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Workmen's Compensation: Compensable Injuries; Awards; Relation Of Court And Commission, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

During Justice Dufresne's term as Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, the court considered over sixty-five cases presenting issues that involved the state Workmen's Compensation Act. These decisions attempted to define both the concept of a compensable injury and the nature of workmen's compensation awards. Examination of the court's treatment of these two major components of the workmen's compensation system reveals the Law Court's attitude toward the system itself, the statutory scheme utilized by the Maine Legislature, and the administrative procedure employed in handling workmen's compensation claims. Consideration of the relationship between the court and the Industrial Accident …

Stare Decisis, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Stare decisis, a doctrine fundamental to common law decisionmaking, requires a court to resolve disputes within the framework provided by the rationales and results of prior cases addressed to similar legal and factual relations. It seeks to reconcile the law's two great warring imperatives, that which requires a rational scheme of consistent authority serving the broad social goals of predictability, uniformity, and finality, with that which demands individual results informed by principle and applied with flexibility and discretion—in a word, justice. On the one hand, by focusing on how legal theory has interacted with fact on correlative earlier occasions the …

Statutory Construction, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

The various rules a court may invoke as the time-worn tests of a statute's meaning reveal little of its institutional approach to statutory construction unless considered in the light of particular cases to which they are applied. Mindful that courts generally have failed to develop consistent approaches to statutory construction, the following survey attempts to rough out the contours of Maine doctrine. The reader should note that any critical evaluations derive from stated preferences for particular approaches to problems of statutory construction, and should recall that opinion on these topics varies widely.

Labor Law: Teacher Disputes, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

The vast majority of labor law issues presented to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court during the previous seven years were rooted in the confusion surrounding the role of collective bargaining in public school teacher disputes. Indicative of the unsettled nature of this area is the tension between the teacher termination statutes and the Municipal Public Employee Labor Relations Law (hereinafter referred to as MPELRL). Despite the later enactment of MPELRL and its more specific provisions, the court has consistently refused to give it wide application in teacher disputes, choosing instead to rely on the more amorphous statutory provisions defining the …

Standing To Challenge Governmental Action, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Perhaps no inquiry reveals so much of a court's sense of identity as does that into justiciability, a concept employed by courts to limit the availability of judicial redress when a litigant's remedy more properly resides with another governmental body. When the subject-matter the litigant seeks to put in issue itself concerns governmental action or policy, the court must address a sensitive problem: to what extent might its resolution of the controversy intrude upon the policymaking function with which the legislative branch has been charged? Slow either to open themselves to claims they function "anti-democratically” or to override the informed …

The Durfresne Years: A Preliminary Overview, Charles A. Abbott

Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review's timely decision to survey the work of the Supreme Judicial Court will enable our Bench and Bar to review past developments, analyze present positions, and, perhaps, chart with greater facility the future course of Maine's legal development. The retirement of Chief Justice Armand A. Dufresne, Jr., provides an excellent occasion for a look back at the Court's accomplishments.

Administrative Law: Approaches To Delegation, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

As do most state courts, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court purports to require that legislative delegations of power to administrative agencies be accompanied by legislatively articulated "primary standards" sufficient to prohibit arbitrary exercise of administrative discretion. The requirement is rooted in the non-delegation doctrine, once the principal stumbling-block to the creation of an effective administrative arm of government. Originally a liberalization of the non-delegation rule, the primary standards test can become an unwarranted restraint on legislative discretion, particularly when invoked to nullify delegations necessarily broad in scope. Often, the very reason behind a legislature's choice of administrative means to effectuate …

Chief Justice Dufresne: An Appreciation, Charles A. Pomeroy

Maine Law Review

To those of us who worked with him almost daily, the years of Armand Dufresne's stewardship will be best remembered as the years during which the Justices of the Supreme Court grew closer together, both in their professional and social relations, and in the respect and admiration each held for the other and all held for the Chief Justice. I am confident I express the sentiment of my colleagues when I say the Dufresne years were among the happiest years of the Court family, largely because of the leadership Chief Justice Dufresne provided US.

