Law Commons^™

The Normativity Of Copying In Copyright Law, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

All Faculty Scholarship

Not all copying constitutes copyright infringement. Quite independent of fair use, copyright law requires that an act of copying be qualitatively and quantitatively significant enough or “substantially similar” for it to be actionable. Originating in the nineteenth century, and entirely the creation of courts, copyright’s requirement of “substantial similarity” has thus far received little attention as an independently meaningful normative dimension of the copyright entitlement. This Article offers a novel theory for copyright’s substantial-similarity requirement by placing it firmly at the center of the institution and its various goals and purposes. As a common-law-style device that mirrors the functioning of …

Promises Policies And Principles The Supreme Court And Contractual Obligation In Labor Relations, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Past Consideration Or Unconnected Consideration, Yihan Goh, Man Yip

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is trite law that a valid and enforceable contract must be supported by consideration. The recent Court of Appeal case of Rainforest Trading Ltd v State Bank of India Singapore [2012] 2 SLR 713 is a further addition to the local jurisprudence on consideration, specifically the issue of past consideration. This note considers the specific issue of past consideration and argues that its label should be discarded in favour of a more realistic one that correctly emphasises its underlying concerns.

The Reality Of Eu-Conformity Review In France, Juscelino F. Colares

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

French High Courts embraced review of national legislation for conformity with EU law in different stages and following distinct approaches to EU law supremacy. This article tests whether adherence to different views on EU law supremacy has resulted in different levels of EU directive enforcement by the French High Courts. After introducing the complex French systems of statutory, treaty and constitutional review, this study explains how EU-conformity review emerged among these systems and provides an empirical analysis refuting the anecdotal view that different EU supremacy theories produce substantial differences in conformity adjudication outcomes. These Courts' uniformly high rates of EU …

The Great Recession And The Rhetorical Canons Of Law And Economics, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Publications

THE GREAT RECESSION AND THE RHETORICAL CANONS OF LAW AND ECONOMICS, by Michael D. Murray

Abstract

The Great Recession of 2008 and onward has drawn attention to the American economic and financial system, and has cast a critical spotlight on the theories, policies, and assumptions of the modern, neoclassical school of law and economics—often labeled the "Chicago School"—because this school of legal economic thought has had great influence on the American economy and financial system. The Chicago School's positions on deregulation and the limitation or elimination of oversight and government restraints on stock markets, derivative markets, and other financial practices …

Exile On Main Street: Competing Traditions And Due Process Dissent, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

Everybody loves great dissents. Professors teach them, students learn from them, and journalists quote them. Yet legal scholars have long puzzled over how dissents actually impact the development of doctrine. Recent work by notable empirical scholars proposes to measure the influence of dissents by reference to their subsequent citation in case law. This Article challenges the theoretical basis for this empirical approach and argues that it fails to account for the profound influence that uncited dissents have exerted in law. To overcome this gap in the empirical approach, this Article proposes an alternative method that permits analysis of contextual and …

Posner’S Pragmatism And The Turn Toward Fidelity, Edward Cantu

Faculty Works

It is no secret that formalist methodologies like originalism are not nearly as scientific as they pretend to be. Banking on this fact, pragmatism offers a prescriptive alternative: instead of expending intellectual energy attempting “fidelity” to antecedent “authority” (precedent, Framers’ intent, etc.) judges should embrace their inevitable roles as de facto policy makers, and focus on producing the best social results they can through the cases they decide. This article discusses the current state of legal pragmatism, with a focus on the archetypal species espoused by Judge Richard Posner, and asks whether it has proven itself capable of contributing anything …

Kenya Vs. The Icc Prosecutor, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Feminist Legal Realism, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

This Article begins to rethink current conceptions of two of the most significant legal movements in this country1—Legal Realism and Feminist Jurisprudence. The story of Legal Realism has been retold for decades. Authors have dedicated countless books,2 law review articles,3 and blog posts4 to the subject. Legal and other scholars repeatedly have attempted to define better the movement and ascertain its adherents. Although the usual suspects— Karl Llewellyn, Roscoe Pound, and Jerome Frank—are almost always a part of the conversation, surprisingly few agree on the totality of Realism’s personage or parameters. The lists of those considered realists— and there are …

Gazing Into The Future: The 100-Year Legacy Of Justice William J. Brennan, Stephen Wermiel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Introduction: How should Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., be remembered in 2056, one hundred years after he joined the United States Supreme Court, or in 2090, one hundred years after he left it? There is no set convention for how we evaluate the success or failure, the greatness or mediocrity, of our Supreme Court Justices. This is the case even in their lifetimes, let alone decades later. Yet there are some constants in Brennan's legendary judicial career that may guide the way to evaluating his legacy.

