Common Law Commons^™

Pacific Islands And The U.S. Military: The Legal Borderlands Of The Environmental Movement, Sonia Lei

Seattle University Law Review

Climate change remains an urgent, ongoing global issue that requires critical examination of institutional polluters. This includes the world’s largest institutional consumer of petroleum: the United States military. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a massive institution with little oversight, a carbon footprint spanning the globe, a budget greater than the next ten largest nations combined, and overly generous exemptions to environmental regulations and carbon reduction targets. This Comment examines how this lack of accountability and oversight plays out in the context of three Pacific islands that have hosted U.S. military bases for decades. By considering the environmental impact of …

Prejudice Standards In Washington’S Appellate Courts, Andrew B. Van Winkle

Seattle University Law Review

When an appellate court finds an error to have occurred during a proceeding, the error is not yet subject to correction. In order to merit a remedy, the error must have been sufficiently prejudicial to the aggrieved party’s case. Drawing the line between correctable and non-correctable errors is not an easy task, for it often requires guessing at what was in the minds of jurors and trial judges. To cope with this task, courts have devised various rules and tests for deciding whether an error was likely prejudicial or not. These standards often go by names such as “harmless error,” …

Creating A Just System Of Civil Recourse – Articulating The Controlled Instrumentalist Approach For Marginalized People, Rukmini Banerjee

CMC Senior Theses

A system of civil recourse is a precondition for a just society. In this paper, I outline the ideal version of a system of civil recourse and analyze the accounts of various liberal philosophers to explain how a non-instrumental and mutual accountability theory of civil recourse best encapsulates its stated purpose. I analyze the American system of civil recourse, specifically tort law, and argue that it bypasses the threshold of tolerable injustice for marginalized people in the United States. Using Tommie Shelby’s framework in Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, I argue that marginalized people are not obligated by …

Corporate Law In The Global South: Heterodox Stakeholderism, Mariana Pargendler

Seattle University Law Review

How do the corporate laws of Global South jurisdictions differ from their Global North counterparts? Prevailing stereotypes depict the corporate laws of developing countries as either antiquated or plagued by problems of enforcement and misfit despite formal convergence. This Article offers a different view by showing how Global South jurisdictions have pioneered heterodox stakeholder approaches in corporate law, such as the erosion of limited liability for purposes of stakeholder protection in Brazil and India, the adoption of mandatory corporate social responsibility in Indonesia and India, and the large-scale program of Black corporate ownership and empowerment in South Africa, among many …

After Affirmative Action, Meera E. Deo

Seattle University Law Review

This is a time of crisis in legal education. In truth, we are in the midst of several crises. We are emerging from the COVID pandemic, a period of unprecedented upheaval where law students and law faculty alike struggled through physical challenges, mental health burdens, and decreased academic and professional success. The past few years also have seen a precipitous drop in applications to and enrollment in legal education. Simultaneously, students have been burdened with the skyrocketing costs of attending law school, taking on unmanageable levels of debt. And with the Supreme Court decision in SFFA v. Harvard, we are …

The Consumer’S Choice To Boycott, Agnes Bresee

Seattle University Law Review

In the wake of employees losing their jobs upon voicing their political opinions concerning Israel, Harvard and Columbia law students’ job offers being rescinded upon expressing support for Palestine, and the names and social media profiles of individuals who support Palestine being collected and listed on Canary Mission, such backlash may leave many Americans wondering what form of resistance to settler-colonialist apartheid is acceptable in the twenty-first century. Recently, the movement to collectively boycott brands like Starbucks, which sued its Worker’s Union for a tweet expressing support for Palestine; Disney, which donated money to Israel; and McDonald’s, where a location …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Stakeholder Governance As Governance By Stakeholders, Brett Mcdonnell

Seattle University Law Review

Much debate within corporate governance today centers on the proper role of corporate stakeholders, such as employees, customers, creditors, suppliers, and local communities. Scholars and reformers advocate for greater attention to stakeholder interests under a variety of banners, including ESG, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and stakeholder governance. So far, that advocacy focuses almost entirely on arguing for an expanded understanding of corporate purpose. It argues that corporate governance should be for various stakeholders, not shareholders alone.

