Jurisprudence Commons^™

Decurtis V. Visconti, Boren & Campbell Ltd., 252 A.3d 765 (R.I. 2021), Alexus Bonilla

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine: The Case For Putting It To Work, Not To Rest, Bradford Higdon

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parity As Comparative Capacity: A New Empirics Of The Parity Debate, Meredith R. Aska Mcbride

University of Cincinnati Law Review

In 1977, Burt Neuborne published an article in the Harvard Law Review proclaiming that parity was a “myth”—that state courts could not be trusted to enforce federal constitutional rights. For the next 15 years, the question of parity (the equivalence of state and federal courts in adjudicating federal causes of action) was at the forefront of federal courts scholarship. But in the early 1990s, the parity debate ground to a halt after important commentators proclaimed it an empirical question that, paradoxically, could not be answered by any existing empirical methods. This article argues that proposition was unfounded at the time …

Can Speech Act Theory Save Notice Pleading?, Susan E. Provenzano

Indiana Law Journal

Countless scholars have debated—and lower courts have attempted to apply—the plausibility pleading regime that the Supreme Court introduced in Twombly and Iqbal. Iqbal took Twombly’s requirement that a complaint plead plausibly and turned it into a two-step test. Under that test, the life or death of a lawsuit rests on the distinction between “well-pleaded” and “conclusory” allegations. Only the former are assumed true on a motion to dismiss. Seven decades of pleading precedent had taken a sensible, if unstable, approach to the truth assumption, making a single cut between factual contentions (assumed true) and legal conclusions (ignored). But Iqbal redrew …

Doe V. Nestle, S.A.: Chocolate And The Prohibition On Child Slavery, Megan M. Coppa

Pace International Law Review

West Africa is presently home to approximately 1.5 million acres of cocoa farmland, which subsequently produces 70% of the world’s current chocolate supply. Côte d’Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast, is one of the largest cocoa producing countries within West Africa.

The increase of farmland and the need to control the deteriorating conditions have always created a demand for farm workers. Regrettably, more than 1.5 million cocoa farm workers in West Africa are currently children. These child workers are exposed to hazardous dust, flames, smoke, and chemicals, are required to utilize dangerous tools that they are not properly trained …

Why Do The Poor Not Have A Constitutional Right To File Civil Claims In Court Under Their First Amendment Right To Petition The Government For A Redress Of Grievances?, Henry Rose

Seattle University Law Review

Since 1963, the United States Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right for American groups, organizations, and persons to pursue civil litigation under the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. However, in three cases involving poor plaintiffs decided by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s—Boddie v. Connecticut,2 United States v. Kras,3 and Ortwein v. Schwab4—the Supreme Court rejected arguments that all persons have a constitutional right to access courts to pursue their civil legal claims.5 In the latter two cases, Kras and Ortwein, the Supreme Court concluded that poor persons were properly barred from …

Neither Safe, Nor Legal, Nor Rare: The D.C. Circuit’S Use Of The Doctrine Of Ratification To Shield Agency Action From Appointments Clause Challenges, Damien M. Schiff

Seattle University Law Review

Key to the constitutional design of the federal government is the separation of powers. An important support for that separation is the Appointments Clause, which governs how officers of the United States are installed in their positions. Although the separation of powers generally, and the Appointments Clause specifically, support democratically accountable government, they also protect individual citizens against abusive government power. But without a judicial remedy, such protection is ineffectual—a mere parchment barrier.

Such has become the fate of the Appointments Clause in the D.C. Circuit, thanks to that court’s adoption—and zealous employment—of the rule that agency action, otherwise unconstitutional …

Assertion And Hearsay, Richard Lloret

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article explores the characteristics and functions of assertion and considers how the term influences the definition of hearsay under Federal Rule of Evidence 801. Rule 801(a) defines hearsay by limiting it to words and conduct intended as an assertion, but the rule does not define the term assertion. Courts and legal scholars have focused relatively little attention on the nature and definition of assertion. That is unfortunate, because assertion is a robust concept that has been the subject of intense philosophic study over recent decades. Assertion is not a mere cypher standing in for whatever speech or conduct one …

The Elastics Of Snap Removal: An Empirical Case Study Of Textualism, Thomas O. Main, Jeffrey W. Stempel, David Mcclure

Scholarly Works

This article reports the findings of an empirical study of textualism as applied by federal judges interpreting the statute that permits removal of diversity cases from state to federal court. The “snap removal” provision in the statute is particularly interesting because its application forces judges into one of two interpretive camps—which are fairly extreme versions of textualism and purposivism, respectively. We studied characteristics of cases and judges to find predictors of textualist outcomes. In this article we offer a narrative discussion of key variables and we detail the results of our logistic regression analysis. The most salient predictive variable was …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Rock And Hard Place Arguments, Jareb Gleckel, Grace Brosofsky

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores what we coin “rock and hard place” (RHP) arguments in the law, and it aims to motivate mission-driven plaintiffs to seek out such arguments in their cases. The RHP argument structure helps plaintiffs win cases even when the court views that outcome as unfavorable.

