Law Commons^™

Research, Interrupted, Jan B. Bissett, Margi Heinen

Library Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Federal Corporate Law And The Business Of Banking, Lev Menand, Morgan Ricks

University of Chicago Law Review

The only profit-seeking business enterprises chartered by a federal government agency are banks. Yet there is barely any scholarship justifying this exception to state primacy in U.S. corporate law.

This Article addresses that gap. It reinterprets the National Bank Act (NBA)—the organic statute governing national banks, the heavyweights of the financial sec-tor—as a corporation law and recovers the reasons why Congress wrote this law: not to catalyze private wealth creation or to regulate an existing industry, but to solve an economic governance problem. National banks are federal instrumentalities charged with augmenting the money supply—a delegated sovereign privilege. Congress recruited private …

In Search Of Ordinary Meaning: What Can Be Learned From The Textualist Opinions Of Bostock V. Clayton County?, Sam Capparelli

University of Chicago Law Review

In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court held that Title VII protects gay and transgender individuals from employment discrimination. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch adhered to textualist principles and relied on the ordinary public meaning of the phrase “discriminate because of sex.” Despite the ma-jority opinion purportedly not reaching beyond the words of the statute, three other conservatives on the Court accused Justice Gorsuch of legislating from the bench. Central to this Comment, Justice Brett Kavanaugh took exception with how Justice Gorsuch reached his ordinary meaning of the phrase. The debate between these two Justices can be …

It’S All About (Re)Location: Interpreting The Federal Sentencing Enhancement For Relocating A Fraudulent Scheme, Stephen Ferro

University of Chicago Law Review

Section 2B1.1(b)(10) of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual increases the recommended sentencing ranges for defendants who make fraudulent schemes harder to uncover. In particular, subsection (A) of this Guideline—the relocation enhancement—increases a defendant’s recommended sentence if she “relocated, or participated in relocating, a fraudulent scheme to another jurisdiction to evade law enforcement or regulatory officials.” This provision raises the question: Where is a fraudulent scheme located? The question might have a straightforward answer in cases that involve few defendants and few fraudulent acts. But federal circuit courts have split over how to apply this enhancement to schemes that span multiple …

The Scope Of Evidentiary Review In Constitutional Challenges To Agency Action, Conley K. Hurst

University of Chicago Law Review

When reviewing agency action, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) instructs courts to “review the whole record or those parts of it cited by a party.” The Supreme Court has interpreted this brief statement as a restriction on the evidentiary scope of judicial review under the APA. Courts may consider only the administrative record compiled by the agency, which includes all materials before the decisionmaker at the time he or she made the decision. The Supreme Court has recognized one exception: plaintiffs may supplement the administrative record if they make a strong showing of bad faith or improper behavior on the …

The Legal Causes Of Labor Market Power In The U.S. Agriculture Sector, Candice Yandam Riviere

University of Chicago Law Review

Recent developments in law and economics have shown that labor market power is a pervasive antitrust issue contributing to earnings inequality and slowed economic growth. In the agriculture sector, workers—especially H-2A temporary agricultural workers—have consistently suffered from low, stagnating wages and poor working conditions. This Comment evaluates the extent of labor market power in the agriculture sector and how antitrust law and immigration-policy norms exacerbate labor monopsony. I show that the pervasiveness of labor monopsony is due, in part, to a conflict between antitrust law and immigration regulation. Specifically, I examine an immigration statute that allows temporary guest workers to …

Fake, Andrea M. Matwyshyn, Miranda Mowbray

Faculty Scholarship

The Internet today is full of fake people and fake information. Trust in both technology and institutions is in a downward spiral. This Article offers a novel comprehensive framework for calibrating a legal response to technology “fakery” through the lens of information security. Introducing the problems of Internet “MIST”—manipulation, impersonation, sequestering, and toxicity—it argues that these MIST challenges threaten the future viability of the Internet through two morphed dynamics destructive to trust. First, the arrival of the Internet-enabled “long con” has combined traditional con artistry with enhanced technological capability for data collection. Second, the risk of a new “PSYOP industrial …

The Shipping Sector And Ports As Central Actors In The Decarbonization Effort: A Case Study Of China, Aspasia Pastra, Meinhard Doelle, Tafsor Johansson

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article carves out China’s maritime state-of-play with regards to GHG mitigating measures with a special focus on CO2 emission. The article commences with an overview of IMO’s GHG strategy taking into account the critical targets, proposed plans, schemes and measures aimed at the shipping sector. Discussions then segue into a twofold discussion pertaining to China’s current policy and port governance actions highlighting some of the existing gaps and challenges. Reference is made to remarkable developments from countries considering three vital key elements for an effective green port policy framework before drawing concluding remarks.