This Article examines and approves of that broadened understanding of corporate purpose. However, it argues that we should understand stakeholder governance as extending well …

Public Primacy In Corporate Law, Dorothy S. Lund

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores the malleability of agency theory by showing that it could be used to justify a “public primacy” standard for corporate law that would direct fiduciaries to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of the public. Employing agency theory to describe the relationship between corporate management and the broader public sheds light on aspects of firm behavior, as well as the nature of state contracting with corporations. It also provides a lodestar for a possible future evolution of corporate law and governance: minimize the agency costs created by the divergence of interests between management and …

Stakeholder Governance On The Ground (And In The Sky), Stephen Johnson, Frank Partnoy

Seattle University Law Review

Professor Frank Partnoy: This is a marvelous gathering, and it is all due to Chuck O’Kelley and the special gentleness, openness, and creativity that he brings to this symposium. For more than a decade, he has been open to new and creative ways to discuss important issues surrounding business law and Adolf Berle’s legacy. We also are grateful to Dorothy Lund for co-organizing this gathering.

In introducing Stephen Johnson, I am reminded of a previous Berle, where Chuck allowed me some time to present the initial thoughts that led to my book, WAIT: The Art and Science of Delay. Part …

A Different Approach To Agency Theory And Implications For Esg, Jonathan Bonham, Amoray Riggs-Cragun

Seattle University Law Review

In conventional agency theory, the agent is modeled as exerting unobservable “effort” that influences the distribution over outcomes the principal cares about. Recent papers instead allow the agent to choose the entire distribution, an assumption that better describes the extensive and flexible control that CEOs have over firm outcomes. Under this assumption, the optimal contract rewards the agent directly for outcomes the principal cares about, rather than for what those outcomes reveal about the agent’s effort. This article briefly summarizes this new agency model and discusses its implications for contracting on ESG activities.

Overseeing The Administrative State, Jill E. Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

In a series of recent cases, the Supreme Court has reduced the regulatory power of the Administrative State. Pending cases offer vehicles for the Court to go still further. Although the Court’s skepticism of administrative agencies may be rooted in Constitutional principles or political expediency, this Article explores another possible explanation—a shift in the nature of agencies and their regulatory role. As Pritchard and Thompson detail in their important book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court was initially skeptical of agency power, jeopardizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s ambitious New Deal plan. The Court’s acceptance …

The Sec, The Supreme Court, And The Administrative State, Paul G. Mahoney

Seattle University Law Review

Pritchard and Thompson have given those of us who study the SEC and the securities laws much food for thought. Their methodological focus is on the internal dynamics of the Court’s deliberations, on which they have done detailed and valuable work. The Court did not, however, operate in a vacuum. Intellectual trends in economics and law over the past century can also help us understand the SEC’s fortunes in the federal courts and make predictions about its future.

Three Stories: A Comment On Pritchard & Thompson’S A History Of Securities Laws In The Supreme Court, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson’s A History of Securities Laws in the Supreme Court should stand for decades as the definitive work on the Federal securities laws’ career in the Supreme Court across the twentieth century.1 Like all good histories, it both tells a story and makes an argument. The story recounts how the Court dealt with the major securities laws, as well the agency charged with enforcing them, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the rules it promulgated, from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. But the book does not just string together a series of events, “one …

The Sffa V. Harvard Trojan Horse Admissions Lawsuit, Kimberly West-Faulcon

Seattle University Law Review

Affirmative-action-hostile admissions lawsuits are modern Trojan horses. The SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case—Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., decided jointly—is the most effective Trojan horse admissions lawsuit to date. Constructed to have the distractingly appealing exterior façade of a lawsuit seeking greater fairness in college admissions, the SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case is best understood as a deception-driven battle tactic used by forces waging a multi-decade war against the major legislative victories of America’s Civil Rights Movement, specifically Title VI and Title VII …

Feeding The Good Fire: Paths To Facilitate Native-Led Fire Management On Federal Lands, Kevin Burdet

Seattle University Law Review

In 2003, nearly twenty Native American reservations were devastated by wildfires that originated on adjacent federal lands. The San Pasqual Reservation’s entire 1,400 acres were burned along with over a third of its homes, and seventy-five percent of the Rincon Reservation was burned, taking twenty homes with it. These devastating fires, along with others in 2002, brought about the Tribal Forest Protection Act of 2004 (TFPA), which offered hope for Tribes to propose projects on bordering or adjacent federal lands and protect reservation lands in the process. Unfortunately, twenty years later, the TFPA has had a marginal effect in enabling …

