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One Redeeming Quality About The 112th Congress: Refocusing On Descriptive Rather Than Evocative Short Titles, Brian Christopher Jones
One Redeeming Quality About The 112th Congress: Refocusing On Descriptive Rather Than Evocative Short Titles, Brian Christopher Jones
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The consensus with regard to the 112th Congress is that it was a massive failure: the Congress passed fewer laws than in previous years, and the contemptuous debates over the debt ceiling and the so-called "fiscal cliff" did not win this Congress many supporters. So what redeeming qualities could have been present in such an irredeemable Congress? I believe that there was at least one: a returning focus on descriptive short titles for laws, rather than a perpetuation of the evocative and tendentious short titles that have been commonplace over the past couple of decades. A recent publication of mine …
What's In A Name? A Brief Study Of Legal Aptonyms, Aaron Zelinsky
What's In A Name? A Brief Study Of Legal Aptonyms, Aaron Zelinsky
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
Law and literature ranges wide. Scholars use Shakespeare to illuminate issues of justice, Dickens to understand trusts and estates, and J.K. Rowling to explain the law of nations. But an important subset of this field has been hitherto neglected: the study of the names of law's protagonists-law and onomastics. This Essay takes the first step into this promising arena by identifying a previously unexplored category of cases, which it dubs "legal aptonyms." Many are familiar with aptonyms but lack the vocabulary to describe them. Aptonyms—literally "apt names"—are those proper names that are "regarded as (humorously) appropriate to a person's profession …
"What Do I Do About This Word, 'Unavoidable'?": Resolving Textual Ambiguity In The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, Jason Lafond
"What Do I Do About This Word, 'Unavoidable'?": Resolving Textual Ambiguity In The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, Jason Lafond
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The quote in the title of this Essay comes from Justice Breyer, expressing his frustration with the language of section 22(b)(1) of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. Justice Breyer made this comment during the October 12, 2010, oral argument in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, Inc., a case about the availability of state tort claims based on vaccine design defects. The question before the Court was whether that section expressly preempts such claims against vaccine manufacturers "if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions …
Commerce In The Commerce Clause: A Response To Jack Balkin, Robert G. Natelson
Commerce In The Commerce Clause: A Response To Jack Balkin, Robert G. Natelson
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The Constitution's original meaning is its meaning to those ratifying the document during a discrete time period: from its adoption by the Constitutional Convention in late 1787 until Rhode Island's ratification on May 29, 1790. Reconstructing it requires historical skills, including a comprehensive approach to sources. Jack Balkin's article Commerce fails to consider the full range of evidence and thereby attributes to the Constitution's Commerce Clause a scope that virtually no one in the Founding Era believed it had.