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Full-Text Articles in Law
Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman
Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman
Articles
In this Article, I analyze the significance of the overlap between state tort law remedies and remedies under section 1983. I conclude that the dissatisfaction with section 1983 cannot fairly be attributed to the fact that it has been read to provide a remedy that "supplements" state law. I argue that most of the anxiety over constitutional damage actions under section 1983 can be understood - and resolved - only by focusing on two other questions. The first of these concerns the appropriate reach of the Constitution. Ambivalence about section 1983 reflects, in part, a fear that the federal Constitution …
Federalism And Social Change, Terrance Sandalow
Federalism And Social Change, Terrance Sandalow
Articles
A familiar passage in Professors Hart and Wechsler's casebook likens the relationship between federal and state law to that which exists between statutes and the common law. The underlying idea is that federal law rests upon a substructure of state law. "It builds upon legal relationships established by the states, altering or supplanting them only so far as necessary for [its] special purpose."' A similar relationship exists between state and federal judicial systems. State courts are courts of general jurisdiction, assumed to have authority to adjudicate controversies unless Congress has displaced them by conferring exclusive jurisdiction on federal courts. Federal …