Law Commons^™

Right V. Might: International Law And The Use Of Force, Craig T. Smith

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Right v. Might: International Law and the Use of Force Edited by The Council on Foreign Relations

Can Ignorance Be Bliss? Imperfect Information As A Positive Influence In Political Institutions, Michael A. Fitts

Michigan Law Review

In Parts I and II, I shall summarize the law-and-economics and civic virtue perspectives on the value of political information and their proposals for reforms in the political process that would stimulate greater political information. These two literatures are often viewed as distinct in their objectives: one seeking to improve means/ends rationality; the other seeking to improve goal formation - a function that I loosely describe as normative, ethical, or value-based. Nevertheless, they share some common practical approaches where information is concerned. In Part Ill, I shall discuss the instrumental advantages to limiting political information, focusing particularly on the role …

Homelessness: A Historical Perspective On Modern Legislation, Mark Peters

Michigan Law Review

This Note will demonstrate how current legislative responses to homelessness are bound and crippled by the social reform theories of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before legislators can devise more efficient remedies to tackle current problems, they must identify and transcend earlier, ineffective thinking. This requires viewing the homelessness problem· in historical perspective. Specifically, legislatures must (1) examine the origins of the legal system's underlying conceptions about homelessness, (2) understand how these conceptions undermined earlier legislation designed to deal with the crisis, and (3) isolate, and escape, the modem manifestations of these conceptions.

This Note examines the early twentieth …

Social Irresponsibility, Actuarial Assumptions, And Wealth Redistribution: Lessons About Public Policy From A Prepaid Tuition Program, Jeffrey S. Lehman

Michigan Law Review

In this article, I shall try to illuminate the question of how governments, as opposed to private insurers, grapple with the problem of intergenerational social irresponsibility. I shall do so by analyzing and criticizing a single public program. That program, the Michigan Education Trust (MET), was the most widely publicized government action in the field of higher education finance during the 1980s. MET allows parents of young children to purchase contracts promising to cover the children's tuition at Michigan public colleges when they enroll up to eighteen years later.

In setting forth this case study, I also attempt to develop …

The Virtue Of Liberality In American Communal Life, Linda R. Hirshman

Michigan Law Review

This article attacks the barriers to articulation of a theory of the good and advocates discussion of the substance of a good regime, specifically, a good American regime. Part I of this article addresses in some detail the civic republicans' revival of interest in the common life. I propose that it is dauntingly difficult, if not impossible, to articulate a satisfying version of a common life without a theory of the good life, an undertaking traditionally associated with authoritarianism and elitism. Rather than abandoning the enterprise, however, I propose to reopen the assumption that the association automatically rules out any …

Heritage Preservation As A Public Duty: The Abbé Grégoire And The Origins Of An Idea, Joseph L. Sax

Michigan Law Review

Public responsibility for the conservation of artifacts of historic or aesthetic value is now acknowledged everywhere. One way or another the state will ensure preservation of a Stonehenge or a Grand Canyon as well as a great many lesser cultural icons. We have names for such things - "heritage" and "cultural property" are two of them; "patrimony" is a European counterpart - but these words have no very specific meaning. Many, but by no means all, of the objects we feel constrained to protect are old. They include human artifacts as well as natural objects or places. Though it is …

A Prior Restraint By Any Other Name: The Judicial Response To Media Challenges Of Gag Orders Directed At Trial Participants, René L. Todd

Michigan Law Review

Gag orders directed at trial participants do not directly intrude into the media's editorial process, but instead result in a reduction of the total communication available regarding trial proceedings. In this way, participant-directed gag orders are effective, albeit indirect, restraints upon the media. This Note examines the dynamics of these participant-directed restrictions and their consequent effect upon the media. Part I examines participant-directed gag orders in relation to traditional prior restraint doctrine. After discussing the history of prior restraint doctrine and the present standard of prior restraint analysis, Part I relates efforts by courts to apply. prior restraint doctrine to …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A List of Books Received by Michigan Law Review

That Old Due Process Magic: Growth Control And The Federal Constitution, Keith R. Denny

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that the interests of nonmunicipal federal citizens in being able freely to migrate about the nation are not adequately accounted for in a due process analysis which sanctions regulations with any, even a debatable, relation to the public welfare.

More adaptable and appropriate are the constitutional safeguards designed to protect the interests of nonmunicipal federal citizens: the privileges and immunities clause, the right of interstate travel, and the commerce clause. This Note concludes that GCOs should be measured against these safeguards and not the standards of the due process clause. When so reviewed, GCOs are found wanting. …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A List of Books Received by Michigan Law Review

A Comprehensive Attack On Tax Deferral, Mary Louise Fellows

Michigan Law Review

This article explores the operation of T ARET and demonstrates that it produces economic neutrality and fairness among taxpayers, while simplifying the tax system by eliminating the need for provisions designed to reduce deferral advantages or ameliorate the inequities created by the realization-event rule. Finally, even if one decides that TARET should not be implemented, considering its operation provides a useful and quite different perspective on tax policy and taxing issues. In Simons' words, exploring the T ARET model allows us "to consider fruitfully the problem of bettering the system of presumptions."

