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Articles 1 - 30 of 159
Full-Text Articles in Law
The New Comity Abstention, John Harland Giammatteo
The New Comity Abstention, John Harland Giammatteo
Journal Articles
In the past ten years, lower federal courts have quietly but regularly abstained from hearing federal claims challenging state court procedures, citing concerns of comity and federalism. Federal courts have dismissed a broad range of substantive challenges tasked to them by Congress, including under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and various constitutional provisions, involving state court eviction proceedings, foster care determinations, bail and criminal justice policies, COVID-era safety practices, and other instances where state courts determine state policy.
This paper is the first to argue that these decisions constitute a new abstention doctrine, unmoored from …
Historical Kinship And Categorical Mischief: The Use And Misuse Of Doctrinal Borrowing In Intellectual Property Law, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian
Historical Kinship And Categorical Mischief: The Use And Misuse Of Doctrinal Borrowing In Intellectual Property Law, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian
Journal Articles
Analogies are ubiquitous in legal reasoning, and, in copyright jurisprudence, courts frequently turn to patent law for guidance. From introducing doctrines meant to regulate online intermediaries to evaluating the constitutionality of resurrecting copyrights to works from the public domain, judges turn to patent law analogies to lend ballast to their decisions. At other times, however, patent analogies with copyright law are quickly discarded and differences between the two regimes highlighted. Why? In examining the transplantation of doctrinal frameworks from one intellectual property field to another, this Article assesses the circumstances in which courts engage in doctrinal borrowing, discerns their rationale …
The Active Vices, Benjamin Johnson
The Active Vices, Benjamin Johnson
Journal Articles
Alexander Bickel's pathbreaking idea of the "passive virtues" attempted to explain and justify the Supreme Court's power to control its docket. He proposed that the Court's extensive discretion allows it to remain passive and avoid politically perilous cases, preserving its institutional legitimacy until such time as durable principles are at stake. This theory remains one of the most influential ideas in legal scholarship, but is dangerously incomplete. Discretion is a double-edged sword, empowering the Court not only to avoid politics, but also to engage in it. In other words, a policy-motivated Court can use its agenda-setting power to target highly …
Good Representatives, Bad Objectors, And Restitution In Class Settlements, Jay Tidmarsh, Tladi Marumo
Good Representatives, Bad Objectors, And Restitution In Class Settlements, Jay Tidmarsh, Tladi Marumo
Journal Articles
his Article uses two recent decisions -one prohibiting incentive awards to class representatives and one permitting disgorgement of side payments to class objectors - to explore deeper connections between classaction settlements and the law of restitution. The failure to correctly apply the law of restitution led both courts astray. First, courts can approve incentive awards, as long as an award properly reflects the benefit that the representative's efforts bestowed on the class. Second, restitution provides a basis to disgorge improper side payments to objectors, but only under conditions different from those that the court described. More broadly, attention to the …
Proper Parties, Proper Relief, Samuel L. Bray, William Baude
Proper Parties, Proper Relief, Samuel L. Bray, William Baude
Journal Articles
From the Introduction
In the last Term at the United States Supreme Court [2022], standing was the critical question in several major cases: the two challenges to the Biden Administration’s first student loan forgiveness plan, Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown, as well as the challenge to the Administration’s immigration priorities in United States v. Texas and the race-discrimination challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act in Haaland v. Brackeen. Standing has featured heavily in journalistic coverage of the decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. And standing may have been the reason for the Court’s stay …
