Law Commons^™

Policyholder Rights To Independent Counsel: Issues Remain Regarding Compensation, Supervision Of Counsel, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

More than 30 years ago, a California appellate court decision (San Diego Navy Federal Credit Union v. Cumis Insurance Society, 162 Cal. App. 3d 358 (4th Dist. 1984)) worked a revolution of sorts by ruling that, in cases of conflict between an insurer and a policyholder defending against a plaintiff's claim, the insurer was obligated to permit the policyholder to select its own defense counsel rather than having the case defended by an attorney selected by the insurer. The Cumis movement was more evolutionary than revolutionary in Nevada. Until State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. v. Hansen, …

Rodney Dangerfield No More: The American Law Institute's Coming Restatement Of The Law Of Liability Insurance, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

In a casebook I co-author, "Principles of Insurance Law," with Peter Swisher and Erik Knutsen, we refer to insurance as "the Rodney Dangerfield of law." It just does not (to paraphrase the words of the late comedian), get enough respect. Lawyers are familiar with (and have been since perhaps the fourth week of law school), the American Law Institute's Restatements of the Law, particularly widely cited restatements, such as those governing torts and contracts (and, to a lesser extent, judgments, conflict of laws, restitution, suretyship and others). Despite the importance of insurance in the civil justice system, it has been …

Communicating With The Impatient, Skeptical Legal Reader: The Thesis Sentence, Michael J. Higdon

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

On Regulatory Discord And Procedure, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Businesses are increasingly global. But domestic courts’ jurisdiction remains largely provincial; both public and private regulators have overlapping, mismatched authority. Regulatory discord is readily apparent in consumer protection cases. When the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act empowered state regulators while simultaneously creating an encompassing federal regulator—the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—it further contributed to overlap between federal agencies, states, and private litigation.

Whether this regulatory magnetism is optimal in terms of fundamental goals like compensation and deterrence is a hotly debated normative and empirical question. Yet, one need not wade too far into the substantive debate to appreciate …

Constructing Issue Classes, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

As government budgets shrink each year, enforcement responsibilities in products liability, consumer protection, and employment discrimination fall increasingly to private attorneys. But defendants have successfully layered new objections about noncohesive classes and unascertainable members atop legislative and judicial reforms to cripple plaintiffs’ attorneys’ chief weapon — the class action. The result? Courts deny class certification and defendants escape enforcement by highlighting the differences among those affected by their misconduct. At the other end of the regulatory spectrum lies the opposite problem. Some defendants’ actions are so egregious that hordes of public and private regulators can’t help but get involved — …

Enforcing Immigration Equity, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

Congressional amendments to the immigration code in the 1990s significantly broadened grounds for removal while nearly eradicating opportunities for discretionary relief. The result has been a radical transformation of immigration law. In particular, the constriction of equitable discretion as an adjudicative tool has vested a new and critical responsibility in enforcement officials to implement rigid immigration rules in a normatively defensible way, primarily through the use of prosecutorial discretion. This Article contextualizes recent executive enforcement actions within this scheme and argues that the Obama Administration’s targeted use of limited enforcement resources and implementation of initiatives such as Deferred Action for …

Online Platforms And The Eu Digital Single Market, Maurice Stucke, Ariel Ezrachi

Scholarly Works

Our submission to the U.K. House of Lords, Internal Market Sub-Committee is based on our joint research, which explores the effects Big Data and technology have on competition dynamics. It reviews the use of technology to facilitate collusion, conscious parallelism, and unilateral price discrimination as well as the effects of online and mobile platforms.

Our submission addresses the following issues: • What role does data play in the business model of online platforms? • Can data-driven online platforms have excessive market power? • If so, how can they abuse this power? • If so, how does this happen and what …

Book Review - Middle Income Access To Justice, Benjamin H. Barton

Scholarly Works

This is a solicited book review of the excellent Canadian book Middle Income Access to Justice (Michael Trebilcock, Anthony Duggan, & Lorne Sossin, eds., 2012) from the Toronto Law Review.

Limiting Credit Bidding For "Cause" Under § 363(K): Contra Philadelphia Newspapers Footnote 14, George Kuney

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Abortion, Amendment 1, And The Future Of Procreational Rights Under The Tennessee Constitution, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Employment Discrimination In Legal Education: Selected Readings Relating To Women, Minorities, And Legal Writing, Lucille Jewel

Scholarly Works

This bibliography is a collection of selected readings that address discrimination issues and attitudes relating to the employment of women and minorities in legal education.

