Law Commons^™

Iqbal And Supervisory Immunity, Kit Kinports

Journal Articles

Prior to the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the federal courts generally acknowledged that high-ranking government officials could be held liable for the constitutional injuries inflicted by their subordinates, though they differed on the appropriate standard of supervisory liability. In Iqbal, the Supreme Court called this case law into question, holding that constitutional tort liability hinges on proof that each defendant, “through the official’s own individual actions, has violated the Constitution.” The Court’s cursory treatment of this issue, without the benefit of briefing or oral argument, was based entirely on the misguided assumption that the doctrine of …

Private Regulation And Foreign Conduct, Adam I. Muchmore

Journal Articles

Current U.S. policy on safety regulation for imported food is based largely on ex post measures. Several reform proposals seek to strengthen the ex ante component of this regulatory program. These proposals rely on one or more of three basic strategies: direct extraterritorial regulation; delegation of regulatory authority to private entities; and delegation of regulatory authority to foreign government agencies. This paper explores the ability of each strategy to respond to several principal-agent problems relevant to imported-food safety: the regulatory license problem; interest group capture; and the reality of bribery and threats in many food-exporting countries. Through the lens of …

The Lesson Of The Irish Family Pub: The Elder Clinic Path To A More Thoughtful Practice, Katherine C. Pearson

Journal Articles

In this article, the Director of the Elder Law Clinic at Pennsylvania State University provides insight into the development of Elder Law as a unique discipline by tracking the history and challenges faced by her program as it approaches ten years of operation. A core focus of the Elder Law clinic, beyond practical experience, is to expose its students to the ethical issues confronted in Elder Law practice. Students in the clinic combine classroom discussions with practical experience representing clients, thereby becoming better prepared for their professional futures, while also gaining appreciation for the special concerns of the elderly client. …

Substantive Canons And Faithful Agency, Amy Coney Barrett

Journal Articles

Federal courts have long employed substantive canons of construction in the interpretation of statutes. For example, they apply the rule of lenity, which directs that ambiguous criminal statutes be interpreted in favor of the defendant, and the avoidance canon, which directs that statutes be interpreted in a manner that prevents the court from having to address serious constitutional questions. They also apply so-called “clear statement” rules — for example, absent a clear statement from Congress, a federal court will not interpret a statute to abrogate state sovereign immunity. While some commentators have attempted to rationalize these and other substantive canons …

Regulating Charities In The Twenty-First Century: An Institutional Choice Analysis, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, Brendan M. Wilson

Journal Articles

For more than fifty years scholars, practitioners, and government officials have debated whether the federal government, the state governments, or the charitable sector itself can best ensure that charity leaders fulfill their fiduciary duties. The dramatic growth of this sector, recent highly publicized governance scandals, and a push in Congress and the IRS for more federal involvement in this area have now brought this issue to a head. This article lays a foundation for resolving the dispute by developing an institutional choice framework for considering and comparing the various available options. Applying that framework, the article concludes that the best …

Disclosures About Disclosure, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

An often overlooked aspect of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC is the sharply contrasting factual accounts regarding disclosure of independent election-related spending. For eight of the Justices, such disclosure is constitutionally defensible because it enables voters to make informed decisions. For Justice Thomas, however, such disclosure is constitutionally suspect because of its potential to result in retaliation and related chilling of First Amendment speech in the form of financial contributions. The continuing importance of these contrasting narratives can be found not only in the pending Supreme Court case of Doe v. Reed, in which the …

Regulating The Invisible: The Case Of Over-The-Counter Derivatives, Colleen M. Baker

Journal Articles

In this Article, I focus on the regulation of the over-the-counter (OTC) derivative markets. I argue that current reform proposals and draft legislation fall short of constructing the linked domestic and international frameworks needed to successfully regulate the OTC derivative markets. The purpose of my Article is to propose and defend such a framework. Because of the inseparability of the domestic and international aspects of this issue, I argue that in addition to increased prudential supervision and regulation, the regulation of OTC derivative markets requires interwoven domestic and international systems for regulatory cooperation. This recommendation has two parts. First, Congress …

Re-Examining Customary International Law And The Federal Courts: An Introduction, Anthony J. Bellia

Journal Articles

Legal scholars have debated intensely the role of customary international law in the American federal system. The debate involves serious questions surrounding the United States's constitutional structure, foreign relations, and human rights. Despite an impressive body of scholarship, the debate has stood at an impasse in recent years, without either side garnering a consensus. This symposium–Re-examining Customary International Law and the Federal Courts–aspires to help advance the debate over the status of customary international law in the federal courts.

