Civil Law Commons^™

One Year's Seeding: Looking Back On The Last Seven Years Of Maine's Progress Toward Rural Justice, Christopher Northrop, Seth Main

Maine Law Review

Nationally, the crisis in access to legal services in rural areas continues to grow despite significant attention and efforts to reverse this troubling trend. This Article explores Maine’s efforts to address our legal deserts. The Article’s starting point is a retrospective look at our 2019 national symposium on rural justice and accompanying Maine Law Review issue. We will try to measure successes and failures, while also addressing the significant impact caused by the intervening pandemic. The Article will then shift to an analysis of the current landscape, focusing on the role of the University of Maine School of Law. We …

The Other Right To Counsel: The Civil Guarantee In State Constitutions, Dmitry Bam

Maine Law Review

When most people speak of the right to counsel, they speak in the singular. After the Supreme Court’s seminal decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, the right to counsel in criminal prosecutions has become one of our most cherished fundamental rights. It is a right ingrained in our culture. Even children can recite the mantra that the accused have the right to a lawyer, and if they can’t afford a lawyer, one will be provided to them free of charge. It is no surprise, then, that our constitutional focus is trained on the criminal defendant’s right to counsel. After all, there …

2025 Annual Report, University Of Maine School Of Law

Clinic Annual Report

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4 2025: YEAR IN REVIEW

6 GENERAL PRACTICE CLINIC

8 PRISONER ASSISTANCE CLINIC

10 PROTECTION FROM ABUSE PROGRAM

12 REFUGEE AND HUMAN RIGHTS CLINIC

14 RURAL PRACTICE CLINIC

16 YOUTH JUSTICE CLINIC

18 CENTER FOR YOUTH POLICY & LAW

20 BUSINESS & LAW CLINIC

22 ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTS

24 DONORS AND FUNDING

26 FACULTY AND STAFF

Pay-To-Play: Maine’S Unconstitutional Requirement For Indigent Defendants To Pay To Appeal Eviction Judgments, Shianne Bowlin, Fred Kerrigan, Alice Neal

Maine Law Review

Maine’s eviction appeal process imposes financial barriers that effectively condition appellate review on a tenant’s ability to pay. Under Maine law, tenants must pay rent or arrears—often in dispute—before filing an appeal. This “pay-to-play” requirement disproportionately harms low-income tenants, particularly those receiving public assistance, and violates constitutional due process and equal protection guarantees. Despite federal and state precedent rejecting financial barriers to appeals, Maine’s eviction appeal system continues to restrict access to justice for indigent tenants. This Article examines the legal and constitutional implications of these requirements, comparing Maine’s approach to eviction appeals with those of other states. It explores …

Maine Real Estate Law, Donald W. Philbrick

Maine Law Review

The author, a former lecturer at the University of Maine School of Law, in the book's foreword, disclaims that his book is written for lawyers. In this disclaimer, he is far too modest. Most lawyers who deal with matters concerning real estate law will benefit by a refresher course. This volume provides an excellent and very readable combination of English and Colonial historical background and current Maine law.

How To Use Financial Statements—A Handbook For Lawyers, James R. Flaker

Maine Law Review

It is always dangerous to write a handbook for lawyers on another discipline whether that discipline be medicine, engineering, actuarial science, or accounting. The demands on the lawyer for knowledge in any of these other disciplines differ both in breadth and depth in each of the multitudinous matters in which he finds himself involved. Moreover, among individual practicing lawyers are found widely varying degrees of sophistication in these other disciplines. Bearing in mind this inherent limitation of any handbook for lawyers, it is apparent that Irving Kellogg has done a good job with his handbook on financial statements.

Maine Civil Practice (2d Ed.), Charles A. Wright

Maine Law Review

Shortly after the first edition of this book appeared I referred to it as "an excellent treatise," and I have kept a copy close at hand in my office so that I may benefit from its useful insights into procedural problems when I am engaged in my own writing about procedure in the federal system. I have now had an opportunity to read the second edition from cover to cover and have no doubt that it is even better, and will be even more useful to judges and lawyers in Maine and to persons interested in procedure outside Maine, than …

Security Ins. Group V. Emery: A Step Backward For Interest Analysis In Maine, William F. Julavits