Election Subversion And The Writ Of Mandamus, Derek T. Muller
Election Subversion And The Writ Of Mandamus, Derek T. Muller
Journal Articles
Election subversion threatens democratic self-governance. Recently, we have seen election officials try to manipulate the rules after an election, defy accepted legal procedures for dispute resolution, and try to delay results or hand an election to a losing candidate. Such actions, if successful, would render the right to vote illusory. These threats call for a response. But rather than recommend the development of novel tools to address the problem, this Article argues that a readily available mechanism is at hand for courts to address election subversion: the writ of mandamus. This Article is the first comprehensive piece to situate the …
Statutory Interpretation And Chevron Deference In The Appellate Courts: An Empirical Analysis, Amy Semet
Statutory Interpretation And Chevron Deference In The Appellate Courts: An Empirical Analysis, Amy Semet
Journal Articles
What statutory methods does an appellate court use in reviewing decisions of an administrative agency? Further, in doing this review, are appellate judges more likely to use certain statutory methods when they expressly cite the Chevron two-step framework than if they do not? This Article explores the answers to these questions using an original database of over 200 statutory interpretation cases culled from more than 2,500 cases decided in appellate courts reviewing National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or the Board) adjudications from 1994 through 2020. In particular, the study examined the use of text, language canons, substantive canons, legislative history, …
Federal Courts’ Recalcitrance In Refusing To Certify State Law Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Issues, Christopher French
Federal Courts’ Recalcitrance In Refusing To Certify State Law Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Issues, Christopher French
Journal Articles
Over 2,000 COVID-19 business interruption insurance cases have been filed in state and federal courts the past two years with most of the cases filed in or removed to federal courts. The cases are governed by state law. Rather than certify the novel state law issues presented in the cases to the respective state supreme courts that ultimately will determine the law applicable in the cases, each of the eight federal circuit courts to issue decisions on the merits in such cases to date has done so by making an Erie guess regarding how the controlling state supreme courts would …
Ford's Underlying Controversy, Christine P. Bartholomew, Anya Bernstein
Ford's Underlying Controversy, Christine P. Bartholomew, Anya Bernstein
Journal Articles
Personal jurisdiction—the doctrine that determines where a plaintiff can sue—is a mess. Everyone agrees that a court can exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant with sufficient in-state contacts related to a plaintiff’s claim. This Article reveals, however, that courts diverge radically in their understanding of what a claim is. Without stating so outright, some courts limit the claim to a cause of action or its elements, while others understand it to encompass the controversy underlying the litigation. What is worse, few have noticed that these discrepancies even exist, much less explained why. This Article does just that. We show that …
Alleged Violations Of The 1955 Treaty Of Amity, Economic Relations, And Consular Rights (Iran V. U.S.) (Judgment On Preliminary Objections) (I.C.J.), Diane A. Desierto
Alleged Violations Of The 1955 Treaty Of Amity, Economic Relations, And Consular Rights (Iran V. U.S.) (Judgment On Preliminary Objections) (I.C.J.), Diane A. Desierto
Journal Articles
On February 3, 2021, the International Court of Justice delivered its judgment on preliminary objections in Alleged Violations of the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America). The judgment rejected all of the United States’ preliminary objections, declared the admissibility of Iran's Application, and held that the Court has jurisdiction “on the basis of Article XXI, paragraph 2 of the Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights of 1955.”
