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Series

Boston University School of Law

Supreme Court

1997

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Labor And The Supreme Court: Review Of The 1996-1997 Term, Keith N. Hylton Oct 1997

Labor And The Supreme Court: Review Of The 1996-1997 Term, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court's 1996-1997 Term will surely not be remembered among lawyers for its decisions in the employment area. Most of these decisions involved narrow questions of statutory interpretation, and for the most part the Court has handed down opinions consistent with existing case law. There was not one National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) decision this Term and the two employment discrimination cases involved fairly technical issues of statutory interpretation. The feeling of a quiet year is put across by simply reading the statutes at issue other than Title VII: the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) (one case), the …


Common Law Elements Of The Section 1983 Action, Jack M. Beermann Jan 1997

Common Law Elements Of The Section 1983 Action, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the role of the common law in Supreme Court interpretation and application of § 1983, which grants a cause of action for violations of constitutional rights committed "under color of any [state] statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage."' I argue that the common law has served primarily to narrow the reach of § 1983, and that this is inappropriate in light of the broad statutory language and the absence of good evidence that the enacting Congress intended a narrower application than the statutory language indicates.