Common Law Commons^™

The Historical Origins Of The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination At Common Law, John H. Langbein

Michigan Law Review

This essay explains that the true origins of the common law privilege are to be found not in the high politics of the English revolutions, but in the rise of adversary criminal procedure at the end of the eighteenth century. The privilege against self-incrimination at common law was the work of defense counsel.

Part I of this essay discusses the several attributes of early modem criminal procedure that combined, until the end of the eighteenth century, to prevent the development of the common law privilege. Part II explains how prior scholarship went astray in locating the common law privilege against …

Tribute To William F. Fratcher: Marital Property Rights In Transition, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

"Marital property rights," a term that covers a vast multitude of rights or interests conferred by law on persons who occupy the status of spouse, are in a state of transition. To discuss the themes and trends that are emerging, this Article is divided into four discrete, yet related segments. The first segment addresses how the law allocates original ownership between spouses in a marriage. The second segment turns to the intestate share of the surviving spouse. This is not a topic that much concerns high-powered estate planners because intestate estates are usually fairly small. But to the surviving spouse, …

"Take This Job And Shove It": The Rise Of Free Labor, Jonathan A. Bush

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Invention of Free Labor: The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture, 1350-1870 by Robert J. Steinfeld

Employment-At-Will—Is The Model Act The Answer?, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Over the last quarter century, the most significant development in the field of labor and employment law has been a nationwide movement toward a revision of the at-will employment doctrine. Courts in over forty-five jurisdictions have used one or more of three main theories to carve out exceptions to the previously allpervasive principle. Unfortunately, though one can applaud the values embodied in these decisions, there are serious deficiencies in the common law modifications. The purpose of this Article is to outline those defects and to demonstrate that the interests of employees and employers alike would be better served by new …

Administrative Agencies, Joseph Vining

Book Chapters

Administrative agencies, often called the ‘‘fourth branch,’’ are entities of government that make decisions within particular substantive fields. Although these fields range over the full spectrum of public concern, the specificity of agencies’ focus distinguishes them from other decision making entities in the constitutional structure—the judiciary, the presidency, the Congress, indeed the individual citizen—each of which can be taken to have a scope of interest as broad as imagination will allow.

The Tort Of Bad Faith In First-Party Insurance Transactions: Refining The Standard Of Culpability And Reformulating The Remedies By Statute, Roger C. Henderson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article explores the common-law and statutory background of the tort of bad faith in first-party insurance situations analyzes the varying standards of culpability that have been developed by the courts and suggests a uniform statutory solution to the problems created by the varying standards. The statute also tailors the remedies more closely to the particular type of insurer wrongdoing. The proposed remedies recognize the dual nature of the insurer-insured relationship, that is, one based upon contract and tort concepts. Such a statute would eliminate many of the ambiguities and other deficiencies in the common law of those states that …

The Determinants Of Legal Doubt, Frederick Schauer

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Case Law System in America by Karl N. Llewellyn

From Blackstone To Bentham: Common Law Versus Legislation In Eighteenth-Century Britain, James Oldham

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Province of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory in Eighteenth Century Britain by David Lieberman

The Concept Of Law And The New Public Law Scholarship, Edward L. Rubin

Michigan Law Review

This article is an attempt to identify the nature of an emerging field of legal scholarship known as "New Public Law." "New," of course, is a dangerous term. Our society's image of itself as forward looking and its tendency to market itself to itself through claims of novelty has spawned a range of phrases from the New Deal to the New Criticism to various new, improved laundry detergents. One does not hear very many positive comments about the "old" these days. The argument that old ways of doing things are better has become an emblem of mistaken thought, and the …

In The Shadow Of The Legislature: The Common Law In The Age Of The New Public Law, Daniel A. Farber, Philip P. Frickey

Michigan Law Review

In this essay, we explore how modem common law judges should view their role vis-a-vis the legislature. We suggest that the perspective of the "New Public Law," as we conceptualize it, is surprisingly helpful in considering this problem.