Part I establishes the foundation for the time-adjustment …

Women, Mothers, And The Law Of Fright: A History, Martha Chamallas, Linda K. Kerber

Michigan Law Review

This article presents a gendered history of the law's treatment of fright-based physical injuries. Our goal is to connect the law of fright to the changing cultural and intellectual forces of the twentieth century. Through a feminist lens, we reexamine the accounts of the legal treatment of fright-based injuries offered by Victorian-erajurists, traditionalist legal scholars of the first two decades of the twentieth century, a legal realist in the 1930s, and a Freudian medical-legal commentator from the 1940s, all of whom helped to shape present-day tort doctrine. We conclude with an account of Dillon v. Legg, in which the …

Progressive And Conservative Constitutionalism, Robin West

Michigan Law Review

The article's central thesis is that the understandings of the constitutional tradition most central to both paradigms are determined by sometimes implicit, but more often explicit, political dispositions toward various forms of social and private power, and the normative authority to which social and private power gives rise. Very broadly, conservative constitutionalists view private or social normative authority as the legitimate and best source of guidance for state action; accordingly, they view both the Constitution and constitutional adjudication as means of preserving and protecting that authority and the power that undergirds it against either legislative or judicial encroachment. Progressive constitutionalists, …

Idea, Process, Or Protected Expression?: Determining The Scope Of Copyright Protection Of The Structure Of Computer Programs, Steven R. Englund

Michigan Law Review

Courts considering the alleged copying of the structure, rather than literal copying of the text, of a computer program have usually concerned themselves with whether protected expression or an unprotected idea was copied. Courts have seldom suggested that it might be an unprotected process that was copied. However, this Note concludes that the legislative history of the 1976 Act indicates that that legislation's drafters envisioned a far more prominent role for the process-expression dichotomy than it has played to date. The process inquiry is at least as important as the idea inquiry in striking the proper balance between promoting progress …

Untangling The Market-Participant Exemption To The Dormant Commerce Clause, Dan T. Coenen

Michigan Law Review

This article explores the market-participant rule. Part I traces the rule's evolution and shows how it has proven less rigid than some initially feared. Part II probes the roots of the rule by challenging justifications for it suggested by other observers. Part III offers an alternative theory of the market-participant doctrine, arguing in particular that it rests on a cluster of rationales that properly have led· the Court to uphold marketplace preferences as the "general rule." Part IV builds on Part III to advance a new, four-part framework for evaluating market-participant issues. Part V then uses that framework to apply …

Contract Law, Default Rules, And The Philosophy Of Promising, Richard Craswell

Michigan Law Review

Among the topics addressed by moral philosophy is the obligation to keep one's promises. To many philosophers, there is something strange (or, at least, something calling for explanatie1n) in the idea that moral obligations can be created simply by an individual's saying so yet this is what seems to happen when a person makes a promise. Consequently, there is by now a large body of literature attempting to identify the exact source and nature of this moral obligation.

Part I of this article presents a more detailed survey of recent philosophical writings about promises, for the benefit of legal readers …

Looking A Gift Of Stock In The Mouth: Donative Transfers And Rule 10b-5, Carol J. Sulcoski

Michigan Law Review

This Note explores whether a gift of stock can constitute a "sale" for the purposes of section lO(b) of the 1934 Act and rule lOb-5 promulgated thereunder. Part I reviews the relevant 1934 Act provisions, and concludes that although the statute's language and legislative history do not mention gifts of stock as such, they support the inclusion of gifts within the statute's scope. Part II examines a limited line of cases holding that a bona fide charitable gift is not a sale under section 16(b) of the 1934 Act. This Part concludes that section 16(b) cases are not dispositive of …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A List of Books Received by Michigan Law Review

A Revisionist Theory Of Abstention, Barry Friedman

Michigan Law Review

This article offers a straightforward model for identifying cases in which abstention threatens federal rights - and so is inappropriate and cases in which federal rights are not so threatened and state interests require abstention. Part I provides some background on the abstention doctrines, clarifying· the competing premises that must be reconciled in order to develop a coherent, unified abstention doctrine. Part II then sets out the basis for the revisionist theory and the manner in which it would operate, arguing that a federal trial forum only need be - and only should be - available where necessary to protect …

The Great Gatsby, The Black Sox, High Finance, And American Law, Allen Boyer

Michigan Law Review

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the great novel of America in the 1920s. It is about someone pursuing a girl, and, more than that, it is about someone pursuing a dream. Jay Gatsby is someone who believes in the American dream of success. His life plays out the most famous piece of repartee between Fitzgerald and Hemingway - that the rich are very different from you and me, because they have more money. Gatsby is a man who thought that if he had the money, he would be rich, and could therefore be different.

