Law Commons^™

Taking Text Too Seriously: Modern Textualism, Original Meaning, And The Case Of Amar's Bill Of Rights, William Michael Treanor

Michigan Law Review

Championed on the Supreme Court by Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas and in academia most prominently by Professor Akhil Amar textualism has emerged within the past twenty years as a leading school of constitutional interpretation. Textualists argue that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with its original public meaning, and in seeking that meaning, they closely parse the Constitution's words and grammar and the placement of clauses in the document. They have assumed that this close parsing recaptures original meaning, but, perhaps because it seems obviously correct, that assumption has neither been defended nor challenged. This Article uses Professor …

Envisioning The Constitution, Thomas P. Crocker

Faculty Publications

If one of the more persistent problems of constitutional interpretation, particularly of the Bill of Rights, is that we lack a clear view of it, then it would appear that how we see the Constitution is as important as how we read it. What clauses we see as connected in order to form comprehensive values, such as federalism or rights protections, are not so much products of constitutional interpretation as constitutional vision. To obtain a view of the Constitution, we have to do more than derive semantic meaning from diverse articles and clauses. To have a vision of the Constitution …

Envisioning The Constitution , Thomas P. Crocker

American University Law Review

If one of the more persistent problems of constitutional interpretation, particularly of the Bill of Rights, is that we lack a clear view of it, then it would appear that how we see the Constitution is as important as how we read it. What clauses we see as connected in order to form comprehensive values, such as federalism or rights protections, are not so much products of constitutional interpretation as constitutional vision. To obtain a view of the Constitution, we have to do more than derive semantic meaning from diverse articles and clauses. To have a vision of the Constitution …

Re Canada Post Corp And Cupw (Paris), Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

This is a supplementary award. The parties could not agree on the interpretation of a consent award issued the day before this grievance. The issue being the length of time the Grievor was to remain free of illegal drug use. The Union said the 24 months mentioned in the award; the Employer said indefinitely. The counsel for the Employer also suggested that the Arbitrator did not have jurisdiction to decide the matter.

Cep V Bell Aliant Regional Communications Llp, Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

This is a policy grievance brought by the Union because the Employer refused to allow employees, who were accepting an early retirement package, to include outstanding vacation time as time served. The Union wanted the remedy to include a recalculation of entitlement for the relevant employees, a declaration that the Employer had violated the Agreement and an order that eligible employees be allow to reconsider their choices based on this decision. The Employer's interpretation hinged on the fact that the departure date was subject to the Employer's approval.

Federalism And Natural Resources Policy [Outline], Robert L. Fischman

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

2 pages.

"Robert L. Fischman, Indiana University School of Law–Bloomington"

"Outline of Presentation"

Ex Aequo Et Bono: De-Mystifying An Ancient Concept, Leon E. Trakman

Leon E Trakman Dean

The ancient concept, ex aequo et bono, holds that adjudicators should decide disputes according to that which is “fair,” and in “good conscience”. Despite its long history in international adjudication and even though it is enshrined in the Charter of the Permanent Court of International Justice, the concept of ex aequo et bono is often avoided on grounds that it operates outside of law, or is deemed to be contrary to law. This article argues that the concept has a valuable and emerging significance in modern law. It is ideally suited to resolving disputes between parties who are engaged in …

The Constitution Of Terror: Big Lies, Backlash Jurisprudence, And The Rule Of Law In The United States Today, Francisco Valdes

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Social Construction Of Sarbanes-Oxley, Donald C. Langevoort

Michigan Law Review

Part I will take a close look at the legitimacy of SOX by examining the two plausible stories of SOX's origins and considering the early post-SOX evidence on its costs and benefits. There is no clear-cut answer to the question of how much SOX benefits investors; both positive and critical positions are plausible. Costs have been far greater than expected, but more from SOX's implementation than from the legislative text. Before turning to how and why implementation has occurred that way-which to me is the central question of interpretation-Part II considers whether there is an alternative interpretation of SOX that …

Optimal Tax Compliance And Penalties When The Law Is Uncertain, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

This article examines the optimal level of tax compliance and the optimal penalty for noncompliance in circumstances in which the substance of the tax law is uncertain - that is, when the precise application of the Internal Revenue Code to a particular situation is not clear. In such situations, a number of interesting questions arise. This article will consider two of them. First, as a normative matter, how certain should taxpayers be before they rely on a particular interpretation of a substantively uncertain tax rule? If a particular position is not clearly prohibited but neither is it clearly allowed, what …

Hanging On To Till: Interpretations Of Bapcpa's Hanging Paragraph, Kaitlin A. Bridges

Missouri Law Review

Bankruptcy law has significantly changed in the last two years due to the enactment of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act ("BAPCPA"). An already complex and challenging area of law, bankruptcy has become even more so, as debtors and creditors begin to question how their rights have changed. For courts, one of the most perplexing issues is whether the standards and interpretations that were established in preBAPCPA bankruptcy cases are still applicable today. As courts have examined the potential effects of the new legislation, different opinions have emerged, leaving even more uncertainty for interested parties. One of the …

