Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 15 of 15

Full-Text Articles in Law

Interpreting Regulations, Kevin M. Stack Dec 2012

Interpreting Regulations, Kevin M. Stack

Michigan Law Review

The age of statutes has given way to an era of regulations, but our jurisprudence has fallen behind. Despite the centrality of regulations to law, courts have no intelligible approach to regulatory interpretation. The neglect of regulatory interpretation is not only a shortcoming in interpretive theory but also a practical problem for administrative law. Canonical doctrines of administrative law - Chevron, Seminole Rock/Auer, and Accardi - involve interpreting regulations, and yet courts lack a consistent approach. This Article develops a method for interpreting regulations and, more generally, situates regulatory interpretation within debates over legal interpretation. It argues that a purposive …


Judicial Limitation Of The Epa's Oversight Authority In Clean Water Act Permitting Of Mountaintop Mining Valley Fills , Christopher D. Eaton Sep 2012

Judicial Limitation Of The Epa's Oversight Authority In Clean Water Act Permitting Of Mountaintop Mining Valley Fills , Christopher D. Eaton

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Mountaintop removal mining operations in the Appalachian region have expanded significantly in recent decades. The practice decimates the mountain ecosystems by leveling forests, filling headwater streams, and producing significant runoff of heavy metals, sediment, and other pollutants that impair the aquatic environment of entire watersheds. Yet environmental permitting of the practice is relatively limited. A recent trend in litigation aimed at halting mining operations has involved challenging permits that authorize the discharge of mining overburden into headwater streams pursuant to the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Army Corps of Engineers has assumed jurisdiction over such discharges under section 404 of …


Wrong, Out Of Step, And Pernicious: Erie As The Worst Decision Of All Time, Suzanna Sherry Aug 2012

Wrong, Out Of Step, And Pernicious: Erie As The Worst Decision Of All Time, Suzanna Sherry

Pepperdine Law Review

This essay was written for “Supreme Mistakes: Exploring the Most Maligned Decisions in Supreme Court History.” A symposium on the worst Supreme Court decision of all time risks becoming an exercise best described by Claude Rains’s memorable line in Casablanca: “Round up the usual suspects.” Two things saved this symposium from that fate. First, each of the usual suspects was appointed defense counsel, which made things more interesting. Second, a new face found its way into the line-up: Erie Railroad v. Tompkins. My goal in this essay is to explain why Erie is in fact guiltier than all of the …


Assessing Divisibility In The Armed Career Criminal Act, Ted Koehler Jun 2012

Assessing Divisibility In The Armed Career Criminal Act, Ted Koehler

Michigan Law Review

When courts analyze whether a defendant's prior conviction qualifies as a "violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act's "residual clause," they use a "categorical approach," looking only to the statutory language of the prior offense, rather than the facts disclosed by the record of conviction. But when a defendant is convicted under a "divisible" statute, which encompasses a broader range of conduct, only some of which would qualify as a predicate offense, courts may employ the "modified categorical approach." This approach allows courts to view additional documents to determine whether the jury convicted the defendant of the Armed Career …


Reframing The Dilemma Of Contractually Expanded Judicial Review: Arbitral Appeal Vs. Vacatur , Eric Van Ginkel Apr 2012

Reframing The Dilemma Of Contractually Expanded Judicial Review: Arbitral Appeal Vs. Vacatur , Eric Van Ginkel

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") of 1925 was created to ensure enforceability of agreements to arbitrate. The FAA is the centerpiece of the federal arbitration policy as construed by the Supreme Court. Section 10(a) FAA enumerates grounds on which an arbitral award can be set aside. The central issue discussed herein is whether parties can agree by contract to allow one of the parties to initiate review of the arbitral award by a court that would otherwise have jurisdiction over those parties, or whether the court's powers are somehow limited to the grounds for vacatur enumerated in Section 10(a) FAA. …


Contracting Around Ruaa: Default Rules, Mandatory Rules, And Judicial Review Of Arbitral Awards, Christopher R. Drahozal Apr 2012

Contracting Around Ruaa: Default Rules, Mandatory Rules, And Judicial Review Of Arbitral Awards, Christopher R. Drahozal

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

By specifying that its provisions generally are default rules and listing particular exceptions, the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act (“RUAA”) provides much needed certainty and avoids unnecessary litigation, at least compared to the Federal Arbitration Act, which does not always identify which of its provisions are default rules. In one important respect, however, RUAA jettisons that valuable certainty. The RUAA drafters left open (or at least sought to leave open) the question whether parties can contract to expand the grounds for judicial review of arbitration awards beyond those set out in the statute. In other words, the drafters purported not to …


Towards A Balanced Approach For The Protection Of Native American Sacred Sites, Alex Tallchief Skibine Apr 2012

Towards A Balanced Approach For The Protection Of Native American Sacred Sites, Alex Tallchief Skibine