In Good Conscience: Expressions Of Judicial Conscience In Federal Appellate Opinions, Sarah M. R. Cravens

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This article explores judicial references to what judges may or may not do, in their own words, “in good conscience.” It assesses the most common situations in which federal appellate judges use this term and it discusses the propriety of different uses and placements of those expressions of conscientious commitments that play into judicial decisionmaking. It distinguishes between expressions of primarily institutional conscience (that is, the commitment to certain institutional values, responsibilities, or limitations on what the judge may do) and expressions of primarily personal conscience (that is, the commitment to the individual values or beliefs of the judge who …

Professionalism And Advocacy At Trial – Real Jurors Speak In Detail About The Performance Of Their Advocates, Mitchell J. Frank, Osvaldo F. Morera

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Constitutional Bounding Of Adjudication: A Fuller(Ian) Explanation For The Supreme Court's Mass Tort Jurisprudence, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I argue that the Supreme Court is implicitly piecing together a constitutionally mandated model of bounded adjudication governing mass torts, using decisions that facially rest on disparate constitutional provisions. This model constitutionally restricts common law courts from adjudicating the rights, liabilities, and interests of persons who are neither present before the court nor capable of being defined with a reasonable degree of specificity. I find evidence for this model in the Court’s separate decisions rejecting tort-based climate change claims, global settlements of massive asbestos litigation, and punitive damages awards justified as extra-compensatory damages. These new forms of …

Using The Papers Of U.S. Supreme Court Justices: A Reflection, Stephen Wermiel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This essay examines the benefits and drawbacks of writing about the U.S. Supreme Court using the papers' of the Justices and how the work of Professor James F Simon highlights the benefits. The benefits are that the Justices' papers provide invaluable understanding of the Court's decisionmaking process, the influences that are significant, and how much substance actually matters. The papers shed light on why important legal doctrines developed in certain ways and what arguments held sway, identify rules that may be on thin ice in terms of underlying support, and show the nature of the working relationships among the Justices, …

Originalism And Loving V. Virginia, Steven G. Calabresi, Andrea Matthews

Faculty Working Papers

This article makes an originalist argument in defense of the Supreme Court's holding in Loving v. Virginia that antimiscegenation laws are unconstitutional. This article builds on past work by Professor Michael McConnell defending Brown v. Board of Education on originalist grounds and by Professor Calabresi defending strict scrutiny for gender classifications on originalist grounds. Professor Calabresi's work in this area was defended and praise recently by Slate magazine online. The article shows that Loving v. Virginia is defensible using the public meaning originalism advocated for by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. This article shows that the issue in Loving …

The Market As A Legal Concept, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

In the wake of the recent financial crisis of 2008, and in the run-up to what some are calling a perfect fiscal storm, there is no shortage of commentary on the need for fundamental market reform. Though there are certainly disagreements about where the real problems are and what to do, almost all the commentary remains wedded to an old and entirely false image of “free competition.” Of course, there is hardly consensus about whether markets require the heavy hand of regulative control, or are better left to regulate themselves, but a belief in the distinction between these two images …

A Look At The Establishment Clause Through The Prism Of Religious Perspectives: Religious Majorities, Religious Minorities, And Nonbelievers, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

This article traces the Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence through several decades, examining a number of landmark cases through the prism of religious minority perspectives. In so doing, the Article aims to demonstrate the significance of religious perspectives in the development of both the doctrine and rhetoric of the Establishment Clause. The Article then turns to the current state of the Establishment Clause, expanding upon these themes through a close look at the 2004 and 2005 cases Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, Van Orden v. Perry, and McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. The article concludes …

The Politics Of Hate, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This is a special issue dedicated to the topic of hate and political discourse. Collectively, the peer-reviewed articles in this volume are concerned with the political aspects of hatred, i.e., psychology, motivations, organization, tactics, and ends. The articles approach the problem from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, history, law, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. Among the subjects analyzed: group hatred as a heritable trait; hate as an irrational system of thought; Italian fascism's construction of the Communist other; the rise of the English Defence League and its anti-Islam activities; the persistent myth of blood libel; judicial handling …

The Endangered Species Act's Fall From Grace In The Supreme Court, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Thirty-five years ago, the Endangered Species Act ("ESA") had as auspicious a debut in the U.S. Supreme Court as any statute could hope for. In Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, a majority of the Court proclaimed that the ESA was intended "to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost" and backed up those and other bold words by preventing a nearly completed federal dam from impounding its reservoir because doing so would eliminate the only known (at the time) habitat of a small fish, the now infamous snail darter. To this day, Hill remains actively discussed …