Maine Law Review

Security Insurance Group, the Connecticut insurer, sought declaratory relief' alleging that failure by its insured to furnish timely notice of the accident as prescribed by the policy precluded its liability. The insured contended that Maine's notice statute was applicable, requiring only that the insurer receive notice of the action before judgment, and that this requirement was satisfied. Alternatively, the insured contended that even if the Connecticut notice term were held applicable, since there was no contact between the two cars, it was his belief that he was not at fault and thus had no reason to notify his carrier of …

Vagueness And The Vermont Long-Arm Statute, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

The authority of state courts to assert jurisdiction over the person of nonresidents has expanded markedly since the days of Pennoyer v. Neff. Different theories for asserting jurisdiction over individuals, as opposed to corporations, have been discarded. For jurisdictional purposes, the common law classifications of in personam, in rem and quasi in rem have been abandoned. "Minimum contacts" has become the all-embracing rationale for reviewing any assertion of jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant by a state court. But if "minimum contacts" has replaced these former concepts and served to simplify and unify the requirements of due process, it has also …

Postjudgment Procedures For Collection Of Small Debts: The Maine Solution, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Debtors' rights and the due process of debt collection have received increasing attention recently in legislative as well as judicial spheres. There have been many efforts to rectify basic contractual inequities, to abolish summary prejudgment remedies and to limit extra-judicial collection abuses. However, comparatively little scrutiny has been focused on postjudgment or post-hearing remedies in the later stages of the collection process. Until recently, Maine's legal remedies for postjudgment debt collection were notorious for their harshness. Jail, the principal sanction, was freely used as a creditors' club to make debtors settle claims. Although inability to pay was not in itself …

State Action And Waiver Implications Of Self-Help Repossession, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

In Adams v. Egley, a California federal district court held the repossession sections of the Uniform Commercial Code to be unconstitutional as a denial of due process. The Adams court relied on Sniadach v. Family Finance Co., in which the Supreme Court invalidated the Wisconsin prejudgment wage garnishment law as violative of due process because property was garnished under the statute without hearing or notice to the wage-earning debtor. When Adams was decided, the scope of Sniadach was the subject of extensive judicial dispute. Since then, the Supreme Court's decision in Fuentes v. Shevin has clarified the meaning of Sniadach …

Standards For Imposition Of Discovery Sanctions, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

The adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938 marked a major change in the theory of the trial system in the federal courts. The new procedures of the Rules were designed to eliminate disposition of cases based on technical errors and encourage resolution on the merits of each controversy. The pleading rules were greatly simplified and full discovery provisions were incorporated to inform the parties regarding the basis of each adversary's claim or defense and to provide greater access to evidence bearing on the dispute. The optimal use of pre-trial discovery under the Rules, however, depends upon …

The Repair Rule: Maine Rule Of Evidence 407(A) And The Admissibility Of Subsequent Remedial Measures In Proving Negligence, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Evidence of subsequent repairs is generally excluded when submitted for admission as circumstantial evidence of negligence. Although this Comment will examine various theories under which such evidence has been held inadmissible, these theories are all based on one of two assumptions. Evidence of subsequent repairs has been excluded either because it is regarded as irrelevant to the issue of negligence, or although relevant, as incompetent because its admission is believed to counteract the strong public policy to encourage repairs. Most modern rules of evidence now base the exclusion on the public policy rationale. Thus, the effect of the subsequent repair …

Decriminalization: A New Consideration For The Fourth Amendment Balance, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

During the past several years Maine has reevaluated the wisdom of applying criminal sanctions to certain forms of conduct. In addition to the total abrogation of a number of crimes, the Maine Legislature has reduced the statutory classification of some offenses to civil violations. Moreover, certain newly established offenses have been limited to the status of civil violations. The designation of offenses as "civil" raises the question of what constitutional safeguards should be applied to the manner in which such violations are investigated and to the process under which civil sanctions are administered. This Comment will summarize the Supreme Court's …

Developments In The News Media Privilege: The Qualified Constitutional Approach Becoming Common Law, Lawerence J. Mullen

Maine Law Review

In late 1977 and early 1978, the Boston Globe published a series of articles about a Delaware corporation engaged in building fiberglass boats in New Hampshire. The articles reported a number of allegedly serious defects in the boats, some of which may have contributed to sinkings. Critical comments of boat owners, surveyors, Coast Guard officers, company employees and a repairman were included. The builder was given an opportunity to respond in part of one article. Provoked by this quotidien instance of investigative journalism, the boat builder brought a libel action against the Globe in federal district court. The boat builder's …

The Constitutional Law Of Defamation—Recent Developments And Suggested State Court Responses, Susan Gail Shorey

