Jurisprudence Commons^™

Reshaping The Narrative Debate, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

In Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter, Joan Williams sets out to alter the terms of the public discussion about working, caregiving, and work-family conflicts. In doing so, Williams also reframes part of the conversation about the use of narratives in legal analysis and policy-making.

This essay describes the debate about narrative or storytelling in the legal academy. Two decades ago, a pitched jurisprudential battle surfaced in the pages of law reviews about the value of storytelling as legal scholarship. Since that time, narrative has sifted into academic texts: people are telling stories all over the place. …

Greene V. Fisher: Will The Aedpa Trump Uniformity And Equity In Constitutional Decision Making, Sean O'Brien

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Google Book Settlement And The Fair Use Counterfactual, Matthew Sag

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bayer Schering Pharma Ag V. Barr Laboratories, Inc., Joshua Zarabi

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law, Politics, And The Erosion Of Legitimacy In The Delaware Courts, Kent Greenfield

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

American Academy Of Religion V. Napolitano, Margaret Laufman

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Anand V. Kapoor, David Pepper

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Stipulating The Law, Gary Lawson

Michigan Law Review

In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Supreme Court decided important questions of structural constitutionalism on the assumption, shared by all of the parties, that members of the Securities and Exchange Commission are not removable at will by the president. Four Justices strongly challenged the majority's willingness to accept what amounts to a stipulation by the parties to a controlling issue of law. As a general matter the American legal system does not allow parties to stipulate to legal conclusions, though it welcomes and encourages stipulations to matters of fact. I argue that one ought to …

Citizens United And The Illusion Of Coherence, Richard L. Hasen

Michigan Law Review

The self-congratulatory tone of the majority and concurring opinions in last term's controversial Supreme Court blockbuster, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, extended beyond the trumpeting of an absolutist vision of the First Amendment that allows corporations to spend unlimited sums independently to support or oppose candidates for office. The triumphalism extended to the majority's view that it had imposed coherence on the unwieldy body of campaign finance jurisprudence by excising an "outlier" 1990 opinion, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which had upheld such corporate limits, and parts of a 2003 opinion, McConnell v. FEC, extending Austin to unions …

Wilderness, The Courts And The Effect Of Politics On Judicial Decisionmaking, Peter A. Appel

Scholarly Works

Empirical analyses of cases from federal courts have attempted to determine the effect of judges’ political ideology on their decisions. This question holds interest for scholars from many disciplines. Investigating judicial review of the actions of administrative agencies should provide strong evidence on the question of political influence because applicable rules of judicial deference to administrative decisions ought to lead judges to reach politically neutral results. Yet several studies have found a strong correlation between results in these cases and proxies for political ideology. Cases involving the interpretation of environmental law have been of particular interest as a subset of …

Assessing The African Union Concerns About Article 16 Of The Rome State Of The International Criminal Court, Charles Chernor Jalloh, Dapo Akande, Max Du Plessis

Faculty Publications

This article assesses the African Union’s (AU) concerns about Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It seeks to articulate a clearer picture of the law and politics of deferrals within the context of the AU’s repeated calls to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC, or the Council) to invoke Article 16 to suspend the processes initiated by the ICC against President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan. The UNSC’s failure to accede to the AU request led African States to formally withhold cooperation from the ICC in respect to the arrest and surrender of the …

Substantial Limitations: Reflections On The Adaaa, Kerri Lynn Stone

Faculty Publications

This Article advocates several ways to reform the American with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) and its jurisprudence. It begins with the premise that the “otherwise qualified,” “reasonable accommodation,” and “undue hardship” analyses are questions that call for a focus on, respectively, the plaintiff at issue, the accommodation at issue, and the employer at issue. The article calls for the abolition of the need to demonstrate a major life activity limitation required for coverage under the statute in accommodation cases, noting that this has already effectively occurred in the context of the rest of the ADA’s antidiscrimination jurisprudence. …

Between Liberalism And Theocracy, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

Our symposium conveners have focused us on “the relationship between liberalism and Christianity and their influence on American constitutionalism.” My objective is to complicate the relationship and reorient the influence. The focus of my inquiry is the liberty of conscience and its implications for the relationship between church and state. By approaching these issues through the lens of political theology (as distinct from either political or constitutional theory), hope to show that some of the most significant embodiments of conscience in the American colonies can neither be squared with an individualistic liberalism (as some on the left are prone to …

Annotated Brief Of Professors Of Public International Law And Comparative Law As Amici Curiae In Samantar V. Yousuf, Chimène Keitner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Levinson Is To Mr. Justice "Isaiah" As St. Paul Was To The Prophet Isaiah, Richard H. Weisberg

Articles

The article critiques Professor Sanford Levinson's defense of compromise in constitutionalism, arguing that while compromise is ubiquitous, it is not inherently just or morally sound. The author, Richard Weisberg, contends that Levinson's flexible hermeneutic approach risks degrading textual integrity and ethical standards, particularly when compromise is elevated to a norm. Weisberg advocates for maintaining the integrity of sacred and legal texts, emphasizing the dangers of interpretive flexibility, especially in emergencies, and draws parallels to historical examples like Vichy France's complicity in Nazi policies.

Specters Of Law: Why The History Of The Legal Spectacle Has Not Been Written, Peter Goodrich

Articles

The article examines the intersection of law, theology, and visual/performance elements, arguing that legal discourse often overlooks the significance of typography, imagery, and theatricality. It highlights how legal texts use formatting techniques like bold and italics to convey meaning and draws parallels with theological concepts, such as the duality of power and the role of images in governance. The analysis critiques the legal tradition for neglecting these performative aspects and emphasizes the need to recognize law as a theater that denies its own theatricality.

