Law Commons^™

Aggregate Litigation & All That We Do Not Know, Brooke D. Coleman

Faculty Articles

A good article raises a normative question, wrestles with it, and ultimately answers it. A great article also inspires the reader to cogitate. Briana Rosenbaum's The Rico Trend in Class Action Warfare, is undoubtedly a great article. The article addresses a complex and interesting issue-the use of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ("RICO") statute to sanction attorneys-while also inspiring thought about other fascinating questions. My Response to the article will focus on one such question: What do we really know about aggregate litigation?

Exposed: Asking The Wrong Question In Risk Regulation, Catherine O'Neill

Faculty Articles

Environmental agencies determine the future state of our air, waters, and soil by reference to people’s recent-past practices. Agency exposure assessors inquire “to what are people exposed?”, and then set health-based standards accordingly. That is, they require environmental conditions sufficient to support only people’s contemporary pursuits. This Article observes that this approach suffers from several infirmities, such that exposure assessment as practiced fails to advance – and often undermines – the health-based goals of environmental and other laws. This Article examines the development of exposure assessment at EPA to uncover how agencies’ inquiry came to focus on contemporary behaviors, rather …

The Influence Of Exile, Sara K. Rankin

Faculty Articles

Belonging is a fundamental human need, but human instincts are Janus-faced and equally strong is the drive to exclude. This exclusive impulse, which this Article calls "the influence of exile, reaches beyond interpersonal dynamics when empowered groups use laws and policies to restrict marginalized groups' access to public space. Jim Crow, Anti-Okie, and Sundown Town laws are among many notorious examples. But the influence of exile perseveres today: it has found a new incarnation in the stigmatization and spatial regulation of visible poverty, as laws that criminalize and eject visibly poor people from public space proliferate across the nation. These …

Religious Employers And Labor Law: Bargaining In Good Faith, Charlotte Garden

Faculty Articles

This Article explores an important question that follows in the wake of last Term’s decision in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell: When employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and employer religious commitments conflict, which will have priority? This is a surprisingly difficult question to which multiple statutory regimes arguably apply. First, there is the NLRA itself. The NLRA does not exempt religious employers on its face, but the Supreme Court nonetheless construed it to exclude certain religious employers in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop. Catholic Bishop is remarkable: as an exercise of constitutional avoidance the Court adopted an implausible …

The Environmental Justice Implications Of Biofuels, Carmen Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

Analyses of the viability of biofuels as alternatives to fossil fuels have often adopted a technocratic approach that focuses on environmental consequences, but places less emphasis on the impact that biofuels may have on vulnerable populations. This Article fills the gap in the existing literature by evaluating biofuels through the lens of environmental justice – including climate justice and food justice. The Article examines the impact of biofuels on the global food system and on the planet’s most food-insecure populations. It concludes that the laws and policies promoting the cultivation of biofuels have contributed to global malnourishment by raising food …

Work Drive Matters: An Assessment Of The Relationship Between Law Students’ Work-Related Preferences And Academic Performance, Jeffrey Minneti

Faculty Articles

This article explores the dimensions of law students' schoolwork-related preferences and discusses an empirical assessment of those preferences. The assessment revealed two findings: (1) a positive correlation between students' schoolwork-related preferences and their first-year law school cumulative grade point average (LGPA); and (2) students' schoolwork-related preferences significantly enhanced the predictive power of the traditional law school success predictors, law students' LSAT performance and their undergraduate cumulative grade point average (UGPA). During spring 2014, 215 law students responded to a survey that included questions from the Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile (MWEP) and Work Drive Inventory. Analysis of the responses indicated that …

China's Bilateral Investment Treaties With African States In Comparative Context, Won Kidane

Faculty Articles

In the last decade, China has made significant investments all over Africa. The principal legal instruments designed to protect Chinese investment in Africa are Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs). Traditionally, BITs were largely designed to protect Northern investment in the South. This article evaluates their adaptability to South-South relations through a comparative study of China-Africa BITs in light of China’s BITs with the North, principally the recently ratified China-Canada BIT.

The Human Right To Clean Air: A Case Study Of The Inter-American System, Varun K. Aery

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

Combatting environmental damage has become a primary goal of the international community. Unfortunately, international human rights law has not taken this aim seriously. Although the Inter-American regional human rights system, one of three regional human rights institutions, empathizes with protecting the environment, it enervates such goals by barring victims of air pollution and climate change from access to judicial remedies. Seeking to bridge the gap between human rights law and environmental protection, this article explains why clean air is a human right, develops the positive content for such a right, and evaluates the practical reasons that justify the right’s importance. …

Ghost Bears: The Plight Of The North Cascades Grizzly Bear, Adam Bowler

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

How The Public Trust Doctrine’S Fiduciary Duty Requirement Requires States’ Proactive Response To Promote Offshore Power Generation, Andrew S. Ballentine

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

A Wholistic, Environmental Approach To Washington’S Repair Methodology Of Its State-Road Culverts, Lillian Kaide

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

Cultural Rights V. Species Protection: A Case Study Of Pacific Leatherback Sea Turtles, Mohit Khubchandani, Mehul Parti

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

The leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), sometimes called the lute turtle, is the largest of all living turtles. It is the fourth- heaviest modern reptile behind three crocodilians. These species are categorized as critically endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. These turtles avail pro- tection under the Convention on Illicit Trade in Endangered Species (CITES); a treaty enacted to protect wildlife against over-exploita- tion and with an aim to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. The said treaty is applicable to species in general …