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Protection of "sacred sites" is very important to Native American religious practitioners because it is intrinsically tied to the survival of their cultures, and therefore to their survival as distinct peoples. The Supreme Court in Oregon v. Smith held that rational basis review, and not strict scrutiny, was the appropriate level of judicial review when evaluating the constitutionality of neutral laws of general applicability even when these laws impacted one's ability to practice a religion. Reacting to the decision, Congress enacted the Relgious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which reinstated the strict scrutiny test for challenges to neutral laws of general …


Yick Wo At 125: Four Simple Lessons For The Contemporary Supreme Court, Marie A. Failinger Apr 2012

Yick Wo At 125: Four Simple Lessons For The Contemporary Supreme Court, Marie A. Failinger

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The 125th anniversary of Yick Wo v. Hopkins is an important opportunity to recognize the pervasive role of law in oppressive treatment of Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is also a good opportunity for the Supreme Court to reflect on four important lessons gleaned from Yick Wo. First, the Court should never lend justification to the evil of class discrimination, even if it has to decline to rule in a case. Second, where there is persistent discrimination against a minority group, the Court must be similarly persistent in fighting it. Third, the Court needs to take …


"Expanded" Judicial Review Revisited: Kyocera Overturns Lapine, Eric Van Ginkel Mar 2012

"Expanded" Judicial Review Revisited: Kyocera Overturns Lapine, Eric Van Ginkel

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Just when you thought you could validly add a clause to your client's arbitration agreement providing that the losing party may take an appeal from the award to the district court having jurisdiction over the parties, think again. What was the law of the Ninth Circuit since December 1997, when a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided LaPine Technology Corporation v. Kyocera Corporation ("LaPine I"), has just been reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc. In its decision, on a rehearing of what the court refers to as " …


"Of A Judiciary Nature": Observations On Chief Justice's First Opinions, Diane S. Sykes Mar 2012

"Of A Judiciary Nature": Observations On Chief Justice's First Opinions, Diane S. Sykes

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Tangled Thicket Of Health Care Reform: The Judicial System In Action, Gene Magidenko Jan 2012

The Tangled Thicket Of Health Care Reform: The Judicial System In Action, Gene Magidenko

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

On March 23, 2010, after a lengthy political debate on health care reform, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law. A week later, he signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which amended certain provisions of PPACA. But far from ending the intense national debate on the issue, these enactments opened a new front of battle in the federal courts that will almost certainly make its way to the United States Supreme Court. Much of this litigation focuses on § 1501 of PPACA, which contains the controversial individual mandate requiring …


De Jueces, Militantes Y Dirigencias Partidistas. Un Panorama Cuantitativo Del Control Jurisdiccional De Los Conflictos Intrapartidistas En México (1996-2006), Javier Martín Reyes Jan 2012

De Jueces, Militantes Y Dirigencias Partidistas. Un Panorama Cuantitativo Del Control Jurisdiccional De Los Conflictos Intrapartidistas En México (1996-2006), Javier Martín Reyes

Javier Martín Reyes

Of Judges, Militants, and Bosses: A Quantitative Overview of the Judicial Review of Intraparty Disputes in Mexico (1996-2006) Aunque diversos trabajos han estudiado el origen y evolución del control jurisdiccional de la vida interna de los partidos políticos por parte del Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF), lo cierto es que los estudios cuantitativos son prácticamente inexistentes. Hace falta, incluso, la información más indispensable para aproximarse empíricamente al fenómeno: el número y tipo de conflictos intrapartidistas que se han presentado a lo largo del tiempo; su distribución geográfica y por partido político; la forma en que se …


The Justiciability Of Fair Balance Under The Federal Advisory Committee Act: Toward A Deliberative Process Approach, Daniel E. Walters Jan 2012

The Justiciability Of Fair Balance Under The Federal Advisory Committee Act: Toward A Deliberative Process Approach, Daniel E. Walters

Michigan Law Review

The Federal Advisory Committee Act's requirement that advisory committees be "fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed" is generally considered either nonjusticiable under the Administrative Procedure Act or justiciable but subject to highly deferential review. These approaches stem from courts' purported inability to discern from the text of the statute any meaningful legal standards for policing representational balance. Thus, the Federal Advisory Committee Act's most important substantive limitation on institutional pathologies such as committee "capture" or domination is generally unused despite the ubiquity of federal advisory committees in the modern regulatory …


Sorrell V. Ims Health And The End Of The Constitutional Double Standard, Ernest A. Young Jan 2012

Sorrell V. Ims Health And The End Of The Constitutional Double Standard, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Advisory Adjudication, Girardeau A. Spann Jan 2012

Advisory Adjudication, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court decision in Camreta v. Greene is revealing. The Court first issues an opinion authorizing appeals by prevailing parties in qualified immunity cases, even though doing so entails the issuance of an advisory opinion that is not necessary to resolution of the dispute between the parties. And the Court then declines to reach the merits of the underlying constitutional claim in the case, because doing so would entail the issuance of an advisory opinion that was not necessary to the resolution of the dispute between the parties. The Court's decision, therefore, has the paradoxical effect of both honoring …