Law Commons^™

Criminal Law, Bernadette C. Crucilla

Mercer Law Review

The adversarial nature between prosecutors and those charged with crimes makes criminal law, in particular, be in a constant state of transformation. Thus, as in prior years, this year's survey of criminal law will include only a few of the most significant cases and statutory amendments. Due to this constant evolution, it is simply not practical to attempt to make note of every single legal development. Therefore, the discussion this period has been limited to the changes that will have the widest application or interest to criminal law practitioners from June 1, 2016 through May 31, 2017.

Insurance, Bradley S. Wolff, Maren R. Cave, Stephen M. Schatz

Mercer Law Review

During this survey period, the Georgia state and federal courts decided questions of first impression related to uninsured motorist (UM) coverage holding that, although umbrella policies are no longer required to provide UM coverage, the statutory notice requirements must be strictly followed before such coverage can be dropped in a renewal and that the "vertical exhaustion requirements" contained in excess policies do not violate the UM statute. Another first impression decision involved the correct interpretation of the statute providing for pre-suit offers in motor vehicle injury cases and whether timely payment may be a condition of acceptance. Other cases decided …

Construction Law, Frank O. Brown Jr.

Mercer Law Review

This Article focuses on noteworthy opinions by Georgia appellate courts between June 1, 2016 and May 31, 2017 that are relevant to the practice of construction law.

Torts, Christopher R. Breault, Christopher B. Newbern, Brian C. Mickelsen

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys recent developments in Georgia tort law between June 1, 2016 and May 31, 2017.

Trial Practice And Procedure, Brandon L. Peak, Tedra L. Cannella, Robert H. Snyder, David T. Rohwedder, Joseph M. Colwell, Christopher B. Mcdaniel, Rory A. Weeks, Ramsey B. Prather

Mercer Law Review

This Article addresses several significant opinions and legislation of interest to the Georgia civil trial practitioner issued during the June 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017 survey period.

Product Liability, Franklin P. Brannen Jr., P. Michael Freed, Kristen S. Cawley, Marcus Strong

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys developments in Georgia product liability law between June 1, 2015 and May 31, 2017. It covers noteworthy cases decided during this period by the Georgia Supreme Court, Georgia Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the United States district courts located in Georgia.

Zoning And Land Use Law, Newton M. Galloway, Steven L. Jones

Mercer Law Review

This year and volume, the sixty-ninth, mark the phoenix flight of the Zoning and Land Use Law survey. The survey last appeared in the sixty-first volume of the Mercer Law Review, just as the Great Recession was taking its toll on real estate development. The Great Recession shifted development activity away from constructing new buildings to protecting the value of investment in existing structures from the ravages of the landslide of foreclosures. At the height of the Great Recession, there was virtually no demand for new residential or commercial construction, and new construction and development ground to a halt. …

Leaving Law Firms With Client Fees: Florida's Path, Donald J. Weidner

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Contents, North Carolina Law Review

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

More Restrictive Alternatives, Michael Coenen

North Carolina Law Review

Courts often fault governments for pursuing their regulatory interests in an unnecessarily restrictive manner. Indeed, and as is well appreciated by courts, litigants, and scholars alike, the availability of a “less restrictive alternative” will often spell the doom of a constitutionally suspect law. Sometimes, however, this logic gets flipped on its head, with courts faulting governments for failing to utilize alternatives that are more restrictive rather than less. This Article collects examples of what it calls “more restrictive means” analysis in U.S. constitutional law and attempts to make sense of its analytical underpinnings. Specifically, the Article suggests that courts invoke …

Plenary Power In The Modern Administrative State, Catherine Y. Kim

North Carolina Law Review

For the past quarter century, the “plenary power” doctrine of immigration law—under which courts suspended ordinary standards of judicial review to defer to the political branches on questions relating to the exclusion, detention, and deportation of noncitizens—has been in decline. The conventional account attributes this development to the expansion of constitutionally protected individual rights across public law cases. This Article assesses changes in immigration law from a different perspective, one having less to do with individual rights than with constitutional structure. It focuses on the role that delegation concerns have played, contextualizing the judiciary’s willingness to review immigration decisions within …

Fake News: Potential Solutions To The Online Epidemic, Lee K. Royster

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Case Law, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

Although case law plays a crucial role in the American legal system, surprisingly little consensus exists on how to determine the “law” that any given “case” generates. Lawyers, judges, and scholars regularly note the difference between holdings and dicta and between necessary and unnecessary parts of a precedent-setting decision, but such concepts have eluded coherent application in practice. There remains considerable uncertainty about which aspects of a judicial decision impose prospective legal obligations as a matter of stare decisis and to what extent.

