Law Commons^™

Defining Who Is An Employee After A.B.5: Trading Uniformity And Simplicity For Expanded Coverage, Edward A. Zelinsky

Faculty Articles

My assessment of California’s A.B.5 differs from the evaluation advanced by the advocates and opponents of that legislation: I conclude that A.B.5 made a significant but limited expansion of the coverage of California labor law but at a notable cost. Even as A.B.5 broadened the reach of the Golden State’s labor protections, A.B.5 also made the definition of "employee” more complex and less uniform. Those seeking federal or state legislation like A.B.5 confront the same trade-off under which greater coverage is achieved at the expense of more complexity and less uniformity in the definition of who is an employee. The …

Disclosing Deviations: Using Guidelines To Nudge And Empower Physician-Patient Decision Making, Melissa Ballengee Alexander

Faculty Articles

Americans fail to receive recommended care roughly half the time, reflecting poor decision making that threatens their health. This Article offers an innovative solution: require physicians to disclose clinical practice guideline recommendations to patients during informed consent. Behavioral economics suggest that insisting physicians and patients discuss guidelines, before deviating from them, could be surprisingly effective at nudging more rational care choices. At the same time, such disclosure should also educate and empower patients, serving autonomy.

Previous scholarship on unwarranted variances in care has focused primarily on malpractice reforms, largely ignoring the role of cognitive bias and the importance of patients …

Hillenmeyer, "Convenience Of The Employer," And The Taxation Of Nonresidents' Incomes, Edward A. Zelinsky

Faculty Articles

In Hillenmeyer v. Cleveland Board of Review, Ohio’s Supreme Court unanimously declared that Cleveland’s municipal income tax violated the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution by taxing a nonresident athlete under the “games-played” method rather than the “duty-days” method. According to the Ohio court, the games-played approach overtaxed Mr. Hillenmeyer by allocating to Cleveland Mr. Hillenmeyer’s compensation from the Chicago Bears using the percentage of the Bears’ games played in Cleveland. By this approach, Cleveland taxed Mr. Hillenmeyer extraterritorially, reaching income he earned from services he performed for the Bears outside of Cleveland’s borders. Due Process, the Ohio …

Regulating Law Enforcement's Use Of Drones: The Need For State Legislation, Michael L. Smith

Faculty Articles

The recent rise of domestic drone technology has prompted privacy advocates and members of the public to call for the regulation of the use of drones by law enforcement officers. Numerous states have proposed legislation to regulate government drone use, and thirteen have passed laws that restrict the use of drones by law enforcement agencies. Despite the activity in state legislatures, commentary on drones tends to focus on how courts, rather than legislative bodies, can restrict the government's use of drones. Commentators call for wider Fourth Amendment protections that would limit government surveillance. In the process, in-depth analysis of state …

Confronting The Myth Of State Court Class Action Abuses Through An Understanding Of Heuristics And A Plea For More Statistics, Patricia W. Moore

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court heard six cases involving class actions this term. One of these cases, Standard Fire Insurance Company v. Knowles, brought the Class Action Fairness Act to the Court for the first time. Petitioner insurance company and its numerous business-interest amici repeatedly claimed before the Court that "state court class action abuses" justified removal of the case (which was based on state law and filed in state court) to federal court.

The charge of a "flood" of "abusive state court class actions" echoed the same rhetoric that CAFA's supporters used a decade ago in their ultimately successful efforts to …

Text, Purpose, Capacity And Albertson's: A Response To Professor Geier, Edward A. Zelinsky

Faculty Articles

In a recent issue of the Florida Tar Review, Professor Deborah Geier added yet another chapter to the running commentary on the Albertson's litigation, using that case to demonstrate her theories of statutory purpose and to criticize, in particular, statutory textualism as she conceives of it. Professor Geier correctly identifies the underlying issues in Albertson's-the role of statutory purpose, the differing institutional capacities of the Congress and the courts, fidelity to statutory text-but resolves those issues in ways that prompt me to rebuttal.

While I commend Professor Geier for her effort to explicate many important questions about the Code and …

Problems In Attempting To Translate Statuory Standards Into Emission Limitations Under Air And Water Pollution Control Legislation, Jonathan L.F. Silver

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.