Common Law Commons^™

Towards A Common Law Originalism, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Originalists' emphasis upon William Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" tends to suggest that the common law of the Founding era consisted in a set of determinate rules that can be mined for the purposes of constitutional interpretation. This Article argues instead that disparate strands of the common law, some emanating from the colonies and others from England, some more archaic and others more innovative, co-existed at the time of the Founding. Furthermore, jurists and politicians of the Founding generation were not unaware that the common law constituted a disunified field; indeed, the jurisprudence of the common law suggested …

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

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Natural Obligations And The Common Law Of Unjust Enrichment, Hang Wu Tang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Two leading restitution scholars have recently argued that the notion of natural obligations is now an important defence in the law of unjust enrichment. 'In particular, the late Professor Peter Birks asserts, in his last book, that 'the claimant cannot say that the money was not due if, behind the technicalities of the law, there was still a moral obligation to pay.' This development is interesting because the concept of natural obligations is traditionally thought to be a civilian and not a common law concept. Birks' assertion represents an attempt to use the study of comparative law to interpret the …

The Outer Limits Of Gang Injunctions, Scott E. Atkinson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Almost a decade ago, the California Supreme Court endorsed the use of public nuisance injunctions as a means to control street gangs. Public nuisance injunctions against gangs ("gang injunctions"), which result from civil suits filed by district or city attorneys, prohibit the nuisance conduct within a prescribed geographical area, focusing on the "turf' claimed by the gang. In People ex rel. Gallo v. Acuna, the California Supreme Court upheld an injunction against thirty-eight named members of a San Jose gang in a four square block area where none of the gang members lived. The court described the neighborhood as "an …

Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The doctrine of cybertrespass represents one of the most recent attempts by courts to apply concepts and principles from the real world to the virtual world of the Internet. A creation of state common law, the doctrine essentially involved extending the tort of trespass to chattels to the electronic world. Consequently, unauthorized electronic interferences are deemed trespassory intrusions and rendered actionable. The present paper aims to undertake a conceptual study of the evolution of the doctrine, examining the doctrinal modifications courts were required to make to mould the doctrine to meet the specificities of cyberspace. It then uses cybertrespass to …

The Second Canonization Of The Talmud, Hanina Ben-Menahem

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The Scrap Heap: The Decline And Fall Of Smith V. F.W. Morse & Co., Parker B. Potter Jr.

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] "One of the more difficult tasks facing a federal court is trying to predict how a state’s highest court would rule on a question of law it has not yet addressed. That difficulty is well illustrated by the history of Wenners v. Great State Beverages, Inc., and in particular, the interpretation of that opinion contained in Smith v. F.W. Morse & Co. [ . . . ]

This article begins with a close examination of Wenners and the two opinions on which Wenners relied for its now-canonical statement of the relationship between statutory and common law remedies. I continue …

Judges As Rulemakers, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In Do Cases Make Bad Law?, Frederick Schauer raises some serious questions about the process of judicial lawmaking. Schauer takes issue with the widely held assumption that judge-made law benefits from the court's focus on a particular real-world dispute. Writing with characteristic eloquence, Schauer argues that the need to resolve a concrete dispute does not enhance the ability of judges to craft sound rules, but instead generates cognitive biases that distort judicial development of legal rules.

Schauer's observations about the risks of rulemaking in an adjudicatory setting are very persuasive. Yet his overall assessment of the common law process …

Trust Funds In Common Law And Civil Law Systems: A Comparative Analysis, Carly Howard

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Article Five Of The Utc And The Future Of Creditors' Rights In Trusts, Robert T. Danforth

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Perpetual Trusts, Conservation Servitudes, And The Problem Of The Future, Susan F. French

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Common Law, Common Sense: Fiduciary Standards And Trustee Identity, Melanie B. Leslie

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Emergence Of Public Prosecution In London, 1790-1850, Bruce P. Smith

