Law Commons^™

Institutional Myths, Historical Narratives And Social Science Evidence: Reading The "Record" In The Virginia Military Institute Case, Dianne Avery

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

No Lever And No Place To Stand (A Response To Christopher Shannon), John Henry Schlegel

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Ideology Of Human Rights, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This piece argues that although human rights is an ideology although it presents itself as non-ideological, non-partisan, and universal. It contends that the human rights corpus, taken as a whole, as a document of ideals and values, particularly the positive law of human rights, requires the construction of states to reflect the structures and values of governance that derive from Western liberalism, especially the contemporary variations of liberal democracy practiced in Western democracies. Viewed from this perspective, the human rights regime has serious and dramatic implications for questions of cultural diversity, the sovereignty of states, and the universality of human …

Lessons From The Americas: Guidelines For International Response To Amnesties For Atrocities, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

Amnesty guidelines modeled on international law as defined by Latin American tribunals and treaties should be adopted and used by the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and national governments involved in remedying human rights violations. The 10 guidelines are stringent and would rarely result in the granting of amnesty. They may better serve their function than treaties or customary laws be cause they are guidelines and not mandatory.

The More Things Change…: Superficial State Constitutional Analysis At The New York Court Of Appeals, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

My Aching Heart, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The "States-As-Laboratories" Metaphor In State Constitutional Law, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

H. Jefferson Powell On The American Constitutional Tradition: A Conversation, Thomas L. Shaffer, John H. Robinson

Journal Articles

Jefferson Powell's recent book, The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism, was the point of departure for a series of short papers and conversations held in March of 1996 at the Notre Dame Law School.

The conversation began with a presentation by Professor Joseph Vining. His remarks were followed by a free-flowing conversation, loosely orchestrated by Professor Robinson, among the participants. After a break, the conversation was restarted with a presentation by Professor Maura Ryan, followed once again by a loosely orchestrated conversation. We turn first to Joseph Vining.

Anita Hill Meets Godzilla: Confessions Of A Horror Movie Fan, Wendy B. Scott

Journal Articles

The cases and events discussed in this Essay involve African- American women who have confronted oppression in the civil and criminal courts, and other arenas, in both celebrated and unsung victories: victories not only for Black women, but for women and men of all hues who seek social justice. I will use these cases and events to illustrate the relationship between stereotypes and myths, born during the antebellum and Jim Crow era, and contemporary manifestations of sexual harassment and other forms of sex-based exploitation. I will go on to discuss the means used by women, in the workplace of chattel …

When The Surgeon Has Hiv: What To Tell Patients About The Risk Of Exposure And The Risk Of Transmission, Phillip L. Mcintosh

Journal Articles

This Article explores the legal aspects of the dilemma facing an HIV-infected surgeon with respect to whether the doctrine of informed consent requires, or can require, disclosure of the surgeon's HIV-infection under some circumstances. This Article then examines the nature of the risks associated with HIV as they affect patients during surgery. Next, this Article evaluates whether the risks are sufficiently material to require disclosure (or at least to present a jury question), and, in any event, whether state law can require such disclosure under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). In particular this Article examines the doctrine …

Note, Civil Forfeiture And Innocent Owners, Deborah Challener

Journal Articles

Although forfeiture is an ancient practice, its constitutional validity has only recently been seriously questioned. Historically, the Supreme Court has relied on a legal fiction-that the property itself is guilty-to confiscate property without regard to the Constitution. Cloaking itself in the "guilty property fiction," the Court has virtually ignored the property owner's culpability. In Bennis, the Court decided whether an owner's interest in property is subject to forfeiture when the owner entrusts the property to a party who uses it to commit a crime, even if the owner has no knowledge of the illegal use.

Tort Reform In Mississippi: An Appraisal Of The New Law Of Products Liability, Part I, Phillip L. Mcintosh

Journal Articles

In 1993, as a result of tort reform efforts, the Mississippi legislature enacted legislation that made dramatic changes in the law of products liability as well as in the law of punitive damages. On July 1, 1994, the substantive portions of the new legislation became effective, and the products liability portion of the new legislation replaced the judicially adopted Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts as the primary basis of products liability law in the state. Those who supported the new Act did so because they saw it as a way to bring stability and predictability to the …

Why Informed Consent? Human Experimentation And The Ethics Of Autonomy, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

Not long ago, the welfare reform debate took a provocative turn. New Jersey welfare recipients challenged the state's Family Cap rule, which denied additional cash aid to parents who conceive children while on welfare. Welfare rights activists argued that the rule "with[held] benefits to see if [this would] alter human behavior." They insisted that the innovative, but stern, Family Cap rules were effectively experiments on welfare recipients without their consent.

This is a powerful argument. After all, consent enjoys talismanic—if not sacramental—status in modem life and thought; it is our "master concept." But why? Why should consenting mean so much …

The Family Franchise: Elderly Parents And Adult Siblings, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

In this paper, I am going to concentrate on one family transition where we have established substantial legal barriers-that of emancipation. However, I will briefly allude to other "broken families," such as the divorcing family and the family divided by adoption.

