Law Commons^™

Junior Secured Creditors And The Automatic Stay, David G. Carlson

Articles

No abstract provided.

Race And The Victim: An Examination Of Capital Sentencing And Guilt Attribution Studies, Cynthia Lee

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article examines the effect of the race of the victim on legal decision making in capital and non-capital criminal cases. A large body of research on race and capital sentencing indicates that the crime victim's race affects the prosecutor's decision to seek, and the jury's decision to recommend, the death penalty. The most well known of these is undoubtedly the Baldus study, which provided the data underlying the defendant's challenge to the Georgia death penalty regime in McCleskey v. Kemp. Less well known are empirical analyses conducted since the Supreme Court rejected McCleskey's challenge. The article reviews several of …

Rights, Wrongs, And Recourse In The Law Of Torts, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Vanderbilt Law Review

Cardozo's opinion in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.' hinges on a stark assertion about rights and wrongs: A plaintiff has no right of action unless she can show "'a wrong' to herself; i.e., a violation of her own right." Cardozo himself made this principle the core of his analysis, yet scholars typically regard it as impenetrable, circular, vacuous, or, as Posner put it, "eloquent bluff." Small wonder, then, that readers typically turn to "reasonable foreseeability" as the essence of the case. Leading scholars treat Palsgraf as a proximate cause case, despite Cardozo's pronouncement that "W[the law of causation, remote …

Archibald Cox: Teacher, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

Archie Cox is a teacher. He taught generations of law students at Harvard Law School and, more recently, at Boston University School of Law. He left the classroom on three occasions, reluctantly, when first President Truman, then President Kennedy, then President Nixon's Attorney General called Professor Cox to Washington to play a part on the national stage. In his first weeks as Watergate Special Prosecutor, Cox carried with him a stack of blue books, Labor Law examinations he still had to grade (p. 263). In the public eye, his straight-backed demeanor, his familiar crew cut, half-glasses, bow tie, and tweeds …

Toleration, Autonomy, And Governmental Promotion Of Good Lives: Beyond "Empty" Toleration To Toleration As Respect, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This Article considers discontent with liberal toleration as being both too empty, because it fails to secure respect and appreciation among citizens who tolerate each other, and too robust, because it precludes government from engaging in a formative project of helping citizens to live good, self-governing lives. To meet these criticisms, the Article advances a model of toleration as respect, as distinguished from a model of empty toleration, drawing on three rationales for toleration: the anti-compulsion rationale, the jurisdictional rationale, and the diversity rationale. It defends toleration as respect against some common criticisms-emanating from feminist, civic republican, and liberal perfectionist …

Transgenic Agriculture: Biosafety And International Trade, Michael S. Baram, Calestuous Juma, Sheldon Krimsky, Rufus C. King

Faculty Scholarship

We stand at the threshold of a new century that will bring novel methods of producing foods, industrial materials, pharmaceuticals, and other products important to society and industry. Today's session will, therefore, address a subject of great importance: the introduction of genetically modified crops, livestock, micro-organisms, and other substances into agriculture and related fields, made possible by American and foreign corporate biotechnology.

Productivity Adjustments And Learning-By-Doing As Human Capital, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

This paper measures plant-level productivity gains associated with learning curves across the entire manufacturing sector. We measure these gains at plant startups and also after major employment changes. We find: 1) The gains are strongly associated with a variety of human capital measures implying that learning-by-doing is largely a firm-specific human capital investment. 2) This implicit investment is large; many plants invest as much in learning-by-doing as they invest in physical capital and much more than they invest in formal job training. 3) This investment differs persistently over industries and is higher with greater R&D. 4) Consistent with a learning-by-doing …

International Law And International Relations Theory: A New Generation Of Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Andrew S. Tulumello, Stepan Wood

All Faculty Publications

Nine years ago, Kenneth Abbott published an article exhorting international lawyers to read and master regime theory, arguing that it had multiple uses for the study of international law. 1 He went as far as to call for a "joint discipline" that would bridge the gap between international relations theory (IR) and international law (IL). Several years later, one of us followed suit with an article mapping the history of the two fields and setting forth an agenda forjoint research. 2 Since then, political scientists and international lawyers have been reading and drawing on one another's work with increasing frequency …

Policing For Profit: The Drug War’S Hidden Economic Agenda, Eric D. Blumenson, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

In the following pages, we first describe in more detail how the Drug War’s financial largess has kept its soldiers in business. We then discuss the destructive impact of this economic regime, marshaling evidence to show that the corruption of law enforcement priorities and wholesale miscarriages of justice can be attributed to the operation of these incentives. Finally, we explore potential legal and legislative remedies through which law enforcement may regain its bearings.