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Historians of English criminal justice administration have long asserted that criminal prosecution in England before the second half of the nineteenth century was overwhelmingly "private" in nature. Before the mid-nineteenth century, so the received wisdom goes, "prosecution was almost invariably the sole responsibility of the victim." As the subject's leading historian has observed, "the typical prosecution" in England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century was "at the initiative of a private citizen who was the victim of a crime and who conducted the prosecution in almost all cases." Indeed, Parliament did not even establish a public prosecutor's office until …

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

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

There Are No Bad Dogs, Only Bad Owners: Replacing Strict Liability With A Negligence Standard In Dog Bite Cases, Lynn A. Epstein

Animal Law Review

Should the law treat dogs as vicious animals or loving family companions? This article analyzes common law strict liability as applied to dog bite cases and the shift to modern strict liability statutes, focusing on the defense of provocation. It discusses the inconsistency in the modern law treatment of strict liability in dog bite cases. The article then resolves why negligence is the proper cause of action in dog bite cases. The Author draws comparisons among dog owner liability in dog bite cases, parental liability for a child’s torts, and property owner liability for injuries caused by his property. The …

Climate Change Litigation: The Federal Common Law Of Interstate Nuisance And Federalism Concerns, Benjamin P. Harper

Georgia Law Review

After political efforts have failed to deal with the problem of global climate change, some scholars have encouraged litigation as a possible solution to the problem. The case of Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co. represents one attempt to use the federal courts to combat greenhouse gas emissions. In American Electric eight state attorneys general and New York City sued five large out-of-state power companies for carbon dioxide emissions, basing the case on the federal common law theory of interstate public nuisance. This Note discusses the appropriateness of the interstate public nuisance theory and the obstacles to climate change litigation. …

Guideline Institutionalization: The Role Of Merger Guidelines In Antitrust Discourse, Hillary Greene

Faculty Articles and Papers

With the growth of the administrative state, agency-promulgated enforcement policy statements, typically referred to as guidelines, have become ubiquitous in the U.S. federal system. Yet, the actual usage and impact of such guidelines is poorly understood. Often the issuing agencies declare the guidelines to be nonbinding, even for themselves. Notwithstanding this disclaimer, the government, private parties, and even the courts frequently rely on the guidelines in a precedent-like manner. In this Article, Professor Greene examines the evolution of one system of enforcement policy guidelines - the U.S. federal antitrust merger guidelines - and finds that these guidelines have acted as …

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 Common Law Of England In Virgina From 1776 To 1830, J. Thomas Wren

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

The Virginia Court of Appeals embraced, on the whole, the English legal heritage, despite the violent separation from Great Britain in 1776. This loyalty to English precedents was an illustration of the conservative tenor of the Revolution in Virginia. The English common law continued to be revered because it was perceived to be a bulwark of English, and hence American, liberty. Adherence to English precedent also maintained stable rules of law, which in turn protected existing property rights. At the same time, however, the Court of Appeals was not slavishly devoted to the common law, and the court's departures from …

A Theory Of Federal Common Law, Jay Tidmarsh, Brian J. Murray

Journal Articles

Federal common law is a puzzle. Despite Erie's declaration that "[t]here is no federal general common law,"' well-established and stable pockets of federal common law persist in several areas: cases affecting the rights and obligations of the United States,2 disputes between states, 3 cases affecting international relations,4 and admiralty.5 If anything, federal common law is expanding. Eighteen years ago, a case in which state law was in "significant conflict" with "uniquely federal interests" provided an occasion for the Supreme Court to create another form of federal common law.6 Five years ago, the Court added yet another piece to the puzzle, …

Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

The doctrine of cybertrespass represents one of the most recent attempts by courts to apply concepts and principles from the real world to the virtual world of the Internet. A creation of state common law, the doctrine essentially involved extending the tort of trespass to chattels to the electronic world. Consequently, unauthorized electronic interferences are deemed trespassory intrusions and rendered actionable. The present paper aims to undertake a conceptual study of the evolution of the doctrine, examining the doctrinal modifications courts were required to make to mould the doctrine to meet the specificities of cyberspace. It then uses cybertrespass to …