What Is A “Case”?, Lynn M. Mather
What Is A “Case”?, Lynn M. Mather
Journal Articles
This article interrogates the concept of a “case” in court, in an effort to clarify underlying concerns in debates over whether there is “too much” or “too little” litigation. One perspective on litigation takes a bottom-up view, examining the considerations and motives of disputing parties who file civil claims. This perspective includes theories about litigation and social structure, economics, dispute transformation, political participation, and psychology. An alternative top-down view examines litigation from the perspective of government, including its interest in dispute resolution, social control, and institutional capacities of courts. The article reviews and critiques existing literature on these perspectives and …
The High Cost Of Eviction: Struggling To Contain A Growing Social Problem, Judith Fox
The High Cost Of Eviction: Struggling To Contain A Growing Social Problem, Judith Fox
Journal Articles
Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, focused public attention on the issue of eviction. As a result, scholars have begun to investigate and challenge some of the assumptions made in the book. Primarily, is eviction the cause of poverty or one of its consequences? This article explores several options in an attempt to explain the high number of evictions in America. These include, among others, the lack of affordable housing, failed governmental policies, the rise of institutional landlords and the role of courts. The article highlights some interventions that have begun to show progress in easing the burden of eviction. …
The Specific Consumer Expectations Test For Product Defects, Clayton J. Masterman, W. Kip Viscusi
The Specific Consumer Expectations Test For Product Defects, Clayton J. Masterman, W. Kip Viscusi
Journal Articles
In this Article, we propose that courts adopt an amended version of the consumer expectations test that we call the “specific consumer expectations test.” The specific consumer expectations test would apply to any product or product component for which consumers have clear, articulable ex ante expectations about the function of the product. Under the specific consumer expectations test, a defendant is liable if consumers expected such a product to reduce a particular risk, and the product in fact increased that risk. Similarly, if a product was intended to convey a particular benefit, but in fact harmed consumers along the same …
Invisible Article Iii Delinquency: History, Mystery, And Concerns About "Federal Juvenile Courts", Mae C. Quinn, Levi T. Bradford
Invisible Article Iii Delinquency: History, Mystery, And Concerns About "Federal Juvenile Courts", Mae C. Quinn, Levi T. Bradford
Journal Articles
This essay is the second in a two-part series focused on our nation’s invisible juvenile justice system—one that operates under the legal radar as part of the U.S. Constitution’s Article III federal district court system.1 The first publication, Article III Adultification of Kids: History, Mystery, and Troubling Implications of Federal Youth Transfers, 2 examined the little-known practice of prosecuting children as adults in federal courts. This paper will look at the related phenomenon of juvenile delinquency matters that are filed and pursued in our nation’s federal court system.3 To date, most scholarship evaluating youth prosecution has focused on our country’s …
The Judicial Reforms Of 1937, Barry Cushman
The Judicial Reforms Of 1937, Barry Cushman
Journal Articles
The literature on reform of the federal courts in 1937 understandably focuses on the history and consequences of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ill-fated proposal to increase the membership of the Supreme Court. A series of decisions declaring various components of the New Deal unconstitutional had persuaded Roosevelt and some of his advisors that the best way out of the impasse was to enlarge the number of justiceships and to appoint to the new positions jurists who would be “dependable” supporters of the Administration’s program. Yet Roosevelt and congressional Democrats also were deeply troubled by what they perceived as judicial obstruction …
Fallen Woman (Re) Frame: Judge Jean Hortense Norris, New York City - 1912-1955, Mae C. Quinn
Fallen Woman (Re) Frame: Judge Jean Hortense Norris, New York City - 1912-1955, Mae C. Quinn
Journal Articles
No abstract provided.
Constitutionally Incapable: Parole Boards As Sentencing Courts, Mae C. Quinn
Constitutionally Incapable: Parole Boards As Sentencing Courts, Mae C. Quinn
Journal Articles
Courtroom sentencing, as part of the judicial process, is a long-standing norm in the justice system of the United States. But this basic criminal law precept is currently under quiet attack. This is because some states are now allowing parole boards to step in to decide criminal penalties without first affording defendants lawful judicial branch sentencing proceedings and sentences. These outside-of-court punishment decisions are occurring in the cases of youthful offenders entitled to sentencing relief under Miller v. Alabama, which outlawed automatic life-without-parole sentences for children. Thus, some Miller-impacted defendants are being sentenced by paroleboards as executive branch agents, rather …
Fallen Woman Further (Re)Framed: Jewels And Travels, Tragedies And Secrets, Judge Hortense Norris, Mae Quinn
Fallen Woman Further (Re)Framed: Jewels And Travels, Tragedies And Secrets, Judge Hortense Norris, Mae Quinn
Journal Articles
No abstract provided.
