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Full-Text Articles in Law
Constitutions And Spontaneous Orders: A Response To Professor Mcginnis, Adam C. Pritchard, Todd J. Zywicki
Constitutions And Spontaneous Orders: A Response To Professor Mcginnis, Adam C. Pritchard, Todd J. Zywicki
Articles
Professor John McGinnis has written a perceptive and provocative comment on our economic analysis of the role of tradition in constitutional interpretation.1 A brief summary of our areas of agreement and disagreement may help set the stage for this response. It appears that Professor McGinnis substantially agrees with the two central propositions of our article. First, he appears to agree with our definition of efficient traditions as those evolving over long periods of time from decentralized processes.2 Second, he explicitly agrees that Justices Scalia and Souter have adopted sub-optimal models of tradition because they rely on sources that lack the …
State Immunity Waivers For Suits By The United States, Evan H. Caminker
State Immunity Waivers For Suits By The United States, Evan H. Caminker
Articles
The Supreme Court closed this millennium with a virtual celebration of state sovereignty, protecting state authority from the reach of congressional power in several significant ways. In a pair of cases, Seminole Tribe v. Florida1 and Alden v. Maine,2 the Court held that states enjoy a constitutional immunity from being sued without their consent. In Seminole Tribe, the Court opined that "the background principle of state sovereign immunity embodied in the Eleventh Amendment"3 protects states from unconsented suits in federal court. In Alden, the Court held that this principle is not merely embodied in the Eleventh Amendment but rather is …
Enforcing Family Promises: Reliance, Reciprocity, And Relational Contract, Melanie B. Leslie
Enforcing Family Promises: Reliance, Reciprocity, And Relational Contract, Melanie B. Leslie
Articles
Courts are willing, in commercial contexts, to enforce promises even without consideration when enforcement supports a norm of reciprocity-a norm which recognizes that promises are seldom totally gratuitous, but are often made in furtherance of reciprocal, long-term, trust-based relationships. In this article, Professor Leslie argues that relational contract principles are firmly embedded in wills law. Courts enforce the reciprocity norm in the family context just as they do in commercial contexts; this enforcement is seen, however, not in breach of promise suits, which occur rarely between family members, but rather in will contests. Despite the prevalent ideology of wills law, …
Finding The Constitution: An Economic Analysis Of Tradition's Role In Constitutional Interpretation, Adam C. Pritchard, Todd J. Zywicki
Finding The Constitution: An Economic Analysis Of Tradition's Role In Constitutional Interpretation, Adam C. Pritchard, Todd J. Zywicki
Articles
In this Article, Professor Pritchard and Professor Zywicki examine the role of tradition in constitutional interpretation, a topic that has received significant attention in recent years. After outlining the current debate over the use of tradition, the authors discuss the efficiency purposes of constitutionalism--precommitment and the reduction of agency costs--and demonstrate how the use of tradition in constitutional interpretation can serve these purposes. Rejecting both Justice Scalia's majoritarian model, which focuses on legislative sources of tradition, and Justice Souter's common-law model, which focuses on Supreme Court precedent as a source of tradition, the authors propose an alternative model--the "finding model"-- …