for the violation of constitutional rights. Armed with the assumption that it has unlimited authority to define remedies, Congress has sought to enact legislation to alter constitutional remedies imposed by the courts. At the same time, the Supreme Court has narrowly interpreted the scope of Congress' so-called “remedial” or enforcement power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The legal question explored in this article is how to balance this conflict of power and resolve the respective roles of each branch …