Power E-Mergency: Combining Renewable Energy With Current Battery Technology For Emergency Medical Professionals, Caitlyn Portz

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

Our Town And Gown: An Evaluation Of The Relationship Between The City Of Oxford And The University Of Mississippi, Pierce Werner

Honors Theses

This work is a study of the relationship between Oxford, Mississippi and its primary institution: the University of Mississippi. Problems and conflicts have long plagued the relationships between colleges and their host cities as the separate bodies each have their own objectives and responsibilities, which may not always align. This work seeks to analyze the strategies and objectives of both the City of Oxford and the University of Mississippi (UM) through the examination of their published documents regarding objectives and, especially, land use planning. This analysis can be used to determine the fortitude of UM and Oxford's relationships in terms …

An Unconventional Approach To Reviewing The Judicially Unreviewable: Applying The Dormant Commerce Clause To Copyright, Donald P. Harris

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Promises And Pitfalls Of State Eyewitness Identification Reforms, Nicholas A. Kahn-Fogel

Kentucky Law Journal

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of state-based eyewitness identification reforms, including legislative directives, evidentiary rules, and judicial interpretations of state constitutions as providing greater protection against the use of unreliable eyewitness evidence than the United State Supreme Court offered in its 1977 decision in Manson v. Brathwaite. While previous scholarship has included thorough consideration of a single state's eyewitness law, state-by-state analysis of a sub-issue in eyewitness law, and brief general surveys of state approaches to eyewitness reform, this article adds to the current body of scholarship with an in-depth evaluation of eyewitness identification law in states that …

Governmental Acquiescence In Private Party Searches: The State Action Inquiry And Lessons From The Federal Circuits, Eugene L. Shapiro

Kentucky Law Journal

In an area characterized by a significant potential for governmental abuse, judicial examination of whether governmental acquiescence in a specific private party search constitutes state action, consequently subject to Fourth Amendment constraints, has often lacked appropriate focus and depth. An examination of the standards used among the federal circuits reveals prevalent approaches which identify the circumstances bearing upon the matter, but which address them under "multi-factored" totality of the circumstances standards. The result has too often been a lack of specificity in discussing the issues and a failure to provide needed clarity for law enforcement.

This article examines the analyses …

The Sec's Regulation A+: Small Business Goes Under The Bus Again, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

Title IV of the JOBS Act, which is entitled "Small Company Capital Formation," requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt new rules regarding offerings under Regulation A. The Commission has now adopted its final regulations implementing Title IV and providing a new regulatory regime for exempt offerings under Section 3(b) of the Securities Act of 1933. The new regime is generally referred to as Regulation A+.

Unfortunately, history and empirical data regarding the use of Regulation A and Regulation D strongly suggest that the final Regulation A+ rules are unlikely to provide any material relief for small businesses in …

Family Formation And The Home, Pamela Laufer-Ukeles, Shelly Kreiczer-Levy

Kentucky Law Journal

In this article, we consider the relevance of home sharing in family formation. When couples or groups of persons are recognized as families, they are afforded significant benefits and given certain obligations by the law. Families have their own category of laws, rights, and obligations. Currently, the law of family formation and recognition is in a state of flux. Although in some respects the defining legal lines of the family have been well settled for centuries around blood and the formal legal ties of marriage and parenthood, in significant ways, the family form has been fundamentally altered over the past …

No State Left Behind: An Analysis Of The Post-Egtrra Death Tax Landscape And An Argument For Kentucky To Repeal State Death Taxes, Mary Ellen Wimberly

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Pivotal Moment For Election Law, Joshua A. Douglas

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Voting Realism, Gilda R. Daniels

Kentucky Law Journal

Since Shelby County v. Holder, the country has grown accustomed to life without the fl! strength of the Voting Rights Act. Efforts to restore Section 4 have been met with calls to ignore race conscious remedies and employ race neutral remedies for modem day voting rights violations. In this new normal, the country should adopt "voting realism" as the new approach to ensuring that law and reality work to address these new millennium methods of voter discrimination.

Economic Precarity, Race, And Voting Structures, Atiba R. Ellis

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Judicial "Enforcement" Of A Grand Election Bargain, Michael J. Pitts

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Aggregate Corruption, Michael D. Gilbert, Emily Reeder

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review Of Direct Democracy: A Reappraisal, Michael E. Solimine

Kentucky Law Journal

In his dissent in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission in 2015, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the Supreme Court had been inconsistent in the rigor it employs when considering constitutional challenges to the products of direct democracy, i.e., referenda and initiatives. Some cases seemed to use stricter scrutiny, and others lesser scrutiny, as compared to challenges to ordinary legislation. Justice Thomas argued that the review of direct democracy should be the same as for ordinary legislation, a proposition with which this Article agrees. This Article challenges the position advanced by Professor Julian Eule over twenty-five years …

Arbitrating Ballot Battles?, Rebecca Green

Kentucky Law Journal

This short article posits that arbitration is an under-explored mechanism for resolving post-election disputes. As Professor Edward Foley documents in Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States, post-election disputes have brought state and federal government to a political precipice numerous times in our history. A comprehensive, transparent, and fair arbitration process could well save us from another.

Tinker Tortured: The Scope Of Student Off-Campus Viral Speech Rights In The Federal Circuits, Kevin Nathaniel Troy Fowler

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Use Of False Dna Evidence To Gain A Confession During Interrogation Is Classic Coercion: Why Such Coerced Confessions Should Not Be Admissible In A Criminal Trial, Andrea Reed

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Law Journal Masthead For Volume 105, Kentucky Law Journal

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.