We begin by dissecting RHP dilemmas that have long existed in the American legal system. As Part I reveals, prosecutors and law enforcement officials have often taken advantage of RHP dilemmas and used them as a tool to persuade criminal defendants to forfeit their constitutional rights, confess, or give up the chance to …

A Biden Executive Branch And Its Supporters May Find The Federal Courts An Obstacle, Heather Elliott

Articles

No abstract provided.

Appellate Courts And Civil Juries, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

In federal civil litigation, decision-making power is shared by juries, trial courts, and appellate courts. This Article examines an unresolved tension in the different doctrines that allocate authority among these institutions, one that has led to confusion surrounding the relationship between appellate courts and civil juries. At base, the current uncertainty stems from a longstanding lack of clarity regarding the distinction between matters of law and matters of fact. The high-stakes Oracle-Google litigation—which is now before the Supreme Court—exemplifies this. In that case, the Federal Circuit reasoned that an appellate court may assert de novo review over a jury’s verdict …

Dispute Settlement Under The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement: A Preliminary Assessment, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) will add a new dispute settlement system to the plethora of judicial mechanisms designed to resolve trade disputes in Africa. Against the discontent of Member States and limited impact the existing highly legalized trade dispute settlement mechanisms have had on regional economic integration in Africa, this paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of the AfCFTA Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM). In particular, the paper situates the AfCFTA-DSM in the overall discontent and unsupportive practices of African States with highly legalized dispute settlement systems and similar WTO-Styled DSMs among other shortcomings. Notwithstanding the transplantation of …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Preservation Requests And The Fourth Amendment, Armin Tadayon

Seattle University Law Review

Every day, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, ridesharing companies, and numerous other service providers copy users’ account information upon receiving a preservation request from the government. These requests are authorized under a relatively obscure subsection of the Stored Communications Act (SCA). The SCA is the federal statute that governs the disclosure of communications stored by third party service providers. Section 2703(f) of this statute authorizes the use of “f” or “preservation” letters, which enable the government to request that a service provider “take all necessary steps to preserve records and other evidence in its possession” while investigators seek valid legal process. …

Targeting The Texas Citizen Participation Act: The 2019 Texas Legislature's Amendments To A Most Consequential Law, Amy Bresnen, Lisa Kaufman, Steve Bresnen

St. Mary's Law Journal

Few Texas laws enacted in recent decades have had a greater impact on civil litigation or been more litigated than the Texas Citizen’s Participation Act (“TCPA”) passed in 2011. Despite its stated purpose of protecting First Amendment rights, as written, the TCPA’s seemingly limitless application confounded judges and litigants alike, causing the 86th Legislature in 2019 to pass sweeping changes to that law. The Article describes the original statute’s problematic nature, the caselaw interpreting it, and the recent changes’ legislative history and substance. The authors highlight contributions of key legislators and stakeholders. The Article’s extensive treatment of changes to key …

A False Sense Of Security: How Congress And The Sec Are Dropping The Ball On Cryptocurrency, Tessa E. Shurr

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Today, companies use blockchain technology and digital assets for a variety of purposes. This Comment analyzes the digital token. If the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) views a digital token as a security, then the issuer of the digital token must comply with the registration and extensive disclosure requirements of federal securities laws.

To determine whether a digital asset is a security, the SEC relies on the test that the Supreme Court established in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. Rather than enforcing a statute or agency rule, the SEC enforces securities laws by applying the Howey test on a fact-intensive …

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall—Biased Impartiality, Appearances, And The Need For Recusal Reform, Zygmont A. Pines

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The article focuses on a troubling aspect of contemporary judicial morality.

Impartiality—and the appearance of impartiality—are the foundation of judicial decision-making, judicial morality, and the public’s trust in the rule of law. Recusal, in which a jurist voluntarily removes himself or herself from participating in a case, is a process that attempts to preserve and promote the substance and the appearance of judicial impartiality. Nevertheless, the traditional common law recusal process, prevalent in many of our state court systems, manifestly subverts basic legal and ethical norms.

Today’s recusal practice—whether rooted in unintentional hypocrisy, wishful thinking, or a pathological cognitive dissonance— …

Antitrust Changeup: How A Single Antitrust Reform Could Be A Home Run For Minor League Baseball Players, Jeremy Ulm

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act to protect competition in the marketplace. Federal antitrust law has developed to prevent businesses from exerting unfair power on their employees and customers. Specifically, the Sherman Act prevents competitors from reaching unreasonable agreements amongst themselves and from monopolizing markets. However, not all industries have these protections.

