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Common law

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Articles 121 - 150 of 228

Full-Text Articles in Common Law

What Appellate Judges Do, Rick Sims Oct 2005

What Appellate Judges Do, Rick Sims

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.


Nature And Extent Of Rights To Fish In Western Australia. Final Report., Department Of Fisheries Jun 2005

Nature And Extent Of Rights To Fish In Western Australia. Final Report., Department Of Fisheries

Fisheries Management Papers

This report (‘Nature and Extent of Rights to Fish in Western Australia’) is not a policy document. It has been written to assist Government and stakeholders alike in reaching a common position on the issue of fisheries access rights in Western Australia. The report is intended to inform policy makers and stakeholders in gaining an understanding of fisheries legislation in Western Australia and the mechanisms and implications of resource allocation shifts. Its main use will be as a reference document and not a full treatise on the law. The report examines the common law position in the waters in respect …


Federalism's Fallacy: The Early Tradition Of Federal Family Law And The Invention Of States' Rights, Kristin Collins Apr 2005

Federalism's Fallacy: The Early Tradition Of Federal Family Law And The Invention Of States' Rights, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

By examining the history of the federal government's role in the regulation of the family, this article joins the work of others who in recent years have begun to piece together the history of the federal government's role in crafting domestic relations law and policy.'8 Much of this attention has focused on federal involvement in domestic relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with relatively less consideration given to the pre-Civil War period. Though recent contributions to this field have helped to cure this imbalance, 19 there remains a strong sense, especially among lawyers and judges, that …


Toward A Common Law Of Ecosystem Services, J B. Rhul Jan 2005

Toward A Common Law Of Ecosystem Services, J B. Rhul

St. Thomas Law Review

This speech was presented on October 6, 2005, at St. Thomas University School of Law, as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series program. Professor Alfred Light made introductory remarks.


Where There's At-Will, There Are Many Ways: Redressing The Increasing Incoherence Of Employment At Will, Scott A. Moss Jan 2005

Where There's At-Will, There Are Many Ways: Redressing The Increasing Incoherence Of Employment At Will, Scott A. Moss

Publications

Employment at will, the doctrine holding that employees have no legal remedy for unfair terminations because they hold their jobs at the will of the employer, has become mired in incoherence. State courts praise the common law rule as "essential to free enterprise" and "central to the free market," but in recent years they increasingly have riddled the rule with exceptions, allowing employee claims for whistleblowing, fraud, etc. Yet states have neither rejected employment at will nor shown any consistency in recognizing exceptions. Strikingly, states cite the same rationales to adopt and reject opposite exceptions, as a case study of …


Global Warming As A Public Nuisance, Thomas W. Merrill Jan 2005

Global Warming As A Public Nuisance, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

On July 21, 2004, eight State Attorneys General and the City of New York brought suit in federal district court in the Southern District of New York, seeking to adjudicate the issue of global warming as a public nuisance. Six large electric power producers were named as defendants. The complaint filed in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., as the action is styled, alleges that emissions of greenhouse gases from the defendants' plants, in particular carbon dioxide (C02), are contributing to global warming. Count I claims that these greenhouse gas emissions are an actionable public nuisance governed by federal …


The Origins Of American Felony Murder Rules, Guyora Binder Oct 2004

The Origins Of American Felony Murder Rules, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

Contemporary commentators continue to instruct lawyers and law students that England bequeathed America a sweeping default principle of strict liability for all deaths caused in all felonies. This Article exposes the harsh "common law" felony murder rule as a myth. It retraces the origins of American felony murder rules to reveal their modern, American, and legislative sources, the rationality of their original scope, and the fairness of their original application. It demonstrates that the draconian doctrine of strict liability for all deaths resulting from all felonies was never enacted into English law or received into American law. This Article reviews …


Fairness And Welfare From A Comparative Law Perspective, Horacio Spector Jun 2004

Fairness And Welfare From A Comparative Law Perspective, Horacio Spector

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This Article discusses the relative value of law and economics and moral philosophy to explain private law in both common law and civil law jurisdictions. It argues that the recent philosophical paradigm, which revolves around the ideas of fairness and autonomy, is intellectually continuous with the School of Rationalist Natural Law. Though this School has been directly influential on the development of civilian private law, its ascendancy on common law cannot be documented. Paradoxically, recent philosophical explanations of private law bear on common law, while legal philosophers in civil law jurisdictions still follow Kelsen's research agenda, which focuses on the …


Some Old Problems In England And Some New Solutions From Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 2004

Some Old Problems In England And Some New Solutions From Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The fundamental ideal to which we aspire in the field of civil procedure is the perfect balance between expeditious results and correct results in the administration of justice. Two famous quotations from two famous English Equity judges come to mind. John Scott, Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1801 to 1827 who was often criticized for being excessively dilatory, said, 'sat cito si sat bene'. Sir George Jessel, Master of the Rolls from 1873 to 1883, once said, 'I may be wrong and sometimes am, but I never have any doubts'. Jessel had his docket under firm …