In The Room Where It Happens: Including The "Public's Will" In Judicial Review Of Agency Action, Twinette L. Johnson
In The Room Where It Happens: Including The "Public's Will" In Judicial Review Of Agency Action, Twinette L. Johnson
Journal Articles
In the context of higher education reform, the people need to be in the important rooms where the decisions are being made. One such room is the courtroom. This essay elaborates on this premise, previously written about in an article I wrote entitled, 50,000 Voices Can’t Be Wrong, But Courts Might Be: How Chevron’s Existence Contributes to Retrenching the Higher Education Act. That article was the second in a series of three articles on the retrenchment of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (“HEA”) using the William Eskridge and John Ferejohn statutory entrenchment model.
E-Notice, Christine P. Bartholomew
E-Notice, Christine P. Bartholomew
Journal Articles
Social media platforms and smartphone manufacturers face class action lawsuits, but how open are federal courts to using these very technologies to notify members of a class action? This Article details the results from an empirical analysis of over 2700 federal class notice decisions. It finds class notice changing, but very slowly. Supreme Court precedent demands a dynamic standard for class action notice. However, fears of change, technology, and imprecision keep courts tethered to twentieth-century modes of communication. This judicial fear encumbers E-Notice—at a cost to the utility of class action procedures.
Derecho Constitucional [2016-2017 Puerto Rico Supreme Court Term Analysis: Constitutional Law], Jorge M. Farinacci Fernós
Derecho Constitucional [2016-2017 Puerto Rico Supreme Court Term Analysis: Constitutional Law], Jorge M. Farinacci Fernós
Journal Articles
El profesor Jorge Farinacci Fernós analiza las decisiones del Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico en materia de Derecho Constitucional emitidas entre octubre de 2016 y julio de 2017. En particular, el artículo discute (1) el límite a los donativos a candidatos en las primarias y la elección general; (2) el voto adelantado de las personas encamadas y los requisitos aplicables; (3) la aplicación de la veda electoral a los procesos plebiscitarios; (4) la representación de las minorías en la Asamblea Legislativa; (5) la sustitución de un alcalde electo que renuncia antes de tomar posesión; (6) la doctrina de campo ocupado …
Why Federal Courts Apply The Law Of Nations Even Though It Is Not The Supreme Law Of The Land, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark
Why Federal Courts Apply The Law Of Nations Even Though It Is Not The Supreme Law Of The Land, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark
Journal Articles
We are grateful to the judges and scholars who participated in this Symposium examining our book, The Law of Nations and the United States Constitution. One of our goals in writing this book was to reinvigorate and advance the debate over the role of customary international law in U.S. courts. The papers in this Symposium advance this debate by deepening understandings of how the Constitution interacts with customary international law. Our goal in this Article is to address two questions raised by this Symposium that go to the heart of the status of the law of nations under the Constitution. …
Before Interpretation, Anya Bernstein
Before Interpretation, Anya Bernstein
Journal Articles
What a statutory interpretation opinion interprets may seem given. It is not: this article shows how judges select what text to interpret. That text may seem to carry with it one of a limited range of contexts. It does not: this article shows how judges draw on a variety of factors to situate the texts they interpret in unique, case-specific contexts. Selecting and situating form the infrastructure of interpretation. Their creativity and choice provide the basis on which assertions of determinate meaning are made. That process reveals how contestation and indeterminacy permeate legal interpretation even as judicial opinions seek to …
Derecho Constitucional [2015-2016 Puerto Rico Supreme Court Term Analysis: Constitutional Law], Jorge M. Farinacci Fernós
Derecho Constitucional [2015-2016 Puerto Rico Supreme Court Term Analysis: Constitutional Law], Jorge M. Farinacci Fernós
Journal Articles
Este Término fue muy variado en temas constitucionales. (1) Por medio de un caso de derecho a la lactancia en el empleo, el derecho a la intimidad adquirió “forma operativa” y se concretizo como arma de litigio constitucional. (2) Se aclaró que el poder de nombramiento de la figura del o de la Juez(a) Presidente(a) del Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico recae en el Gobernador. (3) Ocurrió un cambio importante en la doctrina de la legitimación activa: la ausencia de legitimación activa no tiene como consecuencia inmediata la desestimación de la demanda por falta de jurisdicción. (4) En relación a …
