Common Law Commons^™

The Supreme Common Law Court Of The United States, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court's primary role in the history of the United States, especially in constitutional cases (and cases hovering in the universe of the Constitution), has been to limit Congress's ability to redefine and redistribute rights in a direction most people would characterize as liberal. In other words, the Supreme Court, for most of the history of the United States since the adoption of the Constitution, has been a conservative force against change and redistribution. The Court has used five distinct devices to advance its control over the law. First, it has construed rights-creating constitutional provisions narrowly when those …

The Dream Of Greater Municipal Autonomy: Should The Legislature Or The Courts Modify Dillon's Rule, A Common Law Restraint On Municipal Power, Louis V. Csoka

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Protection Of Religious Freedom Under The American Constitution, Robert A. Sedler

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Incoherency Of The Preemption Provision Of The Copyright Act Of 1976, Joseph P. Bauer

Journal Articles

Section 301 of the Copyright Act of 1976 expressly preempts state law actions that are within the "general scope of copyright" and that assert claims that are "equivalent to" the rights conferred by the Act. The Act eliminated the previous system of common law copyright for unpublished works, which had prevailed under the prior 1909 Copyright Act. By federalizing copyright law, the drafters of the statute sought to achieve uniformity and to avoid the potential for state protection of infinite duration.

The legislative history of § 301 stated that this preemption provision was set forth "in the clearest and most …

Negligent Infliction Of Emotional Distress: Recovery Is Foreseeable, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1019 (2006), Jeffrey Hoskins

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Merger Of Common-Law And Equity Pleading In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

This article describes the separation of common law and equity in Virginia leading up to the 2006 merger of common law and equity pleading and the problems that remain to be solved by the courts.

The Effects Of Quebec's Municipal Merger Law On Montreal: Mega-City Or Mega-Blunder?, Chad E. Tepper

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note examines the impact of Quebec's Municipal Merger Law, enacted in 2000, on the Anglophone community, arguing that the law has eroded Anglophone rights, reduced political representation, and exacerbated linguistic tensions. The law, upheld by courts as constitutional, amalgamated 64 municipalities into five megacities, including Montreal, and designated Montreal as unilingually French, contrary to prior bilingual frameworks. The merger process was criticized for its undemocratic nature, lack of public consultation, and disproportionate harm to Anglophone civil service employment. The analysis highlights the long-standing tensions between Anglophone and Francophone communities and explores the high costs and political challenges of reversing …

Preemption Of Common Law Claims And The Prospects For Fifra: Justice Stevens Puts The Genie Back In The Bottle, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

In the upcoming Term, the Supreme Court will consider a case raising the question whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state tort law, or only state positive law. FIFRA, under which the Environmental Protection Agency regulates pesticide labels, has an express preemption clause and clearly preempts state positive law on labeling. The question presented is whether and to what extent it also preempts state tort law, particularly claims for failure to warn. The Court's precedent on preemption of state tort law is erratic, but for some reason, the pro-preemption view has been much more popular with lower …

California's Curious Practice Of "Pocket Review", Steven B. Katz

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

The majority of any California appellate panel is permitted to certify an opinion for publication that establishes new law or modifies existing rules. The California Supreme court can reverse any publication decision without giving any reason. This practice is called "pocket review." Pocket reviews risk thwarting legislative intent and sweeping the results under the rug.

Federal Common Law, Cooperative Federalism, And The Enforcement Of The Telecom Act, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

Congress increasingly has enacted cooperative federalism programs to achieve complex regulatory policy objectives. Such programs combine the authority of federal regulators, state regulators, and federal courts in creative and often pathmarking ways, but the failure of these actors to appreciate fully their respective roles threatens to undermine cooperative federalism's effectiveness. In this Article, Professor Philip Weiser develops a coherent vision of how federal courts should enforce cooperative federalism regulatory programs. In particular, he relates the rise and purpose of cooperative federalism to the federal courts' increased reluctance to make federal common law under the Erie doctrine and their greater deference …

Should State Corporate Law Define Successor Liability - The Demise Of Cercla's Federal Common Law, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

During the 1980s and early 1990s, a series of decisions broadly interpreting the liability provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCIA) appeared destined to transform corporate law practice. CERCIA does not directly address successor liability, but the statute's complex and contradictory legislative history arguably implies that Congress wanted federal courts to apply broad liability principles to achieve the statute's fundamental remedial goal of making polluters and their successors pay for cleaning up hazardous substances.

Notably, a number of courts rejected state corporate law principles that usually limit the liability of successor corporations and instead …

Law's Territory (A History Of Jurisdiction), Richard T. Ford

Michigan Law Review

Pop quiz: New York City. The United Kingdom. The East Bay Area Municipal Utilities District. Kwazulu, South Africa. The Cathedral of Notre Dame. The State of California. Vatican City. Switzerland. The American Embassy in the U.S.S.R. What do the foregoing items have in common? Answer: they are, or were, all territorial jurisdictions. A thesis of this Article is that territorial jurisdictions - the rigidly mapped territories within which formally defined legal powers are exercised by formally organized governmental institutions - are relatively new and intuitively surprising technological developments. New, because until the development of modern cartography, legal authority generally followed …