The Impact Of Separate Opinions On International Criminal Law, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

Dissents have had a tumultuous history in national and international courts throughout the world. Initially reviled, dissents have come to be a well-accepted, even praiseworthy, component of the American judicial system, and they have traversed the same trajectory in other countries as well as in international courts and tribunals. Particularly noteworthy among international courts are those created to prosecute perpetrators of mass atrocities, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. And nowhere are dissents more common than in these mass atrocity courts. Yet, as prevalent as these dissents are, they have received virtually no scholarly or practical attention. …

Federalism, Free Competition, And Sherman Act Preemption Of State Restraints, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

The Sherman Act establishes free competition as the rule governing interstate trade. Banning private restraints cannot ensure that competitive markets allocate the nation's resources. State laws can pose identical threats to free markets, posing an obstacle to achieving Congress's goal to protect free competition.

The Sherman Act would thus override anticompetitive state laws under ordinary preemption standards. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court rejected such preemption in Parker v. Brown, creating the "state action doctrine." Parker and its progeny hold that state-imposed restraints are immune from Sherman Act preemption, even if they impose significant harm on out-of-state consumers. Parker's progeny …

The Modest Impact Of The Modern Confrontation Clause, Jeffrey Bellin, Diana Bibb

Faculty Publications

The Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause grants criminal defendants the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against" them. A strict reading of this text would transform the criminal justice landscape by prohibiting the prosecution's use of hearsay at trial. But until recently, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Clause was closer to the opposite. By tying the confrontation right to traditional hearsay exceptions, the Court's longstanding precedents granted prosecutors broad freedom to use out-of-court statements to convict criminal defendants.

The Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington was supposed to change all that. By severing the link between the …

We Have To Tell Them What?: The New Corporate Transparency Act And Forming Business Entities In Massachusetts, James J. Wheaton, Gustavo De La Cruz Reynozo

Faculty Publications

The details and requirements of business entity formation have traditionally been the sole province of state law. Most states, like Massachusetts, maintain corporate annual report filing requirements that involve the public disclosure of corporate officers and directors, and some impose similar requirements for LLCs or other business entities. Those requirements focus on active managers of the entities, not information about the beneficial ownership of entities formed under their laws. However, the recently enacted federal Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) will fundamentally change entity disclosure.

By January 1, 2022, the Treasury Department will be promulgating regulations that will require every state filing …

Comments On Preliminary Draft 7 [Black Letter And Comments], Jane C. Ginsburg, June M. Besek

Faculty Scholarship

PD7 is often confusing, largely as a result of failure to provide important explanations or definitions, or to tell the reader where that information can be found. Key terms, such as “edicts of law” and “formalities” remain undefined. Formalities are a principal topic of PD7; they deserve a more thorough description than the draft contains, addressing what formalities are, whether every declaratory obligation (or option) is a “formality,” or only those that go to the existence or enforcement of copyright (this is the Berne Convention meaning of “formality”).

J Mich Dent Assoc October 2021

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Every month, The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association brings news, information, and features about Michigan dentistry to our state's oral health community and the MDA's 6,200+ members. No publication reaches more Michigan dentists!

In this issue, the reader will find the following original content:

• A cover story, “Welcoming Colleagues from Different Practice Models”.
• A feature article from the Journal’s DEI series, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Perspectives from an LGBTQ Dentist”.
• A feature article, “Congratulations, 2021 MDA Life Members!”.
• News you need, Editorial and regular department articles on MDA Foundation activities, Dentistry and the Law, Staff Matters, and component news. …

Recent Court Filings Reveal $17 Million In Payments From Dakota Access Llc To Tigerswan, Columbia Center For Contemporary Critical Thought

Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought

New York, October 1, 2021— The private security firm TigerSwan received over $17 million from Dakota Access LLC for its work related to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, recent court filings and documents produced in response to a judicial order in the ongoing litigation Thunderhawk v. County of Morton reveal. Plaintiffs have alleged in that suit that TigerSwan acted in close cooperation with law enforcement to enforce discriminatory police practices.

