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Full-Text Articles in Law
General Law In Federal Court, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.
General Law In Federal Court, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Conventional wisdom maintains that the Supreme Court banished general law from federal courts in 1938 in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins when the Court overruled Swift v. Tyson. The narrative asserts that Swift viewed the common law as a “brooding omnipresence,” and authorized federal courts to disregard state common law in favor of general common law of their own choosing. The narrative continues that Erie constrained such judicial lawmaking by banishing general law from federal courts. Contrary to this account, Swift and Erie represent compatible conceptions of federal judicial power when each decision is understood in historical context. At the …
The 'Federal Law Of Marriage': Deference, Deviation, And Doma, W. Burlette Carter
The 'Federal Law Of Marriage': Deference, Deviation, And Doma, W. Burlette Carter
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The article discusses the history of federal inroads into marriage by examining federal interventions during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, argues that, in some cases but not all, marriages' federal benefits are indeed intended to support natural procreation, argues that DOMA's underlying statutes are key to ascertaining the purposes of federal marriage benefits and burdens, distinguishes sexual orientation discrimination from race discrimination and offers a proposal for dealing with equal protection challenges to denials of marriage rights to same sex couples. The proposal, which depends upon dual standards of review, recognizes the historical denial of family rights to same …