Teaching The Newly Essential Knowledge, Skills, And Values In A Changing World, Paula Schaefer, Lisa Bliss, Robin A. Boyle, Sylvia B. Caley, Deborah L. Rhode

Scholarly Works

This chapter of Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World has contributions from many authors:

• Section A, Professional Identity Formation, includes:
  • Teaching Knowledge, Skills, and Values of Professional Identity Formation, by Larry O. Natt Gantt, II & Benjamin V. Madison III,
  • Integrating Professionalism into Doctrinally-Focused Courses, by Paula Schaefer,
  • Learning Professional Responsibility, by Clark D. Cunningham, and
  • Teaching Leadership, by Deborah L. Rhode.
• Section B, Pro Bono as a Professional Value, is by Cynthia F. Adcock, Eden E. Harrington, Elizabeth Kane, Susan Schechter, David S. Udell & Eliza Vorenberg.
• Section C, The Relational Skills of the …

Zivotofsky Ii's Two Visions For Foreign Relations Law, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

The five opinions in Zivotofsky v. Kerry – four by the Supreme Court’s Republican-nominated Justices – exposed fault-lines over foreign relations law that have remained hidden in many of the Court’s other cases. This short essay, part of an AJIL Unbound Agora on the case, explores the most notable of these fissures – that between Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, and Chief Justice Roberts, who dissented. Their disagreement in this case highlights the two Justices’ very different visions of U.S. foreign relations law and reveals the dynamic that has defined the direction of the Court over the last …

The Price Of Corruption, Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court recently held that campaign contributions under $5200 do not create a “cognizable risk of corruption.” It was wrong. This Essay describes a nexus of timely contributions and special-interest legislation. In the most noteworthy case, a CEO made a first-time $1000 donation to a member of Congress. The next day that representative introduced a securities bill tailored to the interests of the CEO’s firm.

Armed with this real-world account of how small-dollar campaign contributions coincided with favorable legislative action, the Essay reads McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission with a critical eye. In McCutcheon the Supreme Court assumed that …

Environmental Law, Eleventh Circuit Survey, Travis M. Trimble

Scholarly Works

In 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, addressing an issue of first impression, rejected the district court's use of a Lone Pine case-management order as a means of testing the sufficiency of the plaintiffs' pleadings in a state law environmental torts case. The court also interpreted Florida law to mean that plaintiffs are not required to allege that groundwater contamination exceeded regulatory maximum contaminant levels for drinking water to maintain their claims and that they could recover "stigma" damages to their property without alleging actual contamination. The United States District Court for the Middle District …

Deciphering The Supreme Court's Opinion In Wynne, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

In Wynne, the Supreme Court held that Maryland's personal income tax regime violated the dormant Commerce Clause because It taxed income on a residence and source basis without giving a credit to residents for in· come taxed on a source basis by other states. The Court suggested, how· ever, that a state may tax residents on all their Income without providing a credit for taxes paid by other states if the state did not tax nonresidents on income from sources within the state, even though such a taxing regime might result in double taxation of interstate commerce.

The Ties That Bind: Llc Operating Agreements As Binding Commitments, Joan Macleod Heminway

Scholarly Works

This essay, written in honor and memory of Professor Alan R. Bromberg as part of a symposium issue of the Southern Methodist University Law Review, is designed to provide preliminary answers to two questions. First: is a limited liability company (“LLC”) operating agreement (now known under Delaware law and in certain other circles as a limited liability company agreement) a contract? And second: should we care either way? These questions arise out of, among other things, a recent bankruptcy court case, In re Denman, 513 B.R. 720, 725 (Bankr. W.D. Tenn. 2014).

The bottom line? An operating agreement may or …

Formalism And Distrust: Foreign Affairs Law In The Roberts Court, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

When it comes to foreign relations, the Roberts Court has trust issues. As far as the Court is concerned, everyone — the President, Congress, the lower courts, plaintiffs — has played hard and fast with the rules, taking advantage of the Court’s functionalist approaches to foreign affairs issues. This seems to be the message of the RobertsCourt foreign affairs law jurisprudence.

The Roberts Court has been active in foreign affairs law, deciding cases on the detention and trial of enemy combatants, foreign sovereign immunity, the domestic effect of treaties, the extraterritorial reach of federal statutes, the preemption of state laws, …

Debunking The Myths Over Big Data And Antitrust, Maurice Stucke, Allen Grunes

Scholarly Works

What are the implications of Big Data on competition policy? Some argue little, if any, and offer several reasons why Big Data is a passing fad. We disagree.