Predicting What The Law Court Will Do In Fact, Harry P. Glassman

Maine Law Review

Over eighty years ago Oliver Wendell Holmes announced what became the manifesto of the legal realists when he stated: "The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law." Legal philosophers and professors of jurisprudence may justifiably quarrel with Holmes' definition of law, but that definition continues to be useful to the practicing attorney engaged in the everyday business of counseling clients and advising them concerning the legality of anticipated activities. It is useful also to the trial court judge, bound by the decisions of an appellate court, who, …

The Role Of Foreseeability In Jurisdictional Inquiry: Tyson V. Whittaker & Son, Inc., Philip M. Coffin Iii

Maine Law Review

When defining the extent of their jurisdiction over nonresident defendants, state courts must be ever mindful of the principle that "all assertions of state-court jurisdiction must be evaluated according to the standards set forth in International Shoe and its progeny. In deciding jurisdictional issues against this background of Supreme Court decisions, many courts have had considerable difficulty in ascertaining the precise extent of the amorphous and discretionary standards set forth in International Shoe and subsequent cases. In the recent decision of Tyson v. Whitaker & Son, Inc., the Maine Supreme Judicial Court was put to this task in deciding whether …

“Appeals On Wheels” Brings Court Of Appeals Of Indiana To Bloomington, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Court of Appeals of Indiana will hold oral arguments at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law on Thursday, April 3 inside Baier Hall.

The event is part of the court’s Appeals on Wheels series and is open to the public. Arguments begin at 1:45 p.m. and are expected to conclude around 2:45 p.m.

“The Appeals on Wheels program is the best trust-building tool we have as a judiciary,” said Anne Fuchs, the Court’s director of communications. “The court brings real oral arguments to communities around the state so the public can understand how the judiciary really works. We …

The Development And Consequences Of The "Good Faith" Exception To The Exclusionary Rule And The Qualified "Good Faith" Immunity From Liability Under Section 1983, Philip M. Coffin Iii, Paul F. Driscoll

Maine Law Review

The remedies fashioned to redress violations of the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution continue to be the subject of much judicial, legislative, and scholarly inquiry. In striking the balance between the need to protect individual freedom and the need to protect society from criminal activity, the Supreme Court and Congress have developed two principal remedies for fourth amendment violations: the exclusionary rule and civil actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 or under theories of constitutional tort. on the development of both of these remedies it is assumed that their effectiveness is the true measure of fourth amendment liberties. …

25 Years For A Crime He Didn’T Commit: Anthony Wright, Caleb D. Purvis

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Anthony Wright was found guilty of the rape and murder of an elderly woman in 1991 in Philadelphia. He was then convicted in 1993 (Kaur, 2020). Anthony Wright spent the next 25 years in prison before becoming the 344th person to be exonerated by DNA in the US (Innocence Project, 2025). Upon the re-examination of the evidence found at the crime scene, a new suspect was identified, but had already passed away, preventing any criminal charges from being filed against them. Anthony Wright also filed a civil lawsuit on January 17, 2017, after his exoneration (Wright v. Philadelphia, 2017).

Examining The Evidence: The Case Of Marcellus Williams And The Pursuit Of Justice, Star Parham

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

The case of Marcellus Williams, the case of a Missouri man killed on death row, has sparked many legal and ethical concerns. Those concerns are wrongful convictions, forensic evidence, and the orchestration of the death penalty in the United States. Willimas was convicted in 2001 for the murder of Felicia Gayle based on evidence of circumstances and testimony from informants. Despite all of that Missouri officials pursued the execution, and he was killed.

The Purpose Of The Preliminary Injunction, Samuel L. Bray

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article explores a reshaping of the preliminary injunction that is occurring in the federal courts. A preliminary injunction is designed to be a “hold in place” order, blocking actions by the parties that would undermine the efficacy of the court’s remedial options. But the preliminary injunction is becoming a device for accelerating the merits decision. Instead of a four-factor test for preliminary relief, increasingly there is one factor: the merits. This Article critiques this transformation, and it argues that the preliminary injunction should be recentered on the protection of the court’s remedial options.