Our investigation focuses on the economic underpinnings of current drug law enforcement policy. Drug policy also raises an extraordinarily broad range of moral, health, and criminological concerns, …

Primum Non Nocere: The Expanding "Honest Services" Mail Fraud Statute And The Physician-Patient Fiduciary Relationship, Gregory D. Jones

Vanderbilt Law Review

In one case, a physician refers a patient to a certain hospital in return for an undisclosed referral fee from the hospital. In another, a physician decides not to refer a patient to a specialist for further examination. The physician, however, does not disclose to the patient that part of the cost of sending the patient to the specialist would come out of the physician's potential earnings. In the previous examples, has the physician breached her fiduciary duty to the patient by not disclosing her own financial interest in the patient's treatment? If so, the physician could be guilty of …

Fencing Cyberspace: Drawing Borders In A Virtual World, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

In the last few years, the Internet has increasingly become a source of information even for the historically computer illiterate. The growing popularity of the Internet has been driven in large part by the World Wide Web (web). The web is a system that facilitates use of the Internet by helping users sort through the great mass of information available on it. The web uses software that allows one document to link to and access another, and so on, despite the fact that the documents may reside on different machines in physically remote locations. The dispersion of data that is …

Marriage Contracts And The Family Economy, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

One simplified view of contract law is that the state enforces private bargains without looking into the substance of those bargains. From this contractual perspective marriage might look like a contract to exchange services and goods: love, money, the ability to have and raise children, housework, sex, emotional support, physical care in times of sickness, entertainment and so forth. But when the parties to a marriage put these terms in writing, courts only enforce the provisions governing money. This contract/family law rule of selective enforcement disproportionately benefits those who bring more money to a marriage, who are more likely to …

Grounded Applications: Feminism And Law At The Millennium, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

The conference topic is feminism in the twenty-first century, a dialogue between academics and practicing attorneys. The first order of business will be to resist the millennium invitation to come up with evermore novel, overarching formulations of the mission and means of feminism. At the end of the twentieth century we know quite a bit about the problems presented by feminists and the problems within feminism. We have had a long history of insightful intellectual discourse on questions of equality and on the meaning of gender. We also know that it takes time to absorb and apply broad insights in …

Bridging The Gap In Forum Selection: Harmonizing Arbitration And Court Selection, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

More than one thoughtful international business manager has been haunted by the fear that foreign judges might not always respect Moses' admonition to impartiality., Concern that the other side will have an unfair advantage in its home court has often driven lawyers to include in international contracts one of two forum selection devices:2 an arbitration agreement entrusting the controversy to a private decision-maker or a courtselection clause granting adjudicatory power to courts at a designated location.3 Both mechanisms can enhance political and procedural neutrality, thereby facilitating business ventures when parties have a mutual mistrust of each other's courts and a …

Defending The Middle Way: Intermediate Scrutiny As Judicial Minimalism, Jay D. Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

In the last few years, Court-watchers have been particularly busy critiquing the constitutional decisions of the splintered Rehnquist Court. Two of the recurring critiques have posited that the Justices are overly activist and that their opinions are needlessly confusing. American Lawyer's Stuart Taylor, for example, has decried both the "jurisprudential mess" of the Court's recent redistricting decisions' as well as the disturbing activism that Taylor believes marks each of the Equal Protection decisions of the 1995-96 Terman activism that has led him to wonder "whether there is any life at all left in the idea of judicial restraint."' Eva Rodriguez …

The American Bar Association And Federal Habeas Corpus, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

The ABA explains its proposed moratorium on capital punishment in part on the ground that recent decisions rendered by the Supreme Court and legislation enacted by Congress limit the ability of prisoners under sentence of death to challenge their sentences in the federal courts.' According to the ABA, the Supreme Court has placed numerous hurdles in the path of prisoners who apply to the federal courts for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that their convictions were obtained or their sentences were imposed in violation of federal law. Congress, for its part, has added even more barriers in Title I …

Title Page

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Functus Officio: Does The Doctrine Apply In Labor Arbitration - Teamsters Local 312 V. Matlack, Inc., Amy Markel

Journal of Dispute Resolution

The doctrine of functus officio was developed at common law in response to concerns about the "solemnity of judgments" and the effect of outside influences on arbitrators' decisions.2 Although not strictly applied in arbitration that is conducted pursuant to the Labor Management Relations Act,3 the doctrine of functus officio prevents an arbitrator from vacating, modifying, supplementing, or correcting his award . Most courts recognize three narrow exceptions to the doctrine which allow an arbitrator to revisit his award under limited circumstances. This Note examines the application of the "clarification exception" to the doctrine in a labor dispute setting and outlines …

Table Of Contents - Issue 1

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents - Issue 2

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Restoring Faith In The Attorney/Client Relationship: Alaska's Mandatory Fee Arbitration - A. Fred Miller, Attorneys At Law, P.C. V. Purvis, Byron D. Brown

