Law Commons^™

Changing The Narrative Of Child Welfare, Matthew I. Fraidin

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Response: Catch-All Doctrinalism And Judicial Desire, Anya Bernstein

Journal Articles

This brief piece responds to Carlos M. Vázquez & Stephen I. Vladeck, State Law, the Westfall Act, and the Nature of the Bivens Question, 161 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 509 (2013).

Vázquez and Vladeck's provocative article suggests that courts dismiss Bivens claims because judges believe that “extending” Bivens into any “new context” instantiates disfavored judicial lawmaking. Focusing on Bivens’s peculiar place in federalism and federal law, Vázquez and Vladeck demonstrate that the logic of courts’ own legal interpretations suggests expanding Bivens remedies, yet courts paradoxically choose to narrow them instead. Why, and how, does that happen? Courts claim to …

Justice For Sale: Contemplations On The "Impartial" Judge In A Citizens United World, Aviva Abramovsky

Journal Articles

Although it has long been in vogue to discredit the judiciary, it remains the most trusted of the three branches of government. However, empirical evidence supports the idea that judicial campaign donations affect judicial decision making. The reality of political campaigns under Citizens United has the potential to further undermine the public perception of judges and to enhance the potential for corruption of the judiciary.

(Dys)Functionality, Mark Mckenna

Journal Articles

The functionality doctrine serves a unique role in trademark law: unlike virtually every other doctrine, functionality can trump consumer confusion (or so it seems, at least in mechanical-functionality cases). In this sense, functionality may be the only doctrine in trademark law that can truly be considered a defense. But despite its potential power, the functionality doctrine is quite inconsistently applied. This is true of mechanical functionality cases because courts differ over the extent to which the doctrine focuses on competitors’ right to copy unpatented features as opposed to their need to copy. And aesthetic functionality cases are even more scattered: …

Constitutional Gaps In Bankruptcy, S. Todd Brown

Journal Articles

Federal bankruptcy law incorporates a broad range of commercial and related matters that are otherwise left to the States under the Constitution, follows an efficiency-centered process model that may implicate due process, and relies upon a judicial structure that appears to be inconsistent with Article III. In spite of the crushing volume of bankruptcy cases and proceedings each year in which the resolution of one or more of these questions may be relevant, the Supreme Court has had few opportunities to tackle them directly. Indeed, after more than two centuries, the Court has provided precious few insights into the limits …