The symposium received thoughtful and constructive contributions from Professors Curtis A. Bradley, Bradford R. Clark, Andrew Kent, Carlos M. Vizquez, and …

The Political Branches And The Law Of Nations, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia

Journal Articles

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court went out of its way to follow background rules of the law of nations, particularly the law of state-state relations. As we have recently argued, the Court followed the law of nations because adherence to such law preserved the constitutional prerogatives of the political branches to conduct foreign relations and decide momentous questions of war and peace. Although we focused primarily on the extent to which the Constitution obligated courts to follow the law of nations in the early republic, the explanation we offered rested on an important, …

Anna Nicole Smith Goes Shopping: The New Forum-Shopping Problem In Bankruptcy, G. Marcus Cole, Todd J. Zywicki

Journal Articles

In the United States, relations between debtors and their creditors are governed by two distinct legal regimes. For the overwhelming majority of credit relationships, state law of contract, property, tort, and consumer protection set up the framework within which the debtor-creditor relationship is established, functions, and in the end, is dissolved. In a smaller but significant number of these relationships, a different forum orchestrates the end of these relationships, namely, federal bankruptcy court. These two distinct forums for debtor-creditor relations coexist side by side, with some disputes moving over time from one forum to the other. As with any system …

Unilateral, Anticompetitive Acquisitions Of Dominance Or Monopoly Power, Avishalom Tor

Journal Articles

The prohibition of certain types of anticompetitive unilateral conduct by firms possessing a substantial degree of market power is a cornerstone of competition law regimes worldwide. Yet notwithstanding the social costs of monopoly modern legal regimes refrain from prohibiting it outright. Instead, competition laws prohibit monopolies or dominant firms from engaging in those types of anticompetitive conduct that amount to monopolizing or an abuse of dominant position. Importantly, anticompetitive conduct can take place both on the road to monopoly and, later on, once substantial market power has been achieved. Legal regimes nevertheless tend either to ignore or pay only limited …

Responses To The Ten Questions, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

The Journal of the National Security Forum (JNSF) Board of Editors posed ten questions on national security to a group of national-security law experts. Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell’s answers to the ten questions are presented.

Affordable Private Education And The Middle Class City, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

This Essay, which was prepared for a University of Chicago Law School’s symposium on “Rethinking the Local Government Toolkit,” argues that affordable private schools serve an important urban-development function: They partially unbundle the residential and educational decisions of families with children. Thus, state and local officials hoping to make our make central city neighborhoods attractive places to raise children should consider employing a familiar urban development tool - tax incentives - to make quality private schools more financially accessible to middle-income families. The Essay proceeds in three parts. Part I builds the case for a middle class city. Part II …

Preserving The Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege, Katrice Bridges Copeland

Journal Articles

This Article argues that, while legislation such as the Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Act ("ACPPA") is necessary to preserve that corporate attorney-client privilege, any such legislation must include judicial oversight to deter prosecutorial misconduct effectively. Part II examines the costs and benefits of granting corporations the attorney-client privilege in criminal investigations. It concludes that the benefits of the privilege fat outweigh the costs and that the privilege must be safeguarded from unnecessary infringement. Part III traces the evolution of the DOJ's waiver policies that have threatened the corporate attorney-client privilege. It also examines the costs and benefits of the waiver policy …

Rethinking Tax Priorities: Marriage Neutrality, Children, And Contemporary Families, James M. Puckett

Journal Articles

Tax scholarship has long struggled with whether married taxpayers should be taxed differently from unmarried taxpayers. Currently, married taxpayers are subject to different tax rates than unmarried taxpayers, and may file a joint tax return. A married couple may pay a higher or lower amount of tax than an unmarried couple with the same total income, and a single person generally pays more tax on a given income than a married couple with a single earner with the same income. These outcomes are difficult to reconcile with a commitment to income tax progressivity, which in theory requires that higher incomes …

Schooling Congress: The Current Landscape Of The Tax Treatment Of Higher Education Expenses And A Framework For Reform, Stuart G. Lazar

Journal Articles

Education may be a cornerstone of our society, but the tax treatment of higher education expenses does not appear to have resulted from an intellectual exercise that would make our nation’s educators’ proud. The Internal Revenue Code provides two separate, but equally unsatisfying, routes that allow taxpayers to offset their income with the costs of higher education. Where an individual can reduce her tax liability while receiving an education, the effect is to reduce significantly the cost of that education.