Judicial Review Of Settlements Under The Class Action Fairness Act And Deference Due To The Department Of Justice And State Attorneys General, Michael E. Solimine, Hailey E. Martin

Journal of Legislation

The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA) makes it easier to remove consumer class actions from state to federal court and, among other things, regulates the procedure of federal court approval of settlements of those cases. CAFA requires that before any court approval or disapproval, the parties must notify the Attorney General of the United States, and the attorneys general of states where members of the class live, of the pending settlement in order to receive any objections or other input. While such notice is frequently sent, since most class action cases settle out of court, it appears that …

Scientific Educations Among U.S. Judges, Christa Laser

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Should more judges have technical and scientific educations than are currently prevalent in the federal judiciary? This empirical study of the educational background of federal judges reports the undergraduate and graduate majors of active U.S. federal Article III judges. Information on the subject area of study is largely not publicly available, especially for judges appointed decades ago. This is the first and only publicly available research study of the subject areas of study of U.S. judges, collected via phone and email surveys to U.S. judges. The results of this study show that only 7.35% offederal judges have majors in science …

Discretionary (In)Justice Continued: Discretion As A Tool To Deny Asylum, Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In 2012, I published an article entitled Discretionary (In)justice: The Exercise of Discretion in Claims for Asylum. At that time, I was concerned because of a pattern I had seen of adjudicators in individual cases denying applications for asylum not on the basis of statutory eligibility but instead in an exercise of the adjudicator’s discretion. Since that time, the administrations of both the former President Trump and the now-current President Biden have used every legal tool available to them, including the exercise of discretion in asylum claims, to make it more difficult to obtain asylum and therefore to discourage …

Art As The Prosecutor's Weapon: The Use Of Rap Lyrics Evidence At Trial, Mikah K. Thompson, Sierra Raheem

Faculty Works

Are rap lyrics worthy of the same protections that other forms of creative expression enjoy, or is there something inherent to rap lyrics that renders them autobiographical, confessional, and reflective of the author’s true intentions and desires? This Article will attempt to answer that question. In doing so, the authors will take the reader on a voyage through a history that is not widely known among the attorneys, judges, expert witnesses, and jurors who are frequently called upon to interpret the art form known as Hip Hop.

This journey requires an exploration of our country’s history of chattel slavery, for …

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part: The Constitutionality Of Firearm Waiting Periods, F. Lee Francis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Article examines the constitutionality of firearm waiting period laws through the lens of the Supreme Court’s evolving Second Amendment jurisprudence. Although such laws are frequently defended as prudent public safety measures, their validity turns not on legislative purpose but on constitutional principle, particularly as framed in District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen.

Under those decisions, the scope of the Second Amendment is determined not by judicial balancing of contemporary interests, but by reference to the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Article surveys that tradition and finds no …

The Wrongly Read Right: Insurrection And The Second Amendment Right To Bear Arms, Aman Mcleod, Jacob M. Jones

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Several judges and scholars have interpreted the Second Amendment as creating a right to bear arms to facilitate armed resistance against the government whenever it threatens to impose tyranny. These arguments have been made in books, scholarly articles, and court decisions. Many of the proponents of the pro-armed insurrection interpretation of the Second Amendment root this point of view in the history of the right to bear arms in the Anglo-American legal tradition. This Article argues that the Second Amendment does not create a right to bear arms to resist government authority because such a right is inconsistent with several …

Considering The Child’S Wishes—But How? Allowing Children To Speak In Their Custody Matters, Joshua Hanson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In the United States, states universally may consider the child’s wishes when determining their custody placement. While their decision or preference is not binding for the judge, it allows the child meaningful participation in decisions that directly affect them. There are many ways courts can ensure a child’s voice is heard: through an interview with the judge, professional evaluations, child advocates, and even child-inclusive mediation. Yet state laws give judges broad discretion when determining how to weigh the child’s wishes.

This discretion will inevitably leave some children behind without having their voices heard. Allowing children meaningful participation in their custody …

Mapping Trends In Gender-Inclusive Legal Language Between Circuit Courts In The United States, Juliette M. Rhinow

Student Publications

This study examines the use of gender-inclusive legal language in federal circuit court opinions in the United States between 2020 and 2024, with a focus on how judicial political ideology influences linguistic behaviors. Drawing on postmodern feminist theory and utilizing content analysis, the research compares six federal circuit courts by coding 46 court opinions for inclusive and exclusive linguistic practices related to transgender and non-binary individuals. Inclusive practices included the use of self-identified names and pronouns, affirming decisions, and acknowledgment of transgender identities, while exclusive practices involved misgendering, outdated terminology, and restrictive rulings. Results show that progressive circuits demonstrated significantly …

Unfinished Liberties, Inevitable Balancing, Sherif Girgis

Journal Articles

From the Article

In constitutional liberties cases, the Supreme Court has tried to reduce balancing, understood loosely to mean determining a right’s contours based on sweeping political-moral considerations, not just text and history. It fears that today’s balancing would displace a balance struck by the Founders. Balancing is indeed problematic—but this campaign to end it is bound to fail. Though avoidable for many constitutional rights, balancing is inevitable for general liberties like religion, the Second Amendment, and speech. This inevitability arises not from gaps in text or history but from these liberties’ special role.

