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Full-Text Articles in Law

How Many Plaintiffs Are Enough? Venue In Title Vii Class Actions, Piper Hoffman Jul 2009

How Many Plaintiffs Are Enough? Venue In Title Vii Class Actions, Piper Hoffman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article critiques the recent rash of federal district court opinions holding that all named plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit alleging employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 must satisfy the venue requirements in the court where they filed the action. Neither the text nor the history of Title VII requires this prevailing interpretation; to the contrary, requiring every named plaintiff to satisfy venue requirements in the same court undermines the legislative purpose behind both Title VII and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 by creating a new obstacle to employees seeking to enforce …


"One Of The Dirty Secrets Of American Corrections": Retaliation, Surplus Power, And Whistleblowing Inmates, James E. Robertson May 2009

"One Of The Dirty Secrets Of American Corrections": Retaliation, Surplus Power, And Whistleblowing Inmates, James E. Robertson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Retaliation is deeply engrained in the correctional office subculture; it may well be in the normative response when an inmate files a grievance, a statutory precondition for filing a civil rights action. This Article, the first to address comprehensively the sociological and constitutional aspects of retaliation, argues for protecting grievants through safeguards much like those accorded whistleblowers. Part I of the Article provides a socio-legal primer on correctional officer retaliation by addressing the frequency of retaliation, its causes, and its constitutional taxonomy. Part II describes the elements of a prima facie case of unconstitutional retaliation under § 1983. Part III …