First, where amounts spent on education qualify as an “ordinary and necessary business expense,” a taxpayer will be entitled to …

Trying A New Way: Barack Obama's Tolerance Of Intolerance, Stephanie L. Phillips

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Dignity Of Voters—A Dissent, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Since the waning days of the Burger Court, the federal judiciary has developed a generally well-deserved reputation for hostility to constitutional claims of individual right. In the field of democratic process, however, the Supreme Court has not only affirmed and expanded the applications of previously recognized rights, but has also regularly recognized new individual rights and deployed them with considerable vigor. The latest manifestation of this trend appears to be the emergence of a new species of vote dilution claim that recognizes a constitutionally grounded right against having one’s vote “cancelled out” by fraud or error in the casting and …

La Justicia Como Derecho: Un Reconocimiento Al Juez Asociado Jaime B. Fuster Berlingeri [Justice As Law: A Tribute To Associate Justice Jaime B. Fuster Berlingeri], Jorge M. Farinacci Fernós

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Progress, Innovation And Technology: A Delicate "Google" Balance, Robert I. Reis

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Autores Y Cooperadores, Luis E. Chiesa

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Beyond Torture: The Nemo Tenetur Principle In Borderline Cases, Luis E. Chiesa

Journal Articles

In this article I examine three borderline cases in which it is not clear whether a confession had been obtained in violation of the nemo tenetur principle (i.e. the rights against self-incrimination and forced inculpation). The case of the false confession presents a situation in which a person made a voluntary confession but the overwhelming evidence pointed to the falsity of the statements. In contrast, the confession obtained in the case of the truth serum is of high probative value. However, it could be argued that the suspect did not voluntarily decide to incriminate himself, given that he confessed when …

Navigating Tricky Ethical Shoals In Environmental Law: Parameters Of Counseling And Managing Clients, Kim Diana Connolly

Journal Articles

This article explores some of the ethical situations that environmental and natural resource lawyers can encounter when counseling clients. It begins by exploring the Model Rule of Professional Conduct (MRPC) 2.1, regarding counsel’s role as “advisor,” which provides that appropriate client counseling refers not only to law, but also to moral, economic, social, and political factors, when making decisions. It also explores the environmental lawyer’s ability to withdraw from representation pursuant to MRPC 1.16. It places the obligations and options under these rules and other mandates in the environmental and natural resource context, and encourages attorneys practicing in the area …

Maximum Feasible Participation Of The Poor: New Governance, New Accountability, And A 21st Century War On The Sources Of Poverty, Tara J. Melish

Journal Articles

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a Nationwide War on the Sources of Poverty to “strike away the barriers to full participation” in our society. Central to that war was an understanding that given poverty’s complex and multi-layered causes, identifying, implementing, and monitoring solutions to it would require the “maximum feasible participation” of affected communities. Equally central, however, was an understanding that such decentralized problem-solving could not be fully effective without national-level orchestration and support. As such, an Office of Economic Opportunity was established – situated in the Executive Office of the President itself – to support, through …

Minimalism And Deliberative Democracy: A Closer Look At The Virtues Of "Shallowness", Matthew J. Steilen

Journal Articles

Cass Sunstein has long argued that judicial minimalism promotes democracy. According to Sunstein’s view, a court can encourage the political branches of government to address an issue by using doctrines such as vagueness, nondelegation, and desuetude. Although much has been written about minimalism, very little has been said about the democracy-promotion thesis in particular. Yet it is one of the central claims of contemporary minimalism. This article attempts to remedy the deficiency. It argues that minimalism does not promote democracy because minimalist decisions lack the depth necessary to trigger democratic deliberation. The argument occurs in three steps. First, the article …

Local Fragmentation As Immigration Regulation, Rick Su

Journal Articles

Immigration scholars have traditionally focused on the role of national borders and the significance of nation-state citizenship. At the same time, local government scholars have called attention to the significance of local boundaries, the consequence of municipal residency, and the influence of the two on the fragmentation of American society. This paper explores the interplay between these two mechanisms of spatial and community controls. Emphasizing their doctrinal and historic commonalities, this article suggests that the legal structure responsible for local fragmentation can be understood as second-order immigration regulation. It is a mechanism that allows for finer regulatory control than the …

Lumping As Default In Tort Cases: The Cultural Interpretation Of Injury And Causation, David M. Engel

Journal Articles

Empirical studies of the tort law system suggest that "lumping, " or decisions by victims to do without adequate remedies, should be regarded as the predominant response to injury in American society and elsewhere. Yet research on lumping remains conceptually impoverished and gives insufficient attention to the culturalftameworks victims use to interpret their experiences and determine their responses. This Article presents the stories of injury victims in Thailand and compares their common-sense understandings of torts and tort law to those of injured Americans. It argues that analyses of lumping in America as well as Asia should take into account the …