This Article develops a counterintuitive, but productive, way to conceptualize case law: the lawmaking content of a …

The Audacity Of Protecting Racist Speech Under The National Labor Relations Act, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

This Article, written for a symposium hosted by the University of Chicago Legal Forum on the Disruptive Workplace, analyzes the most recent failures of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to determine a thoughtful and balanced approach in addressing racist speech. Imagine two employees in the private sector workplace are discussing the possibility of selecting a union to represent their interests regarding wages and working conditions. During this conversation, a black employee notes the importance of using their collective voices to improve working conditions and compares the activity of selecting a union with the Black Lives Matter protests aimed at …

American Contract Law For A Global Age, Franklin G. Snyder, Mark Burge

Faculty Scholarship

American Contract Law for a Global Age by Franklin G. Snyder and Mark Edwin Burge of Texas A&M University School of Law is a casebook designed primarily for the first-year Contracts course as it is taught in American law schools, but is configured so as to be usable either as a primary text or a supplement in any upper-level U.S. or foreign class that seeks to introduce American contract law to students.

Risk And Resilience In Health Data Infrastructure, W. Nicholson Price Ii

Articles

Today’s health system runs on data. However, for a system that generates and requires so much data, the health care system is surprisingly bad at maintaining, connecting, and using those data. In the easy cases of coordinated care and stationary patients, the system works—sometimes. But when care is fragmented, fragmented data often result. Fragmented data create risks both to individual patients and to the system. For patients, fragmentation creates risks in care based on incomplete or incorrect information, and may also lead to privacy risks from a patched together system. For the system, data fragmentation hinders efforts to improve efficiency …

Universal Design: Stop Banning Laptops!, Ruth Colker

Cardozo Law Review

The article argues that banning laptops in university classrooms, particularly in law schools, is unnecessary and counterproductive. The author advocates for a permissive laptop policy as part of Universal Design principles, which aim to create inclusive learning environments. While acknowledging concerns about distractions and note-taking effectiveness, the author presents empirical data suggesting that laptop use does not harm academic performance and can benefit students with disabilities without stigmatizing them.

Copyrighting The Quotidian: An Analysis Of Copyright Law For Postmodern Choreographers, Jessica Goudreault

Cardozo Law Review

Part I begins with a primer on the laws of copyright. It provides an overview of the statute's history, as well as some background on particular doctrines developed through case law. Part II introduces the history of postmodern dance and the choreographer Trisha Brown, whose work will function as a case study herein. Part III analyzes Brown's work as it relates to the statutory language of copyright law and the doctrines of originality, functionality, idea/expression dichotomy, and fixation. The analysis uses Brown's work Man Walking Down the Side of a Building as a single example to provide a real sense …

Dignity Denied: Religious Exemptions And Lgbt Elder Services, Movement Advancement Project (Map), Public Rights/Private Conscience Project, Sage - Advocacy Services For Lgbt Elders

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

LGBT older adults, like many older Americans in the United States, rely on a network of service providers as they age–for community programming and congregate meals, for health care, and for housing ranging from independent living to skilled nursing. Research finds that a majority of these services are offered by religiously affiliated organizations.

While many of these religiously affiliated facilities provide quality care for millions of older adults, there is a coordinated effort to pass religious exemption laws, issue executive orders and agency guidance, and to litigate court cases to allow individuals, businesses, and even government contractors and grantees to …

Dignity Denied: Religious Exemptions And Lgbt Elder Services, Elizabeth Boylan

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

LGBT older adults, like many older Americans in the United States, rely on a network of service providers as they age–for community programming and congregate meals, for health care, and for housing ranging from independent living to skilled nursing. Research finds that a majority of these services are offered by religiously affiliated organizations.

The report was launched with a panel discussion program hosted at Columbia University's Union Theological Seminary on Friday, December 15th, 2017, detailing the increased risks LGBT older adults face as a result of recent religious exemption laws and policies.

International Gas Outlook And Implications For Developing Tanzania’S Gas Projects, Nicolas Maennling, Perrine Toledano, Thomas Mitro

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In the frame of its partnership with Uongozi – Tanzania, CCSI drafted a brief that reviews recent international gas developments, the outlook in this regard and implications for the development of proposed offshore gas projects in Tanzania. As the country aims to benefit from its gas discoveries by increasing its domestic gas use, it also outlines some of the trade-offs and considerations that need to be taken into account when negotiating the domestic gas allocation.