The Era Brief October 2021, Center For Gender And Sexuality Law

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

We are excited to return to campus and rejoin the vibrant law school community. Our work at the ERA Project has taken on a renewed sense of urgency as we seek to advance sex equality in a time when the right to bodily autonomy is under threat from restrictions on reproductive and transgender rights.

The Equal Rights Amendment And The Equality Act: Talking Points, Center For Gender And Sexuality Law

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed nearly 100 years ago, is still needed today.

• The ERA is a constitutional amendment that would protect against discrimination on the basis of sex—including on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
• The ERA would also usher in advancements in sex equality in all three branches of government, empower advocates, and encourage recognition of related forms of discrimination such as pregnancy discrimination.
• By including the ERA in our Constitution, the United States would catch up with the more than 100 other countries with constitutional protections against sex-based discrimination.

The Equal Rights Amendment And The Equality Act: Two Equality Measures Explained, Center For Gender And Sexuality Law

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

When the United States Constitution was written in 1787, its defining phrase “We the people” did not include women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, or immigrants. In 2021, these groups, among others, still lack fundamental equality under the law. Two pieces of legislation are pending in Congress that would strengthen legal protections against discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity: the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and the Equality Act.

Columbia Law School's Era Project Files Amicus Brief With Pa Supreme Court Explaining Why Banning Public Funding For Abortion Violates The State Era, Center For Gender And Sexuality Law

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

On October 13, 2021, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Project at Columbia Law School submitted an amicus — or friend of the court — brief with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explaining why a state ban on public funding for abortion is a form of sex discrimination, in violation of the state’s Equal Rights Amendment. In the brief filed in Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, the ERA Project provided the Court with an overview of how the denial of reproductive health care in general, and access to abortion in particular, has been found by the …

The Breakdown Of The Public–Private Divide In Securities Law: Causes, Consequences, And Reforms, George S. Georgiev

Faculty Articles

As a regulatory scheme, U.S. securities law has traditionally been designed around a set of lines—the “public–private divide”—which separate public companies, public capital, and public markets, from private companies, private capital, and private markets. Until the early 2000s, the lines were successful in establishing two largely coherent legal realms—a highly regulated public realm and a lightly regulated private realm. A series of bold and often-inconsistent reforms between 2002 and 2020, however, have transformed this longstanding regime into a low-friction system wherein public capital flows to both public and private companies, private capital is ever more abundant, and firms can effectively …

Creating A Home Base For Treatment In Homeless Courts, Kyle C. Troeger

Student Publications

As the number of unsheltered homeless increases, an alternative to criminalization, homeless courts, have also become more common. 18 States currently have one or more specialty court programs dedicated to meting out alternative sentencing to the local homeless. Homeless courts are a rehabilitative process with the end goal of reintegration into society. They allow nonviolent misdemeanors to be resolved without jail time or fines. In lieu of traditional sentencing is community service and mandated self-improvement. This chapter examines the current criminalization, and history, of homelessness in the United States. Of primary interest is the development of homeless courts as an …

The Iron Rule, Jacob Bronsther, Guha Krishnamurthi

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Are You Here? Modeling Illicit Massage Business Location Characteristics With Machine Learning, Anna White, Seth Guikema, Bridgette Carr

Articles

Illicit massage businesses are a venue for sex and labor trafficking in the United States. Though many of their locations are made publicly available through online advertising, little is known about why they choose to locate where they do. In this work, we use inferential modeling to better understand the spatial distribution of illicit massage businesses within the U.S. Based on addresses web-scraped weekly from online advertisements over 6 months, we modeled illicit massage business prevalence at the census tract and county levels. We used publicly available data to characterize census tracts and counties, finding that the state in which …