Preemption Of Common Law Claims And The Prospects For Fifra: Justice Stevens Puts The Genie Back In The Bottle, Jennifer S. Hendricks Jan 2004

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 …


Incorporating Common Law Into The Constitution Of Canada: Egale V. Canada And The Status Of Marriage, Mark D. Walters Jan 2003

Incorporating Common Law Into The Constitution Of Canada: Egale V. Canada And The Status Of Marriage, Mark D. Walters

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada raise complicated questions about the relationship between the common law and the Constitution. In particular, a distinction may now be drawn between constitutional common law concepts that are "incorporated" by the Constitution and those that are "free-standing" or "text-emergent." The author explores the significance of these distinctions by examining the argument, accepted in the recent case of EGALE V. Canada, that the reference to marriage in section 91(26) of the Constitution serves to incorporate the common law definition of marriage into the Constitution, thus preventing federal or provincial legislation from legalizing same-sex …


Haste Makes Waste: Congress And The Common Law In Cyberspace, Suzanna Sherry Mar 2002

Haste Makes Waste: Congress And The Common Law In Cyberspace, Suzanna Sherry

Vanderbilt Law Review

Speed is an asset in computer technology, but not necessarily in law. The new technologies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have inevitably raised new legal questions; all too often, the response to these new legal challenges is a hastily enacted federal statute. If the Internet allows children access to pornography, we enact the Communications Decency Act ("CDA"). Commercial concerns about cyber-authenticity prompt the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act ("E-SIGN"). Are cybersquatters creating domain name problems? We've got a law for that, too. These are just a few of the quick fixes driven by a perceived need …


Courts Or Tribunals? Federal Courts And The Common Law, Peter L. Strauss Jan 2002

Courts Or Tribunals? Federal Courts And The Common Law, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Every Justice, save perhaps Justice Breyer, has recently subscribed to an opinion raising questions in one or another context about whether federal courts can appropriately exercise common law law-making functions that had, until these questions began to appear, been characteristic of all American courts. To invoke a special class of "federal tribunal" whose actions are not to be confused with those of common law courts suggests broader implications than the long-familiar debates about Erie RR. Co. v. Tompkins, or more recent contentions over when, if ever, it is appropriate to infer privately enforceable judicial remedies in aid of federal statutes; …


The Gate(Way)S Of Hell And Pathways To Purgatory: Eradicating Common Law Protections In The Newly Sculpted Character Evidence Rules Of The United Kingdom's 2003 Criminal Justice Act, Chris Chambers Goodman Oct 2001

The Gate(Way)S Of Hell And Pathways To Purgatory: Eradicating Common Law Protections In The Newly Sculpted Character Evidence Rules Of The United Kingdom's 2003 Criminal Justice Act, Chris Chambers Goodman

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Simplification Of Private Law, Andrew Kull Jun 2001

The Simplification Of Private Law, Andrew Kull

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.


Revamping Veil Piercing For All Limited Liability Entities: Forcing The Common Law Doctrine Into The Statutory Age, Rebecca J. Huss Jan 2001

Revamping Veil Piercing For All Limited Liability Entities: Forcing The Common Law Doctrine Into The Statutory Age, Rebecca J. Huss

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Idea Of The Common Law In West Virginia Jurisprudential History: Morningstar V. Black & Decker Revisited, James Audley Mclaughlin Dec 2000

The Idea Of The Common Law In West Virginia Jurisprudential History: Morningstar V. Black & Decker Revisited, James Audley Mclaughlin

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.


Birthright Citizenship In The United Kingdom And The United States, Michael Robert W. Houston Jan 2000

Birthright Citizenship In The United Kingdom And The United States, Michael Robert W. Houston

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The common law concept of territorial birthright citizenship is the foundation for the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause, which confers citizenship on those born within the United States and "subject" to its "jurisdiction." Likewise territorial underpinnings were the basis for over 375 years of birthright citizenship within the United Kingdom. Contemporary discourse with respect to territorial birthright citizenship, however, has shifted from its common law basis and now focuses on whether citizenship ought to inhere in children born to illegal immigrants. In the United Kingdom, the British Nationality Act of 1981 abandoned territorial birthright citizenship in favor of parentage based citizenship. …


The Common Law "Duty To Serve" And Protection Of Consumers In An Age Of Competitive Retail Public Utility Restructuring, Jim Rossi Oct 1998

The Common Law "Duty To Serve" And Protection Of Consumers In An Age Of Competitive Retail Public Utility Restructuring, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article addresses the implications of retail competition in public utility industries, particularly electricity, for utility service obligations. After tracing the history of the common law duty to serve applicable to public utilities, the efficiency of utility service obligations in the context of rate regulation is explored. Retail competition, many suggest, poses a threat to utility service obligations. However, regulators can minimize the inefficiency of traditional utility service obligations without sacrificing the benefits of retail competition if they pay attention to the structural efficiency of competitive retail markets. The article advocates imposition of basic service obligations on the DisCo and …


How Green Was Common Law?, David Schoenbrod Jan 1998

How Green Was Common Law?, David Schoenbrod

Other Publications

No abstract provided.