Amicus Brief On Rights To Information And Public Participation In Colombia, Brooke Guven, Sam Szoke-Burke, Pedro Villegas

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

CCSI submitted an amicus brief to the Constitutional Court of Colombia concerning the Tutela hearing of Mansarovar Energy Colombia Ltd. v. Tribunal Administrativo del Meta (The Consulta Popular of Cumaral, Meta). The hearing concerned a challenge by Mansarovar Energy Colombia Limited of a municipal-wide referendum (the Consulta Popular) concerning whether or not the extraction of hydrocarbons should be permitted in the municipality of Cumaral. The municipality voted 97% against allowing the extraction of hydrocarbons.

CCSI’s brief focused on the international human rights law dimensions of the case, given that Colombia’s Constitution renders the government’s international human rights law obligations …

Comments On The World Bank’S Draft Guidance Note For Borrowers Ess5: Land Acquisition, Restrictions On Land Use And Involuntary Resettlement, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In December 2017, CCSI sent comments to the World Bank regarding its Draft Guidance Note for Borrowers ESS5: Land Acquisition, Restrictions on Land Use and Involuntary Resettlement.

CCSI’s overarching comments on the Guidance Note were that:

• Its description of affected persons and their rights contradicts and undermines international consensus on land governance supported by the Bank
• It fails to provide any guidance on when involuntary resettlement should be considered unavoidable or how Borrowers can prioritize project designs that actually minimize displacement or other harms
• It fails to put rights-holders (or “affected stakeholders”) at the center of solutions
• Its discussion of …

Ccsi Submission To Un Special Rapporteur On Extreme Poverty Re: United States Country Visit, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Philip Alston, will conduct a country visit to the United States in December 2017. In response to his call for input, CCSI sent a submission focused the United States’ role in the international investment regime, and the United States’ international investment agreements (IIAs), noting that the IIAs to which the US is a party raise tensions, and can potentially create conflicts, with the US’s human rights obligations, including those that apply extraterritorially, and exacerbate conditions of poverty, extreme poverty and inequality.

At The Intersection Of Land Grievances And Legal Liability: The Need To Reconsider Contract Rights And Expectations At The Supranational Level, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Lise Johnson, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

This Article explores how host governments’ legal obligations can affect or constrain their ability to address “land grievances,” which are defined as concerns raised by local individuals or communities in response to negative impacts of land-based investments. Obligations under international investment law, international human rights law, and investor-state contracts can be in tension or can directly conflict with one another, creating complexity for governments seeking to respond to land grievances. To explore the legal considerations that governments must navigate in this context, this Article considers several options that governments could pursue to respond to land grievances. In all of the …

Endocrinology And Women’S Sports: The Diagnosis Matters, Richard J. Auchus

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Toward A Legal Harm Principle: Constructing And Applying A Legal Principle From John Stuart Mill's General Harm Principle, Kathryn Alice Zawisza

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My goal in this work is to outline a specifically legal harm principle that is derived from John Stuart Mill’s harm principle in On Liberty. I will do this by providing a close reading of On Liberty and comparing it to what he says in chapter V of Utilitarianism. I believe that these two works provide a foundation for a harm principle that defines the domain and limits of the law. While this goal is not new, I focus on Mill’s general harm principle and the two maxims that he believes make it up in order to construct a relatively …

Uncloaking The Traffickers: Why The Communications Decency Act Needs To Be Amended To Reach Culpable Website Owners And Their Ilk, Gavrielle Kube

Journal of International Business and Law

No abstract provided.

Venture Capital Contract Design: An Empirical Analysis Of The Connection Between Bargaining Power And Venture Financing Contract Terms, Spencer Williams

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This Article presents an empirical analysis of the connection between bargaining power and contract design using an original dataset of over 5,500 equity and debt venture financings from 2004–2015. Using the total supply of venture capital in the U.S. as a measure of relative bargaining power between entrepreneurs and investors, this Article finds that venture capital supply has a statistically significant relationship with price and non-price terms in both equity and debt financings. These results contradict one of three theoretical accounts of bargaining power and support the other two.

A Novel Approach To Defining "Whistleblower" In Dodd-Frank, Ian A. Engoron

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Following the Financial Crisis of 2008, trust in the financial industry was at an all-time low as the American taxpayer was forced to bailout the very same institutions responsible for their suffering. In response, Congress passed Dodd-Frank in 2010 to ensure another crisis like 2008 never happen again. Section 78u-6 of the Act provides incentives and protections for whistleblowers who report violations of securities laws. In recent years there has been a divide among circuit courts over the question of whether employees who report violations internally to their bosses—and not directly to the SEC—are protected by the Act. Currently, the …