Defeat Fascism, Transform Democracy: Mapping Academic Resources, Reframing The Fundamentals, And Organizing For Collective Actions, Francisco Valdes

Seattle University Law Review

The information we gathered during 2021–2023 shows that critical faculty and other academic resources are present throughout most of U.S. legal academia. Counting only full-time faculty, our limited research identified 778 contacts in 200 schools equating to nearly four contacts on average per school. But no organized critical “core” had coalesced within legal academia or, more broadly, throughout higher education expressly dedicated to defending and advancing critical knowledge and its production up to now. And yet, as the 2021–2022 formation of the Critical (Legal) Collective (“CLC”) outlined below demonstrates, many academics sense or acknowledge the need for greater cohesion among …

A Hard Pill To Swallow: The Abysmal Mental Health Standards Of Detained Immigrant Children In The United States, Rama Bankesly

Seattle University Law Review

After setting foot into the U.S., unaccompanied children must learn to navigate academic and legal systems while receiving little support and carrying the heavy burden of effects of trauma on their mental health. They need access to mental health care from qualified professionals, but as this Comment will explain, they systematically fail to receive care, as can be seen in cases like Doe v. Shenandoah Valley Juv. Ctr. Comm’n. In Shenandoah, an unaccompanied child arrived in the U.S. and was placed in a facility that failed to provide remotely adequate mental health care and in fact was subjected …

Students For Fair Admissions: Affirming Affirmative Action And Shapeshifting Towards Cognitive Diversity?, Steven A. Ramirez

Seattle University Law Review

The Roberts Court holds a well-earned reputation for overturning Supreme Court precedent regardless of the long-standing nature of the case. The Roberts Court knows how to overrule precedent. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Court’s majority opinion never intimates that it overrules Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court’s leading opinion permitting race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Instead, the Roberts Court applied Grutter as authoritative to hold certain affirmative action programs entailing racial preferences violative of the Constitution. These programs did not provide an end point, nor did they require assessment, review, periodic expiration, or revision for greater …

Perlindungan Hukum Bagi Pembeli Terhadap Gugatan Pembatalan Jual Beli Tanah Oleh Para Ahli Waris Penjual, M Waldi Ali Soraya, Lauditta Humaira ,S.H.,M.Kn.

Lex Patrimonium

In the implementation of the Sale and Purchase Binding Agreement Deed, a dispute may occur. For example, if the land being sold is an inheritance. For example, one of the sellers does not approve of the sale and purchase, or the land is sold by someone who is not an heir. Of course the buyer will be disadvantaged. The aim of the research is to find out the legal provisions governing the unilateral cancellation of the PPJB, to explain the determination of unlawful acts and to analyze the legal protection for buyers in land sale and purchase agreements which are …

Perbandingan Rechtsverwerking Sebagai Doktrin Hukum Di Indonesia Dan Doktrin Estoppel Di Amerika Serikat Pada Bidang Hukum Perjanjian, Joseph Noviandri, Togi Marolop Pangaribuan

Lex Patrimonium

This journal discusses the scope of rechtsverwerking as a doctrine known as the ‘waiver of rights’ doctrine. rechtsverwerking refers to a situation where someone possesses a certain right but does not exercise it within a specific period, which may result in the loss of that right. This concept of waiving rights is widely recognized, As exemplified by Article 32 paragraph (2) of Government Regulation No. 24 of 1997 concerning the release of land rights, the application of the rechtsverwerking doctrine should no longer be used as the basis for releasing land rights, as legislation takes precedence over doctrines in the …

Perlindungan Hukum Terhadap Pemegang Perjanjian Pengikatan Jual Beli Atas Tanah Dimana Sertifikat Tanah Berada Dalam Penguasaan Bank (Studi Putusan Nomor 751 Pk/Pdt/2019), Ahmad Raihan Imani Setiawan, Abdul Salam

Lex Patrimonium

The dynamic and evolving nature of the law, which also gives rise to complexities in societal issues, requires legal certainty, especially concerning the legal protection for parties involved in a Sale and Purchase Agreement (PPJB). The purpose of this paper is to understand the legal position of the buyer based on a PPJB for land and buildings concerning the land that has been used as collateral by the seller to a bank. Additionally, it aims to determine whether the judge’s considerations were appropriate in providing legal protection to the buyer based on the PPJB, as per the verdict Number 751 …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Urgensi Pengawasan Terhadap Penyedia Jasa Pengiriman Dalam Kegiatan E-Commerce: Studi Komparasi Indonesia Dengan Malaysia, Lydia Azzahro Silparensi, Abdul Salam