General liberties are irreducibly open-ended—not reducible …

Brennan And State Constitutions, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The former Great Gorge Playboy Resort in New Jersey seems an unlikely place to help form a jurisprudential movement toward reliance on state constitutions to protect civil rights and liberties.

One need only turn back the clock to 1976 to find the story of one of the most significant moments in the rise of state constitutions. Anyone who is steeped in this movement is likely familiar with the lead article in the January 1977 issue of the Harvard Law Review, “State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights.” The author was U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr.

Response To Petition For Rehearing En Banc, Felicia M. Sonmez V. Wp Company Llc Et Al, Madeline H. Meth, Brian Wolfman, Becca Steinberg, Regina Wong, Elizabeth Brownstein, Nathaniel Allen Deacon

Faculty Scholarship

Felicia Sonmez alleges that the Washington Post violated the D.C. Human Rights Act by banning her from covering certain stories because she is a woman and a sexual-assault survivor. Op. 2-3. After finding Sonmez’s detailed allegations plausible, a panel of this Court rejected as premature the Post’s First Amendment defense that its decision was driven not by discrimination but by a desire to maintain an appearance of objectivity. Op. 4. Because “what actually motivated the Post editors to impose the bans on Sonmez is a factual question,” the panel held, the Post’s First Amendment defense could not be resolved on …

Put Me In, Coach: Constitutional Concerns Of Judicial Activism And Legislating From The Bench, Jacob M. Elliott

Senior Honors Theses

Unrestrained judicial activism and legislating from the bench at the Supreme Court level place federalism and freedom in jeopardy. By ignoring crucial doctrines like jurisdiction, deference, and independence, the Supreme Court has demonstrated a tendency toward reinterpreting existing Constitutional precedent as they see fit, basing judgments on extra-legal influences, and supplanting Constitutional principles with their own personal policy preferences.

Numerous cases demonstrate the looming threat of judicial overreach; these cases are often considered some of the most damaging and injurious decisions in the history of the American federal judiciary. One potential solution is to appoint justices who will operate …

Springboard To Article V (Or Electoral Democracy And The End Of Constitutional Amendment In The Nation And States), Wilfred U. Codrington Iii

Articles

Drafted in exceedingly sparing terms and notoriously difficult to amend, the U S. Constitution is falling short in one of the most important functions of a government charter: establishing and maintaining a fair and just electoral framework-marked by rules that promote the values of equality, participation, competition, and transparency in elections. That is, the Constitution increasingly fails to preserve electoral democracy even as the nation's systems for voting and elections are plagued by a cascade of problems. State constitutions, though not uniform, are uniformly easier to amend than the national charter and tend to be better stewards of electoral democracy. …

The Problem Of Biased Precedents, Ronen Avraham, Issachar Rosen-Zvi

Cardozo Law Review

This Article addresses the problem ofbiased precedents, wherein sophisticated repeat players, often corporate and state entities armed with superior resources and a vested interest in shaping the law, manipulate legal proceedings to systematically establish self-advantageous precedents. Specifically, by strategically choosing to litigate cases they anticipate will lead to favorable precedents and settling those expected to produce unfavorable outcomes, these players systematically bias the law over time to their advantage, at the expense of one-shot parties and society at large. The problem of biased precedents challenges the commonly held view about the efficiency and fairness of the legal system and raises …

Benchmarked For Arbitration: Work Avoidance As An Explanation For Why Judges Have Become Increasingly Favorable Toward Compelled Arbitration, Michael Conklin

Pepperdine Law Review

The clear trajectory over the last 100 years has been for judges to become increasingly more favorable toward sending disputes to compelled arbitration and enforcing arbitration awards. This results in a modern widespread proliferation of compelled arbitration that has become increasingly controversial. Some have alleged that the steady trend toward courts favoring compelled arbitration is the result of a corresponding building up of trust among judges in the arbitration process. This Article posits an alternative theory: Namely, judges face immense incentives to clear their dockets, and compelled arbitration is a highly efficient tool to that end. Exploring the historical trajectory …