As students of the family, we are preoccupied with divorce. We write about families in crisis and use the fabric of their lives worn thin and stretched to the breaking point to develop our ideas about what families are and even what they ought to be. In a way, of course, law teaching and the Socratic method drive us …

Corrections Day, John Copeland Nagle

Journal Articles

In July 1995, the House of Representatives established a Corrections Day procedure for fixing statutory mistakes. This article traces the history of the corrections day idea, beginning with suggestions offered by Justices Cardozo and Ginsburg many years apart. The article also recounts the early applications of Correction Day by the House. This article describes the problem of statutory mistakes: what they are, and who makes them. It explains that statutory mistakes do exist, regardless of how one defines mistake. Congress, agencies, and the courts all make mistakes, though the responsibility for them ultimately resides with Congress, the author of the …

Maybe A Lawyer Can Be A Servant; If Not…, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Consider the way we American lawyers learn about the relationship between the church and the law: This grand constitutional and legal order we propose to serve is unfolded before us and built up in our minds and hearts; it comes to us out of multi-volume sets of course books, and, like the gods of Canaan, it comes to us as religious: Thomas Jefferson said America was God's New Israel; David Hoffman, the grandfather of legal ethics in America, spoke of the law as a temple and of us lawyers as priests who served in the temple; Law Day speakers commonly …

The Market For Deadbeats, Margaret F. Brinig, F. H. Buckley

Journal Articles

This article outlines three explanations for why states seek migrants and tests them by references to 1985-90 interstate migration flows. On race-for-the-top theories, states compete for value-increasing migrants by offering them healthy economies and efficient laws. On vote-seeking theories, states compete for clienteles of voters, with some states seeking to attract and some to deter welfare- or tax-loving migrants. On deadbeat theories, states compete for high human capital debtors by offering them a fresh start from out-of-state creditors. Our findings support vote-seeking and deadbeat theories.

The Missing Chinese Environmental Law Statutory Interpretation Cases, John C. Nagle

Journal Articles

Environmental law and theories of statutory interpretation have developed side by side in the United States during the past twenty-five years. Many of the leading environmental law cases are also statutory interpretation cases. China is different. China has enacted many environmental statutes, often patterned after foreign laws such as those in the United States, but there are no Chinese environmental law statutory interpretation cases.

This article examines why there are no such cases, and what we may learn from that fact. I am indebted to the work of Professor Stewart, whose engaging article in this symposium issue combines three of …

Corporate Initiatives: A Second Human Rights Revolution?, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

This Essay examines the role of multinational corporations in protecting human rights around the globe. Part I analyzes the conduct of corporations, describes examples of corporations' involvement in human rights violations, and discusses the merits of greater responsibility of corporations. Part II suggests that the level of responsibility for a multinational corporation depends on the proximity of the corporation's operations to human rights violations, in combination with the seriousness of the violations, and proposes five gradations of responsibility. This Essay concludes that the evolving nature of the global economy is producing a shift in responsibilities from government to the private …

Reflections On Reves V. Ernst & Young: Its Meaning And Impact On Substantive, Accessory, Aiding Abetting And Conspiracy Liability Under Rico, G. Robert Blakey, Kevin P. Roddy

Journal Articles

In March 1993, accountants, attorneys and other professionals—who generally view RICO with suspicion—breathed a sigh of relief when they read the Washington Post: "People who lose money in thrifts and other businesses that go belly up because of wrongdoing can no longer use [RICO] to sue lawyers, accountants, or other advisers who played key roles in the enterprise." Unfortunately, this terse description of the Supreme Court's decision issued the previous day in Reves v. Ernst & Young may persuade professionals that they dropped an anchor in a tranquil safe-harbor, far from an exposure to the perils of the private enforcement …

How To Count To Fifteen: Determining The Jurisdictional Scope Of Title Vii: An Analysis Of Walters V. Metropolitan Educational Enterprises Inc., Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

This article previews the Supreme Court case Walters v. Metropolitan Educational Enterprises, Inc., 519 U.S. 202 (1997). The author expected the Court to consider how the number of employees of a particular employer should be counted for for purposes of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Civil Procedure: The Last Ten Years, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

In my view, the story of the last ten years in civil procedure is the slow but inexorable creep of ideas and solutions developed for complex cases into routine cases, and the continued effort of litigators and judges in complex cases to develop ideas and solutions that push the procedural envelope still farther out-thus setting the agenda for the next generation of procedural reform.

I do not want to overstate my claim. The procedures for a lawsuit are still basically the same: a short pleading stage followed by a lengthy discovery stage followed by a culminating event of trial. But …

On Lying For Clients, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

For all of his occasional resort to deceit and falsehood, Faulkner's county-seat, Southern-gentleman lawyer, Gavin Stevens, was a virtuous person, a good person, and a truthful person. He and other moral worthies in good stories-many of them lawyers-have something to contribute to discussions, in legal ethics, on the issue of lying for clients.

On Teaching Legal Ethics In The Law Office, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Edward J. Murphy, my teacher, colleague, and friend, was as devoted as anyone at Notre Dame could be, to a Christian law school on this campus. He announced a personal and institutional claim, and he expressed his hope as well, when he told our graduating law class, in 1994, that this is "a school which publicly and without apology proclaims its religious roots."

And he was as interested as anyone could be in identifying those religious roots, and exploring the implications of them for the practice of law at the end of the twentieth century in the United States of …

Edward J. Murphy: A Professor For All Seasons, David T. Link

Journal Articles

Ed Murphy taught more Notre Dame law students than any other professor in the history of the University. To his students, he was more than a teacher; he was mentor and even legend. A mainstay at the Law School, Professor Murphy died in July of last year at the age of sixty-eight.

I was privileged to be his student, his colleague and his friend. I miss him very much. We all do. But, of course, his example lives on. He continues to be a part of the great Notre Dame spirit. Our recently appointed contracts professor tells me that every …

Edward J. Murphy, Catholic Scholar, Charles E. Rice

Journal Articles

Permit me to explain, with some background, why Edward J. Murphy was an admirable Catholic man and why I and many others are in his debt for his friendship and example.

Will The Supreme Court Sound The Death Knell For Political Patronage? An Analysis Of O'Hare Truck Services, Inc. V. City Of Northlake, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

This article previews the Supreme Court case O'Hare v. City of Northlake, 518 U.S. 712 (1996). The author expected the Court to analyze whether political patronage infringes on First Amendment rights.