An Empirical Assessment Of Climate Change In The Courts: A New Jurisprudence Or Business As Usual?, J.B. Ruhl, David L. Markell

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

While legal scholarship seeking to assess the impact of litigation on the direction of climate change policy is abundant and growing in leaps and bounds, to date it has relied on and examined only small, isolated pieces of the vast litigation landscape. Without a complete picture of what has and has not been within the sweep of climate change litigation, it is difficult to offer a robust evaluation of the past, present, and future of climate change jurisprudence. Based on a comprehensive empirical study of the status of all (201) climate change litigation matters filed through 2010, this Article is …

Legislating Inclusion, Lia Epperson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Persistence Of Proximate Cause: How Legal Doctrine Thrives On Skepticism, Jessie Allen

Articles

This Article starts with a puzzle: Why is the doctrinal approach to “proximate cause” so resilient despite longstanding criticism? Proximate cause is a particularly extreme example of doctrine that limps along despite near universal consensus that it cannot actually determine legal outcomes. Why doesn’t that widely recognized indeterminacy disable proximate cause as a decision-making device? To address this puzzle, I pick up a cue from the legal realists, a group of skeptical lawyers, law professors, and judges, who, in the 1920s and 1930s, compared legal doctrine to ritual magic. I take that comparison seriously, perhaps more seriously, and definitely in …

Justice John Paul Stevens, Originalist, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

Commentators, including the author of a recent book on the Supreme Court, often attempt to give each Justice a methodological label, such as “practitioner of judicial restraint,” “legal realist,” “pragmatist,” or “originalist.” This Essay first demonstrates that none of the first three labels applies without fail to Justice John Paul Stevens; consequently, it explores the extent to which Justice Stevens’s jurisprudence paid heed to the fourth method, “originalism.” It looks in particular at Justice Stevens’s opinions in recent cases involving firearms, national security, and capital punishment. Somewhat at odds with conventional wisdom, the Essay reveals Justice Stevens as a kind …

Theater Of International Justice, Jessie Allen

Articles

In this essay I defend international human rights tribunals against the charge that they are not “real” courts (with sovereign force behind them) by considering the proceedings in these courts as a kind of theatrical performance. Looking at human rights courts as theater might at first seem to validate the view that they produce only an illusory “show” of justice. To the contrary, I argue that self-consciously theatrical performances are what give these courts the potential to enact real justice. I do not mean only that human rights tribunals’ dramatic public hearings make injustice visible and bring together a community …

Race As A Legal Concept, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

Race is a legal concept, and like all legal concepts, it is a matrix of rules. Although the legal conception of race has shifted over time, up from slavery and to the present, one element in the matrix has remained the same: the background rules of race have always taken a view of racial identity as a natural aspect of human biology. To be sure, characterizations of the rule have oftentimes kept pace with developments in race science, and the original invention of race as a rationale for the subordination of certain human populations is now a rationale with little …

Duncan Kennedy's Third Globalization, Criminal Law, And The Spectacle, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Experimental Pragmatism In The Third Globalization, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

Pragmatism dominates contemporary legal thought, but knowing this isn’t knowing so much. Legal pragmatism means different things to different people, and as this essay argues, minimalist and experimentalist forms of regulation both share a broadly pragmatic sensibility about law and democracy. As a consequence, we need to tease out the various threads of legal pragmatism in the hope of distinguishing the pragmatisms that work from the ones that don’t, or less pragmatically, the ones that are just from the ones that are not. This knowledge will come from an ongoing assessment of the political stakes immanent in the pragmatisms, and …

Due Process In The American Identity, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

In the last four years, public opinion polls have found an increasingly high level of public support for the methods applied in the war on terror. A significant majority of the population now expresses support for targeted killing through drone strikes and for the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. While there are undoubtedly many dynamics at play in the public's changing views of national security and due process, this Article examines one piece of the puzzle: how the concept of due process fits within the structure of the American identity.

This Article examines due process and national …

Introduction: The Politics Of Hate, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This is a special issue dedicated to the topic of hate and political discourse. Collectively, the peer-reviewed articles in this volume are concerned with the political aspects of hatred, i.e., psychology, motivations, organization, tactics, and ends. The articles approach the problem from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, history, law, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. Among the subjects analyzed: group hatred as a heritable trait; hate as an irrational system of thought; Italian fascism's construction of the Communist other; the rise of the English Defence League and its anti-Islam activities; the persistent myth of blood libel; judicial handling …