After reading …

"Let Congress Do It": The Case For An Absolute Rule Of Statutory Stare Decisis, Lawrence C. Marshall

Michigan Law Review

The sporadic way that various members of the Supreme Court and the legal community treat the principle of stare decisis is increasingly striking. At times, the rule of stare decisis appears to be trotted out in defense of decisions that were actually reached on quite independent grounds. At other times, the dictates of the rule appear to be casually ignored when other factors call for the overruling of a precedent. It is tempting, therefore, to dismiss the rule of stare decisis as a mere rhetorical device, much like the question of whether a Supreme Court nominee's judicial philosophy is an …

The Constitution's Accommodation Of Social Change, Philip A. Hamburger

Michigan Law Review

Did the framers and ratifiers of the United States Constitution think that changes in American society would require changes in the text or interpretation of the Constitution? If those who created the Constitution understood or even anticipated the possibility of major social alterations, how did they expect constitutional law - text and interpretation - to accommodate such developments?

The effect of social change upon constitutional law was an issue the framers and ratifiers frequently discussed. For example, when AntiFederalists complained of the Constitution's failure to protect the jury trial in civil cases, Federalists responded that a change of circumstances might, …

Insuring Rule 11 Sanctions, Cary Coglianese

Michigan Law Review

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 requires courts to sanction attorneys who file frivolous papers. Since 1983, when the rule was amended, attorney sanctions have emerged as an increasingly significant aspect of civil litigation in the United States.

Can these and other attorneys find coverage for sanctions under their existing policies? Should they be allowed to obtain coverage for sanctions at all? This Note addresses these questions and attempts to sketch the landscape surrounding the looming issue of insurance coverage for rule 11 sanctions. To determine whether sanctions can and should be insurable, it is necessary first to understand the …

Law Without Mind, Steven D. Smith

Michigan Law Review

A large part of the work done by lawyers and judges involves the interpretation of enacted law - primarily, statutes and the Constitution. Not surprisingly, legal scholars offer a good deal of advice, usually unsolicited, about how the task of interpretation should be performed. At present, such scholarly advice commonly recommends variations on an approach that may be called "present-oriented interpretation." This approach discourages judges from equating a law with its historical meaning or "original understanding." Instead, it urges them to construe statutes and constitutional provisions in a way that will render the law "the best it can be" in …

Compensation For Constitutional Torts: Reflections On The Significance Of Fault, John C. Jeffries Jr.

Michigan Law Review

This essay is about a neglected aspect of the problem of redressing constitutional violations. Most discussions focus on incentive effects. Unconstitutional conduct can be discouraged by the "hands-on" mechanism of reform by injunction or, more commonly, through the indirection of deterrence. Deterrence issues include selection of the penalties needed to deter official misconduct; the risk that they may also inhibit legitimate government activity; the recruitment of private attorneys general to augment enforcement; and various costs of administration. These and other aspects of deterrence pervade discussions in the Supreme Court. They are also debated in a rich and sophisticated secondary literature. …

Principles, Politics, And Constitutional Law, Mark Tushnet

Michigan Law Review

The contrast in Senator Thurmond's performance in hearings concerning Judge Bork, whose nomination he supported, and Justice Marshall, whose nomination he opposed, suggests the apparently cynical view that one's position on the proper scope of senatorial inquiry during a nomination depends upon one's position on the merits of the nomination. Much has been written, usually provoked by controversial nominations, about the proper scope of senatorial inquiry. The press of immediate controversy, however, diverts attention from more fundamental issues about the nature of constitutional government, to which I devote this essay.

Antitrust's Protected Classes, Herbert Hovenkamp

Michigan Law Review

For purposes of argument, this essay assumes that efficiency ought to be the exclusive goal of antitrust enforcement. That premise is controversial. Nonetheless, several economic and legal theorists, primarily among the Chicago School of economics and antitrust scholarship, have developed an Optimal Deterrence Model based on this assumption. The Model is designed to achieve the optimum, or ideal, amount of antitrust enforcement. The Model's originators generally believe that there is too much antitrust enforcement, particularly enforcement initiated by private plaintiffs. I intend to show that, even if efficiency is the only antitrust policy goal, a broader array of lawsuits should …

State Takeover Statutes Revisited, Richard A. Booth

Michigan Law Review

I have a confession to make. The title of my article that appeared recently in this review, The Promise of State Takeover Statutes, was deliberately chosen for its shock value. Since few if any reflective works have supported state takeover statutes, it occurred to me that a title suggesting there was something positive in them might get someone's attention. Clearly it did. In a recent piece entitled Missing the Point About State Takeover Statutes, Professors Lyman Johnson and David Millon take issue with my title. I say that they take issue with my title because it does not …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A List of Books Received by Michigan Law Review

Corporate Life After Death: Cercla Preemption Of State Corporate Dissolution Law, Audrey J. Anderson

Michigan Law Review

This Note discusses CERCLA's preemption of state corporate dissolution law. Although CERCLA contains a preemption clause intended to specify CERCLA's relationship with other laws, this clause addresses only state laws that impose stricter standards than those contained in CERCLA, and does not address state laws that, like dissolution laws, remove liability from a party otherwise liable under CERCLA. Courts, therefore, have also looked to section 107 of CERCLA, which imposes liability against specified parties "[n]notwithstanding any other provision or rule of law," to determine CERCLA's general relationship with state law. Through such an analysis, courts have agreed that CERCLA does …