Inside The 'Constitutional Revolution' Of 1937, Barry Cushman
Inside The 'Constitutional Revolution' Of 1937, Barry Cushman
Journal Articles
The nature and sources of the New Deal Constitutional Revolution are among the most discussed and debated subjects in constitutional historiography. Scholars have reached significantly divergent conclusions concerning how best to understand the meaning and the causes of constitutional decisions rendered by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Though recent years have witnessed certain refinements in scholarly understandings of various dimensions of the phenomenon, the relevant documentary record seemed to have been rather thoroughly explored. Recently, however, a remarkably instructive set of primary sources has become available. For many years, the docket books kept by a number …
Vote Fluidity On The Hughes Court: The Critical Terms, 1934-1936, Barry Cushman
Vote Fluidity On The Hughes Court: The Critical Terms, 1934-1936, Barry Cushman
Journal Articles
This article makes four principal claims. The first is that the justices of the Hughes Court often changed their positions in major cases between the time that they cast their votes in conference and their final votes on the merits. The second is that the Court achieved comparatively high rates of unanimity even during its most turbulent Terms because justices who had served on earlier Courts had internalized a norm counseling those who lost at the conference vote to acquiesce in the judgment of the majority. The third is that the justices who most frequently did so in this period’s …
Multiple Chancellors: Reforming The National Injunction, Samuel L. Bray
Multiple Chancellors: Reforming The National Injunction, Samuel L. Bray
Journal Articles
In several recent high-profile cases, federal district judges have issued injunctions that apply across the nation, controlling the defendants’ behavior with respect to nonparties. This Article analyzes the scope of injunctions to restrain the enforcement of a federal statute, regulation, or order. This analysis shows the consequences of the national injunction: more forum shopping, worse judicial decisionmaking, a risk of conflicting injunctions, and tension with other doctrines and practices of the federal courts.
This Article shows that the national injunction is a recent development in the history of equity. There was a structural shift at the Founding from a single-chancellor …
The English Fire Courts And The American Right To Civil Jury Trial, Jay Tidmarsh
The English Fire Courts And The American Right To Civil Jury Trial, Jay Tidmarsh
Journal Articles
This Article uncovers the history of a long-forgotten English court system, the “fire courts,” which Parliament established to resolve dispute between landlords and tenants in urban areas destroyed in catastrophic fires. One of the fire courts’ remarkable features was the delegation of authority to judges to adjudicate disputes without juries. Because the Seventh Amendment’s right to a federal civil jury trial depends in part on the historical practice of English courts in 1791, this delegation bears directly on the present power of Congress to abrogate the use of juries in federal civil litigation.
Parliament enacted fire-courts legislation on eight occasions …
In Loco Juvenile Justice: Minors In Munis, Cash From Kids, And Adolescent Pro Se Advocacy - Ferguson And Beyond, Mae Quinn
Journal Articles
No abstract provided.
Chaining Kids To The Ever Turning Wheel: Other Contemporary Costs Of Juvenile Court Involvement, Candace Johnson, Mae Quinn
Chaining Kids To The Ever Turning Wheel: Other Contemporary Costs Of Juvenile Court Involvement, Candace Johnson, Mae Quinn
Journal Articles
In this essay, Candace Johnson and Mae Quinn respond to Tamar Birckhead’s important article The New Peonage, based, in part, on their work and experience representing youth in St. Louis, Missouri. They concur with Professor Birckhead’s conclusions about the unfortunate state of affairs in 21st century America— that we use fines, fees, and other prosecution practices to continue to unjustly punish poverty and oppressively regulate racial minorities. Such contemporary processes are far too reminiscent of historic convict leasing and Jim Crow era efforts intended to perpetuate second-class citizenship for persons of color. Johnson and Quinn add to Professor Birckhead’s critique …