Contract Schemas, Roseanna Sommers

Articles

This review draws on the notion of “contract schemas” to characterize what ordinary people think is happening when they enter into contractual arrangements. It proposes that contracts are schematically represented as written documents filled with impenetrable text containing hidden strings, which are routinely signed without comprehension. This cognitive template, activated whenever people encounter objects with these characteristic features, confers certain default assumptions, associations, and expectancies. A review of the literature suggests that contract schemas supply (a) the assumption that terms will be enforced as written, (b) the feeling that one is obligated to perform, and (c) the sense that one …

Financial Toxicity During Breast Cancer Treatment: A Qualitative Analysis To Inform Strategies For Mitigation, Laila A. Gharzai, Kerry A. Ryan, Lauren Szczygiel, Susan Goold, Grace Li Smith, Sarah T. Hawley, John A.E. Pottow, Reshma Jagsi

Articles

Financial toxicity from cancer treatment is a growing concern. Its impact on patients requires refining our understanding of this phenomenon. We sought to characterize patients' experiences of financial toxicity in the context of an established framework to identify knowledge gaps and strategies for mitigation. Semistructured interviews with patients with breast cancer who received financial aid from a philanthropic organization during treatment were conducted from February to May 2020. Interviews were transcribed and coded until thematic saturation was reached, and findings were contextualized within an existing financial toxicity framework. Thirty-two patients were interviewed, of whom 58% were non-Hispanic White. The mean …

Funding Global Governance, Kristina B. Daugirdas

Articles

Funding is an oft-overlooked but critically important determinant of what public institutions are able to accomplish. This article focuses on the growing role of earmarked voluntary contributions from member states in funding formal international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Heavy reliance on such funds can erode the multilateral governance of international organizations and poses particular risks for two kinds of undertakings: normative work, such as setting standards and identifying best practices; and evaluating the conduct of member states and holding those states accountable, including through public criticism, when they fall short. International organizations have …

Inflation In The 21st Century: Taking Down The Inflationary Straw Man Of The 1970s, Daniel Alpert, Cornell Research Academy Of Development, Law, And Economics, Mario Einaudi Center For International Studies

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This overview of the history of, and future prospects for, undesirable levels of price inflation in the U.S. economy concludes that concerns raised in 2021 by several well-known economists and analysts – regarding the prospects for accelerating levels of inflation as a result of pandemic-era and post-pandemic fiscal and monetary policy (enacted and proposed) – is misplaced. The wisdom of continuing expanded fiscal policy from late 2021 onwards is supported by an analysis of the prospects for future inflation in terms of both (i) the shortfall in aggregate domestic demand relative to existing endogenous and exogenous supply; and (ii) the …

Uncle Sam Re: Improving Cyber Hygiene And Increasing Confidence In The Cyber Insurance Ecosystem Via Government Backstopping, Bryan H. Cunningham, Shauhin A. Talesh

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

The year 2020 was a wake-up call, for the world and specifically for the cyber insurance ecosystem. The COVID-19 global pandemic reminded insurers, observers, and policymakers that actual or newly plausible attacks-including catastrophic cyberattacks-could pose existential threats to the cyber insurance ecosystem. This article examines this risk through a hypothetical catastrophic cyberattack, interviews with sixty participants across the cyber insurance ecosystem, and recent scholarly work. We find that the risk of a catastrophic cyberattack to the solvency of the global insurance ecosystem is real and that cyber insurers have not, as yet, fulfilled their promise to meaningfully improve our collective …

"Cyberwar By Almost Any Definition": Notpetya, The Evolution Of Insurance War Exclusions, And Their Application To Cyberattacks, Josephine Wolff

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Case For Banning (And Mandating) Ransomware Insurance, Kyle D. Logue, Adam B. Shniderman

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

Ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly pervasive and disruptive, resulting in ransom demands becoming more exorbitant. Payments for ransom costs are increasingly being covered by insurance, which may offer coverage for a variety of cyber-related losses. Some commentators have expressed concern over this market phenomenon. Specifically, the concern is that the presence of insurance is making the ransomware problem worse based on the following theory: because there is ransomware insurance that covers ransom payments, and because paying the ransom is often far cheaper than paying the restoration and business interruption costs covered under the policy, there is an increased tendency to …