As we discuss, competition law can play an important role in maximizing the benefits of a data-driven economy, while mitigating its risks. Our aim here is to first address the competitive significance of Big Data and, second, take on ten myths downplaying Big Data’s antitrust significance.

Yes To Infill, No To Nuisance, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

This article argues against the use of private nuisance suits to exclude apartments from residential neighborhoods, based on the public interest in affordable housing and walkable infill development.

Judging Multidistrict Litigation, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

High-stakes multidistrict litigations saddle the transferee judges who manage them with an odd juxtaposition of power and impotence. On one hand, judges appoint and compensate lead lawyers (who effectively replace parties’ chosen counsel) and promote settlement with scant appellate scrutiny or legislative oversight. But on the other, without the arsenal class certification once afforded, judges are relatively powerless to police the private settlements they encourage. Of course, this power shortage is of little concern since parties consent to settle.

Or do they? Contrary to conventional wisdom, this Article introduces new empirical data revealing that judges appoint an overwhelming number of …

Codifying Chevmore, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

This Article considers the significance and promise of Congress’s unprecedented codification of the well-known Chevron and Skidmore judicial-deference doctrines (to which I refer collectively as “Chevmore”). Congress did so in the Dodd-Frank Act by instructing courts to apply the Skidmore deference factors when reviewing certain agency-preemption decisions and by referring to Chevron throughout.

This codification is meaningful because it informs the delegation theory that undergirds Chevmore (i.e., that Congress intends to delegate interpretive primacy over statutory interpretation to agencies under Chevron or courts under Skidmore). Scholars and at least three Supreme Court Justices have decried the judicial inquiry into congressional …

"All Writs" In Bankruptcy And District Courts: A Story Of Differing Scope, George Kuney

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Registering Trade And Service Marks In Tennessee: A Brief How-To Guide, Brian Krumm, Zackarij R. Gardner

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

If It Ain't Broke, Break It - How The Tennessee General Assembly Dismantled And Destroyed Tennessee's Uniquely Excellent Judicial System, Penny White

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

No Mistake About It: The Important Role Of Antitrust In The Era Of Big Data, Maurice Stucke, Allen Grunes

Scholarly Works

Competition authorities in Europe (and to a lesser extent in other jurisdictions) are beginning to make data, its uses, and its implications for competition law, a key focus. Some, however, argue that competition law has a limited role to play in the era of big data. We respectfully disagree. Competition law will play an integral role to ensure that we capture the benefits of a data-driven economy while mitigating its associated risks.

After outlining several implications of big data on competition policy, we address some of the myths about big data and competition law. These myths paint with a broad …

Breaking The Fever: A New Construct For Regulating Overtreatment, Isaac ("Zack") D. Buck

Scholarly Works

The Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) current theory of overtreatment regulation — and, in fact, all of the prominent amount of medical necessity-based health care fraud enforcement — adopts the argument that providers are violating the False Claims Act when they submit bills to the federal government for care they administered that is not medically necessary. Besides stoking the ire of the provider community, this regulatory strategy is susceptible to inefficiency, imprecision, and — as I have argued before — overuse. Whether a procedure was medically necessary can be a highly difficult question to answer, one easily swayed by clinically-complex details, …

Third Amendment Penumbras: Some Preliminary Observations, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Scholarly Works

In the landmark case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court told us that the Third Amendment casts a penumbra. This Essay, part of a Tennessee Law Review symposium on the Third Amendment, looks at the Third Amendment, and its construction in such cases as Griswold and Engblom v. Carey, to conclude that the Third Amendment's penumbral protections may extend to protect areas of domestic concern against state interference in the form of things like "affirmative consent" laws, regulation of childrearing practices, and invasions of electronic privacy. It concludes with some thoughts on how the Third Amendment should be read …

The Third Amendment In The 21st Century, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Teaching Business Associations With Group Oral Midterms: Benefits And Drawbacks, Joan Macleod Heminway

Scholarly Works

I focus in this Article on a particular way to assess student learning in a Business Associations course. Those of us involved in legal education for the past few years know that “assessment” has been a buzzword...or a bugaboo...or both. The American Bar Association (ABA) has focused law schools on assessment (institutional and pedagogical), and that focus is not, in my view, misplaced. Until relatively recently, much of student assessment in law school doctrinal courses was rote behavior, seemingly driven by heuristics and resulting in something constituting (or at least resembling) information cascades or other herding behaviors.

In the fall …