Life-Giving Speech Amid An Empire Of Silence, Walter Brueggemann

Michigan Law Review

It will come as no surprise to readers of the Law Review that James Boyd White is a daring and wise practitioner of what Clifford Geertz terms "blurred genres." By appeal to Kenneth Burke, Victor Turner, and Paul Ricoeur, among others, Geertz envisions a broad interpretive venture that breaks out of the rigid regulations of a particular discipline to the larger constructive enterprise that entertains life and its meaning as a "game" of face-to-face engagement, or as a "drama" that presses on to the next scene. White's work fits that vision precisely. In Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force, …

The Telecommunications Act And Statutory Interpretation: National Cable & Telecommunications Association V. Brand X Internet Services, Mark B. Grebel

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Canons, The Plenary Power Doctrine And Immigration Law, Brian G. Slocum

Brian G. Slocum

There is a fundamental dichotomy in immigration law. On one hand, courts have consistently maintained that Congress has “plenary power” over immigration and reject most constitutional challenges on that basis. On the other hand, courts frequently use canons of statutory construction in an aggressive fashion to help interpret immigration statutes in favor of aliens. Immigration scholars have almost exclusively focused on the plenary power doctrine. They have either ignored the important role that canons have played in immigration law or have viewed canons as serving only a temporary and marginally legitimate role as substitutes for the lack of constitutional rights …

Plain Meaning Vs. Broad Interpretation: How The Risk Of Opportunism Defeats A Unitary Default Rule For Interpretation, Juliet P. Kostritsky

Juliet P Kostritsky

Plain Meaning vs. Broad Interpretation: How the Risk of Opportunism Defeats a Unitary Default Rule for Interpretation Juliet P. Kostritsky, Case Western Reserve Abstract This essay argues that it is the wrong to think that courts must make a dichotomous choice always to prefer extrinsic evidence or always to exclude it. Sometimes the appropriate interpretive methodology should explicitly forego extrinsic evidence while at other times it should embrace extrinsic evidence. The choice between the two methodologies should depend upon an assessment in each case about which interpretive methodology is most likely to (1) curb opportunistic behavior; and (2) and implement …

Second-Order Perfectionism, Cass R. Sunstein

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Aesthetic Judgment And Legal Justification, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

Although criticized as illegitimate, literary elements are necessary features of legal argument. In a modern liberal state, law motivates compliance by justifying controversial prescriptions as products of an appropriate process for representing the will of society. Yet because law constructs the will of individual and collective actors in representing them, its representations are necessarily figurative rather than mimetic. In evaluating law's representation of society, citizens of the liberal state are also shaping their own ends. Such self-expressive choices, subjective but non-instrumental, entail aesthetic judgment. Thus the literary elements of rhetorical figuration and aesthetic appeal are fundamental, rather than merely ornamental, …

The Fit Dimension, Abner S. Greene

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Valuing Autonomy, Youngjae Lee

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judicial Interpretation In The Cost-Benefit Crucible, Jonathan R. Siegel

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article responds to Professor Adrian Vermeule's new book, Judging Under Uncertainty. Professor Vermeule argues that (1) no one can empirically determine whether judicial use of legislative history or other interpretive methods that go beyond simple enforcement of plain text has any positive net benefits, but (2) we do know that such interpretive methods impose costs, and therefore (3) courts should discard such interpretive methods. This article suggests that (1) it is far from clear how costly these interpretive methods are, (2) it is also not clear that discarding them would result in any cost savings, both because of costs …

Minimalism, Perfectionism, And Common Law Constitutionalism: Reflections On Sunstein's And Fleming's Efforts To Find The Sweet Spot In Constitutional Theory, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Privacy, Minimalism, And Perfectionism, Charles A. Kelbley

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Incredible Shrinking Constitutional Theory: From The Partial Constitution To The Minimal Constitution, James E. Fleming

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Process Theory, Majoritarianism, And The Original Understanding, William Michael Treanor

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transparency And Determinacy In Common Law Adjudication: A Philosophical Defense Of Explanatory Economic Analysis, Jody S. Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

Explanatory economic analysis of the common law has long been subject to deep philosophical skepticism for two reasons. First, common law decisions appear to be cast in the language of deontic morality, not the consequentialist language of efficiency. For this reason, philosophers have claimed that explanatory economic analysis cannot satisfy the transparency criterion, which holds that a legal theory's explanation must provide a plausible account of the relationship between the reasoning it claims judges actually use to decide cases and the express reasoning judges provide in their opinions. Philosophers have doubted that the economic analysis has a plausible account of …

The Failure Of Public Notice In Patent Prosecution, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

Patents often contain technical information intertwined with legal meaning, and inventions are often difficult to describe in words. Despite complex interpretive rules, patent law has failed in one of its essential missions - giving those who need to read patents the ability to understand the scope of a patent's claims in a consistent and predictable manner. As a result, those who rely on patents - patentees, potential and actual licensees, potential and actual defendants, future patent applicants, courts, and even the Patent and Trademark Office - may find it difficult or impossible to discern the metes and bounds of any …