Ultra Vires Takings, Matthew D. Zinn

Michigan Law Review

When does legislative or administrative regulatory action "go[] too far" and effectively amount to an .appropriation of private property for which the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation? This question has turned out to be one of the thorniest in American constitutional law. The Supreme Court has identified several circumstances in which one can expect to find a regulatory taking, but its numerous pronouncements on the subject give no clear rule to distinguish compensable takings from noncompensable interference with property rights. Notwithstanding its volume, the commentary on the Takings Clause by and large addresses only proper governmental action that rises to …

Governmental Takings, Court Of Appeals: Kim V. City Of New York

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The National Notary Association: A Historical Profile, 31 J. Marshall L. Rev. 971 (1998), Milton G. Valera

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

To Notarize, Or Not To Notarize ... Is Not A Question Of Judging Competence Or Willingness Of Document Signers, 31 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1013 (1998), Klint L. Bruno

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sexual Discrimination And Sexual Misconduct: Applying New York's Gender-Specific Sexual Misconduct Law To Consenting Minors, Douglas Mcnamara

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Federal Psychotherapist-Patient Privilege After Jaffee: Truth And Other Values In A Therapeutic Age, Christopher B. Mueller

Publications

No abstract provided.

Modern Mail Fraud: The Restoration Of The Public/Private Distinction, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Over their long history, the mail and wire fraud statutes have gone through repeated periods of rapid expansion and contraction. The 1970s saw the flowering of the "intangible rights doctrine," an exotic flower that quickly overgrew the legal landscape in the manner of the kudzu vine until by the mid- 1980s few ethical or fiduciary breaches seemed beyond its potential reach. That doctrine was radically pruned by the Supreme Court in 1987 in the McNally decision, which held that the federal mail and wire fraud statutes reached only those schemes that intentionally sought to deprive their victims of money or …

An Analysis Of People, For Michigan Republic, Ex Rel V. State Of Michigan, 30 J. Marshall L. Rev. 937 (1997), Phillip A. Hendges

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rock-A-Bye Lawsuit: Can A Baby Sue The Hand That Rocked The Cradle, 28 J. Marshall L. Rev. 429 (1995), Geoffrey A. Vance

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federalism Myth, Fernando Laguarda

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

INTRODUCTION: The late Justice Louis Brandeis once remarked on the benefit that our system of government derives from the states acting as the "laboratories of democracy."' This remark not only implies that states should be given the discretion to experiment, it presumes that states actually have the ability to do so. In order to understand Justice Brandeis and those who have followed in his rhetorical footprints, it is important to understand federalism, which is the organizing principle of American government.

Modified Contributory Fault And Strict Products Liability: Illinois' Silent Disposal Of Misuse And Assumption Of Risk Turns Back The Evolution, 23 J. Marshall L. Rev. 247 (1990), Frank I. Powers

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nutrition And Hydration Under Ohio's Dpah: Judicial Misconstruction Threatens The Right To Choose Death With Dignity, June Mary Zekan Makdisi

Cleveland State Law Review

Recent count indicates that 10,000 Americans now remain, for whatever reason, in an incurable and persistent vegetative condition, trapped in a state of life made possible by aggressive life support systems. A dilemma exists: How do these non-cognitive individuals fit into the legal definitions of life and death? What rights do they, their guardians, or others have in decisions concerning artificial life support, including nutrition and hydration? To resolve the dilemma, a policy based on sound reasoning needs to be established in Ohio to determine if and when the termination of life support, including nutrition and hydration, can occur. Recently, …

Corporate Life After Death: Cercla Preemption Of State Corporate Dissolution Law, Audrey J. Anderson

Michigan Law Review

This Note discusses CERCLA's preemption of state corporate dissolution law. Although CERCLA contains a preemption clause intended to specify CERCLA's relationship with other laws, this clause addresses only state laws that impose stricter standards than those contained in CERCLA, and does not address state laws that, like dissolution laws, remove liability from a party otherwise liable under CERCLA. Courts, therefore, have also looked to section 107 of CERCLA, which imposes liability against specified parties "[n]notwithstanding any other provision or rule of law," to determine CERCLA's general relationship with state law. Through such an analysis, courts have agreed that CERCLA does …

Federal Preemption Of Prescrption Drug Labeling: Antidote For Pharmaceutical Industry Overdosing On State Court Jury Decisions In Products Liability Cases, 22 J. Marshall L. Rev. 629 (1989), John F. Del Giorno

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Punitive Damages: A Cat's Clavicle In Modern Civil Law, 22 J. Marshall L. Rev. 657 (1989), Kurt M. Zitzer

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Common Law Antecendents Of Constitutional Law In Connecticut, Ellen Ash Peters

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

The Wrong Side Of The Tracks: A Revolutionary Rediscovery Of The Common Law Tradition Of Fairness In The Struggle Against Inequality, Gregory A. Kalscheur

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Wrong Side of the Tracks: A Revolutionary Rediscovery of the Common Law Tradition of Fairness in the Struggle Against Inequality by Charles M. Haar and Daniel W. Fessler

The Twilight Of Employment At Will? An Update, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

A 55-year-old white male, who has spent thirty years working his way up to a responsible middle-management position in his company, is asked for his resignation. No reason given. Even though the employee could demonstrate that he still is qualified to perform his duties, the employer's action in dismissing him would be quite unexceptionable under the conventional American common law doctrine of employment at will. The situation could be even more disturbing. If the employment-at-will principle were allowed its full scope, an employee would have no recourse even if he knew he was being discharged because he had refused to …