In Part I, we briefly summarize two important aspects of the New Public Law: republicanism and public choice. We then address an obvious objection to our project - that our topic relates to private law, and is therefore outside the purview of the New Public Law. Part II turns to important questions about the relationship between statutes and the common law: When …

Review Of The Province Of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory In Eighteenth-Century Britain, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

David Lieberman's lucid and sure-footed reinterpretationof late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century jurisprudence is original, thoughtful, analytically acute, and a pleasure to read. Lieberman argues that Bentham's law reform ideas must be viewed in relation to earlier (and contemporary) reform traditions. Bentham's views were more complex than the long-held myth would have it, partly because they were more derivative, at least in his early enterprises, combining as they did a reception of earlier notions with the novelty for which he is usually credited. Blackstone and Mansfield, on this account, were not the match stick figures they are sometimes made out to be; the …

The Negative Constitution: A Critique, Susan Bandes

Michigan Law Review

Part I describes the current approach, which demands adherence to the notion of a negative constitution. Part II critiques the assumptions underlying the current approach and demonstrates its undesirable consequences in decisional law. Part III explores the tenacious barriers to recognition of affirmative governmental duties: the constitutional, philosophical, and common law roots of the notion of a negative constitution, as well as the belief that recognizing affirmative duties would be an invitation to chaos. Finally, Part IV proposes discarding the rhetoric of negative rights and suggests an approach for constructing a theory better designed to effectuate constitutional goals.

The Constitution's Accommodation Of Social Change, Philip A. Hamburger

Michigan Law Review

Did the framers and ratifiers of the United States Constitution think that changes in American society would require changes in the text or interpretation of the Constitution? If those who created the Constitution understood or even anticipated the possibility of major social alterations, how did they expect constitutional law - text and interpretation - to accommodate such developments?

The effect of social change upon constitutional law was an issue the framers and ratifiers frequently discussed. For example, when AntiFederalists complained of the Constitution's failure to protect the jury trial in civil cases, Federalists responded that a change of circumstances might, …

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 …

Legal Theory And Common Law, Robert R. Morse Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Legal Theory and Common Law edited by William Twining

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

Crime And The Courts In England 1660-1800, Frank C. Shaw

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800 by J.M. Beattie

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 …

Preventative Pretrial Detention And The Failure Of Interest-Balancing Approaches To Due Process, Albert W. Alschuler

Michigan Law Review

This article, echoing Highmore's treatise of 1783, maintains that neither a legitimate nor a very important governmental interest can justify preventive detention in the absence of significant proof of past wrongdoing or an inability to control one's behavior. Both the Supreme Court's neglect of this issue and Congress' similar neglect in the preventive detention provisions of the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1984 reveal the extent to which cost-benefit analysis has captured American law and threatened core concepts of individual dignity.

The article does not oppose all forms of preventive pretrial detention. To the contrary, it recognizes that the detention …

Government Responsibility For Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman

Articles

This essay is about the language used to decide when governments should be held responsible for constitutional torts.' Debate about what is required of government officials, and what is required of government itself, is scarcely new. What is new, at least to American jurisprudence, is litigation against government units (rather than government officials) for constitutional injuries. 2 The extension of liability to institutional defendants introduces special problems for the language of responsibility. In a suit against an individual official it is easy to describe the wrong as the consequence of individual behavior that is inconsistent with community norms; the language …

State Constitutional Law: Federalism In The Common Law Tradition, Ellen A. Peters

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Developments in State Constitutional Law edited by Bradley D. McGraw

Burden Of Proof, James Boyd White

Book Chapters

Although the Constitution does not mention burden of proof, certain principles are widely accepted as having constitutional status. The first and most significant of these is the rule that in a criminal case the government must prove its case ‘‘beyond a REASONABLE DOUBT.’’ This is the universal COMMON LAW rule, and was said by the Supreme Court in IN RE WINSHIP (1970) to be an element of DUE PROCESS. This standard is commonly contrasted with proof ‘‘by a preponderance of the evidence’’ or ‘‘by clear and convincing evidence.’’ The standard of proof is in practice not easily susceptible to further …

The Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

When the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws recently approved the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities, it may at long last have made perpetuity reform achievable in this country. Coming, as it does, on the heels of the 1981 promulgation of the Restatement (Second) of Property (Donative Transfers), which adopts the same general type of perpetuity reform, and having been unanimously endorsed by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, the Board of Regents of the American College of Probate Counsel, and the Board of Governors of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, the Uniform …

The Incompetent Spouse's Election: A Pecuniary Approach, Susan P. Barnabeo

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Although many state legislatures have preserved the incompetent widow's right of election, these states have developed only general guidelines to govern such an election. These guidelines merely direct the court to act in the "best interests" of the incompetent widow. Courts of the various jurisdictions differ in their approach to determining the "best interests" of the incompetent. Most courts examine all surrounding circumstances regarding the incompetent widow's situation, such as the intent of both the wife prior to her incompetency and of the testator, and the adequacy of the will's provision for the incompetent widow. A minority of jurisdictions, however, …

Perpetuities: A Perspective On Wait-And-See, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Professor Dukeminier and I agree on most of the important points concerning perpetuity law and perpetuity reform. We agree that the Rule Against Perpetuities still serves a socially useful function of limiting dead hand control, and should not be abolished. We also agree that the common law Rule is needlessly harsh and should be softened. Finally, we agree on the type of reform that is most desirable-waitand- see. Our only disagreeihent-concerns the best method of marking off the wait-and-see perpetuity pe]iqod-the period of time during which dispositions that would have been invalid under the common law Rule are to be …

A Rejoinder By Professor Waggoner, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Since the patience of the reader and the space in this issue of the Law Review are nearing their limits, I wish to publish only two points in response to what Professor Dukeminier has written.. These points further support my position that Dukeminier's proposed statute would lead almost anyone to conclude that A, not X, is the causal relationship measuring life in Example 1 of my article.1 By implication, these points, along with the others made in my article, corroborate my overall thesis: Professor Dukeminier's proposed one-sentence statute2 cannot be counted a responsible way of identifying the measuring lives for …

The Unnecessary Doctrine Of Necessaries, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that neither the traditional nor the modem necessaries doctrines are justifiable in contemporary society. Part I investigates the practical effects of both the traditional and contemporary necessaries doctrines and demonstrates that neither is an effective mechanism for providing support to a needy spouse. While a more successful support remedy might be devised to replace modem and traditional versions of the necessaries rule, Part II shows that yet another reformulation would not be worthwhile because the theoretical underpinnings of the doctrine are faulty. There is no persuasive evidence to establish the existence of the narrow support problem the …

Criminal Justice In Colonial America, 1606-1660, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Criminal Justice in Colonial America, 1606-1660 by Bradley Chapin

Inequality In Marital Liabilities: The Need For Equal Protection When Modifying The Necessaries Doctrine, Debra S. Betteridge

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note contends that the "primary/secondary" modification is unconstitutional because it ignores the husband's equal protection rights while unlawfully stigmatizing women as dependent. Part I discusses how the growing independence of women has led courts to modify the common law doctrine. Part II develops the test that the Supreme Court would apply in judging the constitutionality of any modification of the doctrine. Part III applies this test to the "primary/secondary" modification and concludes that the modification is unconstitutional and, therefore, not a legitimate reformation of the common law necessaries doctrine.

Perpetuity Reform, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

After years of debate, perpetuity reform is still controversial. To be sure, there is agreement among virtually all of the commentators and experts in the field that the Rule Against Perpetuities is in need of reform. The disagreement, on the surface, centers on the methods of reform to be employed. At least three basic methods have been advanced: (1) specific statutory repair of discrete problem areas; (2) reformation; and (3) wait-and-see. Each method has its sponsors, and each has in one form or another been adopted as part of the law of a few states. These methods are not mutually …