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Arbitration is an effective method of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in resolving a disagreement between an attorney and client over legal fees. The arbitration proceeding offers benefits for both lawyers and clients. Attorneys avoid having to sue a former client for a delinquent bill and face the very real possibility of a malpractice counterclaim. The client, on the other hand, avoids the aggravation of retaining another counsel to defend the suit. Mandatory fee arbitration, as established by the Alaska Supreme Court, places the decision to submit to arbitration squarely in the client's hands. Once the client chooses arbitration, the attorney …

Qualification Requirements Of Mediators, Norma Jeanne Hill

Journal of Dispute Resolution

As the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution spreads, the question of who is qualified to provide mediation services becomes ever more important. In determining which selection methods to use in choosing qualified mediators for a particular court or program, attention should be paid to the effectiveness of each specific method, the cost to use it, and whether the method unduly discriminates against individuals of different cultural groups or with varying mediation styles. Just like any other selection procedure in the world of employment, a mediator qualification requirement ought to be analyzed in terms of effectiveness, cost, and discriminatory effects before …

Human Cloning: A Choice Or An Echo, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The chant is "cloning, cloning, cloning"; but the echo is "choice, choice, choice." From all the hoopla about human cloning as a human choice it would seem that cloning must be the most important scientific issue of our age. My intent in this Commentary is not to join this chorus, but to take advantage of cloning's high visibility to explore the nature of the choice it offers. What is it that makes human cloning at once so appealing to a few and so repulsive to most? The answer, I think, can be found in Roman mythology: Cloning recalls Ovid's myth …

A National Bill Of Patients' Rights, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

In one of the most enthusiastically received proposals in his January State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton called on Congress to enact a national bill of rights in health care. The President said, “You have the right to know all your medical options, not just the cheapest. You have the right to choose the doctor you want for the care you need. You have the right to emergency room care, wherever and whenever you need it. You have the right to keep your medical records confidential.”

Protecting Patients From Discrimination: The Americans With Disabilities Act And Hiv Infection, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990 to expand the reach of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and make discrimination on the basis of disability unlawful. The wheelchair symbol has become a universal sign of disability, but there are, of course, many types of disability that have been the basis of discrimination over the years, including blindness, deafness, epilepsy, cancer, heart disease, and mental retardation. AIDS is a disability under the ADA, and most commentators have assumed that infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) also qualifies as a disability under this act. It was not, however, …

Partial-Birth Abortion, Congress, And The Constitution, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The political debate over abortion during the past 25 years has shifted among various dichotomous views of the world: life versus choice, fetus versus woman, fetus versus baby, constitutional right versus states' rights, government versus physician, physician and patient versus state legislature. Hundreds of statutes and almost two dozen Supreme Court decisions on abortion later, the core aspects of Roe v. Wade, 1 the most controversial health-related decision by the Court ever, remain substantially the same as they were in 1973. Attempts to overturn Roe in both the courtroom and the legislature have failed. Pregnant women still have a constitutional …

Protecting Soldiers From Friendly Fire: The Consent Requirement For Using Investigational Drugs And Vaccines In Combat, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

In 1990, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the Department of Defense (DOD) sought a waiver of the informed consent requirements of existing human experimentation regulations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). With this waiver, DOD could authorize military use of investigational drugs and vaccines on soldiers involved in the Gulf War without their informed consent. The basis of the waiver request was military expediency. In DOD's words: "In all peace time applications, we believe strongly in informed consent and ethical foundations... but military combat is different." DOD's rationale was that informed consent under combat conditions was "not feasible" because …

Human Rights And Health - The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights At 50, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

War, famine, pestilence, and poverty have had obvious and devastating effects on health throughout human history. In recent times, human rights have come to be viewed as essential to freedom and individual development. But it is only since the end of World War II that the link between human rights and these causes of disease and death has been recognized.1-3 The 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — signed on December 10, 1948 — provides an opportunity to review its genesis, to explore the contemporary link between health and human rights, and to develop effective human-rights …

Human Rights And Maternal-Fetal Hiv Transmission Prevention Trials In Africa, George J. Annas, Michael A. Grodin

Faculty Scholarship

The human rights issues raised by the conduct of maternal-fetal human immunodeficiency virus transmission trials in Africa are not unique to either acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or Africa, but public discussion of these trials presents an opportunity for the United States and other wealthy nations to take the rights and welfare of impoverished populations seriously. The central issue at stake when developed countries perform research on subjects in developing countries is exploitation. The only way to prevent exploitation of a research population is to insist not only that informed consent be obtained but also that, should an intervention be proven beneficial, …

The Shadowlands: Secrets, Lies, And Assisted Reproduction, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Americans love babies and technology, and most Americans applaud the ability of the new assisted-reproduction techniques to help infertile couples have children. But these techniques have also given birth to a wide variety of new legal issues, including questions about the identity of the mother and father of the child, the enforcement of preconception contracts, the elements of informed consent, and the disposition of frozen embryos. After almost 20 years of experience and the growth of infertility clinics into a multibillion-dollar industry, it is time to consider establishing national standards and a federal regulatory scheme. Two recent court cases, one …