Lex Patrimonium

Delivery service providers are a role that is needed, especially with the increase in e-commerce activity. However, the implementation of courier services is still lacking in overcoming these problems. As an effort to increase supervision while adapting it to consumer needs, an analysis was carried out using a normative juridical method by comparing the two institutions between Indonesia and Malaysia. Institutions in Malaysia are different from Indonesia which are under the auspices of the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, that the Malaysian Institution known as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission is an institution whose role is to oversee communication …

Cultural Identity And Territorial Autonomy: U.S. Virgin Islands Jurisprudence And The Insular Cases, Dolace Mclean

Fordham Law Review

This Essay utilizes the lens of postcolonial theory to analyze the development of U.S. Virgin Islands jurisprudence. This Essay asserts that the United States’s acquisition of the territory served the purpose of helping to construct an American narrative of moving from colony to colonial power that surpassed its European forebears. The colonial narrative is fractured by instances of the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands re-narrating territorial space by utilizing legal principles that are informed by local cultural expressions. Consequently, Virgin Islands jurisprudence is transformed from “colonial dependent” to “postcolonial independent” based on intersectional, progressive principles.

Theseus In The Labyrinth: How State Constitutions Can Slay The Procedural Minotaur, Marcus A. Gadson

Washington Law Review

Civil procedure is one of the biggest hurdles to access to justice. An array of rules and interpretations of those rules have turned lawsuits into meandering mazes with a procedural minotaur waiting to gobble up meritorious claims. The problem is especially acute for the many Americans without abundant resources or access to a lawyer. Fortunately, there is a ready remedy, albeit one access to justice advocates have ignored: state constitutions. Forty state constitutions, which protect hundreds of millions of Americans, generally guarantee “[t]hat all courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done him in his person, property …

Sanchez V. Mayorkas: Is This The End Of Green Cards For Temporary Protected Status Holders?, Thalia G. Rivet

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This Note was inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas. This decision put an end to the decade-long circuit split over whether a Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) recipient, who entered the United States unlawfully, could still become a Lawful Permanent Resident (“LPR”). Since its inception, TPS holders have been denied an avenue to adjust their status despite their socioeconomic impact on the United States and every TPS-designated country. This Note will break down and analyze the decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas through (1) the examination of the circuit split cases, (2) the analysis of TPS holder’s …

Chevron: Fueling The Right Against Title 42 And The Denial Of U.S. Asylum Rights, Nicholas Pierre-Paul

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This Note was inspired by the questionable treatment of Haitian asylum seekers in Del Rio, Texas, where horseback U.S. officials charged at them using reins as whips, before immediately deporting them back to Haiti. The U.S. government justified its actions by claiming that Title 42 permits U.S. officials to prohibit the entry of individuals when there is a danger of introducing certain diseases, such as COVID-19. However, Title 42 conflicts with the United States’ codified commitment to the principle of non-refoulment, prohibiting it from returning certain refugees to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. Accordingly, the …

Implications Of Good Faith In Construction Contracts, Nadine Rashed

Theses and Dissertations

The principle of good faith is making inroads and continues to significantly impact various contractual arrangements. In most civil legal systems, good faith is present as a core principle. Nevertheless, its definition is beyond doubt scarce in the construction industry. However, the common law lacks the good faith obligations. Good faith is one of the fundamental principles that impact the contractual obligations between the contracting parties. This paper creates an urge to address the implications of good faith on construction contracts in the pre-contract and post-contract award stages. Therefore, the paper’s objective is to propose a legal/contractual clause that meets …

Women In Shareholder Activism, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Even a cursory review of the history of American environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) shareholder activism reveals the presence of women leaders. This Article sketches some of this history and interrogates the role of women in the shareholder activism movement. That movement typically has involved claims by minority shareholders to corporate power; activists are nearly always on the margins of power, though minority shareholders may, collectively, represent a majority interest. This Article ascribes women’s leadership in shareholder activism to their longstanding position as outsiders to corporate organization. Women’s participation in shaping corporate policy—even from the margins—has provided women with …