Historically, federal antitrust law has not governed the “Business of Baseball.” The Supreme Court had the opportunity to apply antitrust law to baseball in Federal Baseball Club, Incorporated v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs; however, the Court held that the Business of Baseball was not …

Rethinking Standards Of Appellate Review, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

Every appellate decision typically begins with the standard of appellate review. The Supreme Court has shown considerable interest in selecting the standard of appellate review for particular issues, frequently granting certiorari in order to decide whether de novo or deferential review governs certain trial court rulings. This Article critiques the Court's framework for making this choice and questions the desirability of assigning distinct standards of appellate review on an issue-by-issue basis. Rather, the core functions of appellate courts are better served by a single template for review that dispenses with the recurring uncertainty over which standard governs which trial court …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Virtual Pretrial Jurisdiction For Virtual Contacts, Max D. Lovrin

Brooklyn Law Review

Personal jurisdiction is a threshold requirement for any civil court’s constitutional exercise of adjudicative authority over a defendant, and one of civil procedure’s most fundamental concepts. The Supreme Court is acutely aware of difficulties facing personal jurisdiction doctrine in an evolving world and the need for jurisprudential solutions to those problems. But recent inconsistent trends in Supreme Court personal jurisdiction jurisprudence have served to further complicate the doctrine. Such overcomplication often leads to unpredictability, which both increases expenses for litigants and creates additional work for the already overburdened federal civil docket. This problem is exacerbated when litigation arises out of …

Extraterritoriality As Choice Of Law, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The proper treatment of provisions that specify the extraterritorial scope of statutes has long been a matter of controversy in Conflict of Laws scholarship. This issue is a matter of considerable contemporary interest because the Third Restatement of Conflict of Laws proposes to address such provisions in a way that diverges from how they were treated in the Second Restatement. The Second Restatement treats such provisions—which I call geographic scope limitations—as choice-of-law rules, meaning, inter alia, that the courts will ordinarily disregard them when the forum’s choice-of-law rules or a contractual choice-of-law clause selects the law of a state as …

Civil Procedure As A Critical Discussion, Susan E. Provenzano, Brian N. Larson

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

What Is A Fair Price For Objector Blackmail? Class Actions, Objectors, And The 2018 Amendments To Rule 23, Elizabeth Cabraser, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

As part of a symposium addressing what the next 50 years might hold for class actions, mass torts, and MDLs, this Article examines a recent amendment to Rule 23 that offers a new solution to the persistent problem of strategic objections. Most significantly, Rule 23 now requires the district judge to approve any payments made to class members in exchange for withdrawing or forgoing challenges to a class action settlement. Although the new provision is still in its infancy, it has already been deployed to thwart improper objector behavior and to bring for-pay objection practice out of the shadows. The …

Drug Courts And The Following Of The Federal Guidelines, Charles James Souza

Master’s Theses and Projects

During the 1980’s, drug offense were running high within the United States. The court system along with the police and other fields were forced to form other methods of dealing with offenders who have a substance abuse problem. In 1989, the first drug court in the United States was formed in the state if Florida. The idea was to create a therapeutic method to help those who are committing non-violent criminal acts due to their addiction. The goal of drug court was to get offenders the treatment they needed so they would not resort to criminal activity. Drug court personal …

Fmc Corp. V. Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Seth T. Bonilla

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 1998, FMC Corporation agreed to submit to the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ permitting processes, including the payment of fees, for clean-up work required as part of consent decree negotiations with the Environmental Protection Agency. Then, in 2002, FMC refused to pay the Tribes under a permitting agreement entered into by both parties, even though the company continued to store hazardous waste on land within the Shoshone-Bannock Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho. FMC challenged the Tribes’ authority to enforce the $1.5 million permitting fees first in tribal court and later challenged the Tribes’ authority to exercise civil regulatory and adjudicatory jurisdiction over …

Vincent L. Mckusick And The Maine Rules Of Civil Procedure: A Thirty-Five Year Perspective, L. Kinvin Wroth

Maine Law Review

The Editorial Board and Staff of Volume 43 of the Maine Law Review enthusiastically dedicate this issue to Vincent L. McKusick, Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Chief Justice McKusick took the oath of office on September 16, 1977, having been appointed the previous month by Governor James B. Longley, and will retire on February 28, 1992. As the following tributes make clear, the contributions he has made to the betterment of state and national legal institutions during his tenure evidence the same qualities of integrity and excellence that have been the hallmarks of his long and distinguished …

Deciding, ‘What Happened?’ When We Don’T Really Know: Finding Theoretical Grounding For Legitimate Judicial Fact-Finding, Nayha Acharya

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The crucial question for many legal disputes is “what happened,”? and there is often no easy answer. Fact-finding is an uncertain endeavor and risk of inaccuracy is inevitable. As such, I ask, on what basis can we accept the legitimacy of judicial fact-findings. I conclude that acceptable factual determinations depend on adherence to a legitimate process of fact-finding. Adopting Jürgen Habermas’s insights, I offer a theoretical grounding for the acceptability of judicial fact-finding. The theory holds that legal processes must embody respect for legal subjects as equal and autonomous agents. This necessitates two procedural features. First, fact-finding processes must be …