Adjudication As Representation, Christopher J. Peters Mar 1997

Adjudication As Representation, Christopher J. Peters

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article sets forth an interpretive theory of adjudicative lawmaking according to which, under certain conditions, such lawmaking ensures constructive participation through interest representation and thus is not inherently nondemocratic. The author contends that the idea of ‘judicial activism,‘ courts deciding issues better left to political processes or substituting the personal ‘values‘ of judges for law, is based on the incorrect assumptions that courts are unconstrained and nonrepresentative. Instead, when adjudication operates in an archetypal way, it produces law in a manner similar to the parliamentary legislation process. Courts making law are constrained by the process of participatory decisionmaking--the production …


Gasperini In Line With Erie: New York Law Determines Excessiveness Of Verdict In Diversity Cases, Edie C. Grinblat Jan 1997

Gasperini In Line With Erie: New York Law Determines Excessiveness Of Verdict In Diversity Cases, Edie C. Grinblat

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Equity Jurisdiction Of The Exchequer, William Hamilton Bryson Jan 1997

The Equity Jurisdiction Of The Exchequer, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The municipal Jaw of England is divided into common Jaw and equity. This is so because in the middle ages, the judges of the courts of common law (the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of King's Bench) believed that they could not expand the existing law in order to solve new problems. They thought that they were bound by the established Jaw as found in their own earlier judicial opinions. Furthermore, they felt that it was the function of Parliament to change the law; therefore, it would be an unconstitutional usurpation of the legislative power for the courts …


Common Law Elements Of The Section 1983 Action, Jack M. Beermann Jan 1997

Common Law Elements Of The Section 1983 Action, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the role of the common law in Supreme Court interpretation and application of § 1983, which grants a cause of action for violations of constitutional rights committed "under color of any [state] statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage."' I argue that the common law has served primarily to narrow the reach of § 1983, and that this is inappropriate in light of the broad statutory language and the absence of good evidence that the enacting Congress intended a narrower application than the statutory language indicates.


Rule 803(7): Absence Of Entry In Records Kept In Accordance With The Provisions Of Paragraph (6) Jan 1996

Rule 803(7): Absence Of Entry In Records Kept In Accordance With The Provisions Of Paragraph (6)

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Return Of Lost Property According To Jewish & Common Law: A Comparison, Michael J. Broyde, Michael Hecht Jan 1995

The Return Of Lost Property According To Jewish & Common Law: A Comparison, Michael J. Broyde, Michael Hecht

Faculty Articles

This article compares the legal rules and jurisprudence of the American common law and Jewish law in the area of finding and returning lost or abandoned property, illustrating the interplay between the purely legal and ethical components of the respective legal systems. Surprisingly enough, the differences between the two systems are not usually significant; they follow the same basic legal principles, and typically lead to the same results. There are, however, two major exceptions: Jewish law imposes a duty to rescue the lost property of one's neighbor, while the common law does not require that one initiate the process by …


The Case Of Natural Obligations, David V. Snyder Jan 1995

The Case Of Natural Obligations, David V. Snyder

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.


International Issues In Common Law Choice Of Law, Harold G. Maier Jan 1995

International Issues In Common Law Choice Of Law, Harold G. Maier

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In the year 1274, Sir Hugh LaPape, knight, vassal, and retainer of his liege lord, Edward the First of England, stood on a hill outside the city of Florence, Italy, and wept. Four years before, Sir Hugh had set off for the Holy Land at the call of his king, leaving behind him a beautiful palace with tall towers, shining in the morning sun. Now he surveyed the remains of that palace, a pile of rubble, in growing anger. Although a vassal of the English king, Sir Hugh had some years before removed himself from England to Florence, Italy, where …


Foreword Evidence Symposium: A Comparative Study Of Federal And New York Evidence Practice, Honorable Frank X. Altimari Jan 1994

Foreword Evidence Symposium: A Comparative Study Of Federal And New York Evidence Practice, Honorable Frank X. Altimari

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Concept Of Property In The Early Common Law, David J. Seipp Jan 1994

The Concept Of Property In The Early Common Law, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

“There is nothing,” wrote William Blackstone, “which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.” Property continues to occupy a place of enormous importance in American legal thought. More than just a staple of the first-year law school curriculum, the concept of property guides the application of constitutional doctrines of due process and eminent domain. A grand division between “property rules” and “liability rules” classifies our common law entitlements. Property is a concept of such longstanding importance in our law, of such great inertial momentum, that it has expanded to include nonphysical …