Maine Law Review

Prior to the 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, defamation law in the United States was controlled by common law principles developed in the state courts. In New York Times the United States Supreme Court staked out an area of first amendment privilege, which limited the states' power to permit recovery in defamation actions brought by public officials. Later extensions of this constitutional privilege made it appear for a time that constitutional requirements would produce a unified nation-wide body of defamation law to replace the various common law rules followed in the fifty states. In view of …

Duty, Foreseeability, And The Negligent Infliction Of Mental Distress, Mark A. Beede

Maine Law Review

Under early common law if the act of a person gave rise to an action at law, he would be liable for resulting damages regardless of fault. A person acted at his peril. The limitation on liability, if any, lay not with a concept of duty but with a medieval sort of proximate cause. “There is little trace of any notion of. . . an obligation to any one individual, as essential to the tort. The defendant's obligation to behave properly apparently was owed to all the world.” With the merging of the common law actions of trespass and trespass …

Small Claims Mediation In Maine: An Empirical Assessment, Craig A. Mcewen, Richard J. Maiman

Maine Law Review

In recent years considerable attention has been paid in the United States to the development of informal "alternatives to court" as part of a world-wide access to justice movement. Of these alternatives to courts, mediation contrasts most sharply with adjudication and, in theory, promises much by way of decreasing the alienation of citizens when it is made an adjunct to the formal judicial process. The contrast and promise stem largely from the participatory and consensual character of the mediation process. A third party to the dispute—the mediator—encourages the parties to find a mutually agreeable settlement by helping them to sharpen …

Comparative Negligence In Jackson V. Frederick's Motor Inn: What Is Compared?, Nancy Lynn Diesel

Maine Law Review

Before 1965, the defense of contributory negligence was an absolute bar to a plaintiff's recovery in tort actions in Maine. Under the contributory negligence principle, any degree of fault attributable to the plaintiff defeated his or her claim; the fault of the plaintiff and of the defendant was not compared. In 1965, the Maine Legislature enacted the Comparative Negligence Act in order to eliminate the harshness and inequities of the contributory negligence doctrine. The Act also served to stop juries from using compromise verdicts to reach a fair result. Under the Act, a plaintiff's fault is compared with that of …

Pretrial In Maine Under New Rule 16: Settlement, Sanctions, And Sayonara, Robert J. Plourde

Maine Law Review

On September 1, 1980, a new pretrial procedure rule became effective in Maine. The rule was heralded as "the most significant modification of the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure in recent years." The rule was intended to remedy major defects in existing pretrial procedure and to benefit judges and attorneys through more explicit directions for pretrial procedure. Ultimately, the goal of this reform is to achieve a "just result of litigation.” This Comment begins with an overview and evaluation of quantitative studies of the pretrial conference in various judicial systems. The Comment then analyzes the new Maine rule and its …

Civil Juries In Maine: Are The Benefits Worth The Costs?, Donald Alexander

Maine Law Review

Throughout this century, legal scholars have vigorously criticized civil juries with little apparent effect. Despite the civil jury's long history of successful resistance to change, new considerations make it imperative that we conduct a fundamental review of the functioning of the civil jury as an instrument of justice for the twenty-first century. That review has begun in Maine. Under the direction of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, a comprehensive jury management study has just been completed. Proposals for changes in jury management and efficiency are now being developed. As part of this process, we can simply perpetuate the past or …

An Analysis Of Federal Drug-Related Civil Forfeiture, Susan J. Parcels

Maine Law Review

Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Arthur J. Goldenbaum participated in a raid at the home of Mrs. Edna Salas, arrested her husband, and charged him with possession of heroin. Pursuant to a warrant, Goldenbaum searched the Salas's 1975 Mercedes and found four marijuana cigarette butts in the ashtray. The government seized the Mercedes, sold it, and collected the proceeds. This is an example of forfeiture-the loss of goods to the government as a result of the commission of a crime-under the federal drug laws. This Comment examines federal civil forfeiture statutes applicable to drug trafficking. The widespread judicial reluctance to …

A Rule 54(B) Dilemma: Divorces Lacking "Finality" Due To Undismissed Counterclaims, Ellen Kandoian

Maine Law Review

Recent decisions of the Maine Law Court bring into sharp focus certain difficulties inherent in applying rules of civil procedure developed in the context of federal practice to a state law setting. In such instances, the rules must operate on certain types of litigation peculiar to state law, notably the entire field of domestic relations. In a field bearing the unique features and demands of domestic relations, it is not surprising that federally patterned rules raised problems not anticipated by their drafters. In the 1981 case of Parent v. Parent, the Maine Law Court, in customary observance of Rule 54(b) …

Gaps In Accountability For Submarine Cable Protection: Inadequacies In The Current Legal Framework, Martin Kwan

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Submarine cable protection has become a hotly discussed topic as the risk of damage has dramatically increased amidst wars and geopolitical tensions. This Article critically analyzes six gaps in accountability for cable protection. First, there is no civil accountability for non-territorial damage. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows no residual jurisdiction, and the English case of Virgin Media Ltd. v. Joseph Whelan reasoned that the absence of exclusive jurisdiction to lay cables in those waters means no civil jurisdiction by the coastal state. But this Article argues that it is an exclusive right, taking …

The Private Cause Of Action Under Maine's Unfair Trade Practices Act, Steven A. Shaw

Maine Law Review

In 1970 the Maine Legislature passed the Unfair Trade Practices Act (UTPA) which declared unlawful any "unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce . . . ." UTPA-type statutes, now common to all states, offer several advantages. The statutes provide for a statutory award of attorneys' fees, create a private cause of action which is simple in comparison to analogous common law claims, and offer a flexible concept of unlawful conduct which many courts have shown a willingness to interpret broadly and sympathetically. Although Maine's UTPA was originally …

Hospital Accountability In Health Care Delivery, C. Elisabeth Belmont

Maine Law Review

In recent years, the role of community hospitals in health care delivery has undergone a dramatic change. Until the latter half of the twentieth century, a hospital was merely a "doctor's workshop," providing physicians with the physical facilities, equipment, and personnel necessary to treat their private patients. Due to progressive medical technology, today's hospital has moved from a passive role in patient care to more active participation in the delivery of total health care. The hospital has become a health care provider in its own right, furnishing a broad range of diagnostic and outpatient services, home care assistance, and specialized …

In Defense Of Civil Juries, Peter W. Culley

Maine Law Review

Criticism of the civil jury system is nothing new. In fact, virtually since its inception the civil jury has been embroiled in controversy. Typically critics argue that: the jury cannot handle the complex or technical case; there is great expense and delay attendant to trial by jury; jury adjudication is of low quality; verdicts rendered by different juries in cases involving similar facts often appear inconsistent. Recently, Justice Donald Alexander of the Maine Superior Court stated that "[t]he civil jury system has outlived its usefulness." In support of his basic premise that the civil jury system is merely an historical …

The Decline Of The Privity Rule In The Maine Law Of Tort Products Liability: A Conceptual History, Dennis M. Patterson

Maine Law Review

No single issue has more preoccupied modern jurisprudential writers than the limitations of precedent on the lawmaking power of judges. Yet despite this singular concentration, no scholarly consensus has emerged regarding what those limitations are or what form they should take. This continuing theoretical dispute recently manifested itself in a series of decisions rendered by the Law Court. Last spring in the case of Adams v. Buffalo Forge Co., the Law Court reconsidered a significant aspect of two decisions of the previous term: Burke v. Hamilton Beach Division and Hurd v. Hurd. In Burke and Hurd the court decided that …

The Vitality Of The Doctrine Of Punitive Damages In Maine, Kevin F. Gordon

Maine Law Review

On four separate occasions between December 1981 and February 1982, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court called into question the continued vitality of the common law doctrine of punitive damages. The substantive propriety of punitive damages was not challenged by any of the defendants in those four cases. As a result, the Law Court assumed for the purposes of each opinion that punitive damages could be awarded by a court "in some instances without explicit statutory authorization." Nevertheless, in a footnote to Braley v. Berkshire Mutual Insurance Co., the court challenged this assumption. Noting that the doctrine of punitive damages initially …

Constitutional Issues Raised By The Civil-Criminal Dichotomy Of The Maine Oui Law, Bruce W. Smith

Maine Law Review

Moving to the forefront of a national trend, the Maine Legislature undertook a thorough reform of its operating under the influence (OUI) law in 1981. The new statute was billed "the toughest in the nation," largely because of a provision for mandatory prison sentences. The statute's most radical provision is not the mandatory prison term, however, but a section which gives prosecutors the option to treat less egregious first offenses as civil infractions rather than crimes. The section generates the broad issue addressed by this Comment: may trial by jury and other constitutional protections formerly afforded OUI defendants be denied …