Corporate Prerogative, Race, And Identity Under The Fourteenth Amendment, John A. Powell, Caitlin Watt

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Unbranding, Jeremy N. Sheff

Faculty Publications

This Essay explores the ethical implications of the phenomenon of "unbranding" that has recently been discussed in popular and scholarly literature. It compares two extant definitions of unbranding and examines each under alternative ethical theories of trademark law, specifically deontological and consequentialist theories. With respect to each of these theories, the Essay examines the ethical questions raised by the existence of asymmetric information between brand owners and consumers. This includes asymmetries not only with regard to information about products, but also with regard to information about consumer decision-making processes. The latter asymmetry presents conflicts between deontological and consequentialist conclusions regarding …

Equitable Estoppel To Compel Arbitration In New York: A Doctrine To Prevent Inequity, Matthew Berg

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Arbitration, as a favored alternative to court systems, finds its validity in both state and federal law. The Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") was enacted in 1925 unopposed, reflecting a strong favored alternative by the federal government to the Article III courts. This presumption was established in Section 2 of the FAA, which provides that contracts that include an arbitration clause "shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable" unless a court finds "grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract [or clause]."

Joining Or Changing The Conversation? Catholic Social Thought And Intellectual Property, Frank Pasquale

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Capital Gains Anomaly: Commissioner V. Banks And The Proceeds From Lawsuits., Stephen T. Black, Katherine D. Black, Michael D. Black

St. Mary's Law Journal

When a litigant receives an award of damages or agrees to a settlement of a lawsuit for which the litigant and her attorney have agreed to a contingent fee, a portion of those damages or the settlement is paid to the attorney. For income tax purposes, there is a question of whether the litigant should include the portion paid to her attorney as her own income. The question is not merely academic. In a tax system that does not always allow the litigant to deduct her attorney's fees, the litigant may end up paying tax on money that she never …

Teaching Values, Teaching Stereotypes: Sex Education And Indoctrination In Public Schools, Jennifer S. Hendricks, Dawn Marie Howerton

Publications

Many sex education curricula currently used in public schools indoctrinate students in gender stereotypes. As expressed in the title of one article: "If You Don't Aim to Please, Don't Dress to Tease," and Other Public School Sex Education Lessons Subsidized by You, the Federal Taxpayer, Jennifer L. Greenblatt, 14 Tex.J. on CL. & CR. 1 (2008). Other lessons pertain not only to responsibility for sexual activity but to lifelong approaches to family life and individual achievement. One lesson, for example, instructs students that, in marriage, men need sex from their wives and women need financial support from their husbands. …

Efficient Uncertainty In Patent Interpretation, Harry Surden

Publications

Research suggests that widespread uncertainty over the scopes of issued patents creates significant costs for third-party firms and may decrease innovation. This Article addresses the scope uncertainty issue from a theoretical perspective by creating a model of patent claim scope uncertainty.

It is often difficult for third parties to determine the legal coverage of issued patents. Scope underdetermination exists when the words of a patent claim are capable of a broad range of plausible scopes ex ante in light of the procedures for interpreting patents. Underdetermination creates uncertainty about claim coverage because a lay interpreter cannot know which interpretation will …

Trust And Fiduciary Duty In The Early Common Law, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

Trust is an expectation that others will act in one’s own interest. Trust also has a specialized meaning in Anglo-American law, denoting an arrangement by which land or other property is managed by one party, a trustee, on behalf of another party, a beneficiary.1 Fiduciary duties are duties enforced by law and imposed on persons in certain relationships requiring them to act entirely in the interest of another, a beneficiary, and not in their own interest.2 This Essay is about the role that trust and fiduciary duty played in our legal system five centuries ago and more.

Untangling The Twists Of Habeas Corpus, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

Take it from me. The one job you don't want is sorting out federal habeas corpus. By all accounts, existing arrangements are an unrelieved disaster. Yet now come Nancy King and Joseph Hoffmann with a valiant effort to set things in order. Their book describes habeas corpus as the writ currently stands, offers explanations of why and how we have come to this pass, and, most important, advances a definite plan of action for habeas in criminal cases-a way to fix what so desperately needs fixing. This is a good book, a valuable book. It is informative, essentially accurate in …

Horizontal Erie And The Presumption Of Forum Law, Michael Steven Green

Michigan Law Review

According to Erie Railroad v. Tompkins and its progeny, a federal court interpreting state law must decide as the state's supreme court would. In this Article, I argue that a state court interpreting the law of a sister state is subject to the same obligation. It must decide as the sister state's supreme court would. Horizontal Erie is such a plausible idea that one might think it is already established law. But the Supreme Court has in fact given state courts significant freedom to misinterpret sister-state law. And state courts have taken advantage of this freedom, by routinely presuming that …

Memory And Punishment, O. Carter Snead

Journal Articles

This article is the first scholarly exploration of the implications of neurobiological memory modification for criminal law. Its point of entry is the fertile context of criminal punishment, in which memory plays a crucial role. Specifically, this article will argue that there is a deep relationship between memory and the foundational principles justifying how punishment should be distributed, including retributive justice, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, moral education, and restorative justice. For all such theoretical justifications, the questions of who and how much to punish are inextricably intertwined with how a crime is remembered - by the offender, by the sentencing authority, …

Elections And Government Formation In Iraq: An Analysis Of The Judiciary's Role, Charles P. Trumbull Iv, Julie B. Martin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In 2005, the people of Iraq ratified a permanent Constitution, a significant milestone in the journey from Saddam Hussein's authoritarian rule to democratic governance. Among the Constitution's fundamental guarantees are the separation and balance of powers, the selection of Parliament through regular and periodic popular election, and an independent judiciary empowered as the authority on constitutional interpretation. Iraq's commitment to democracy and the Constitution was put to the test five years later with the first parliamentary election under the new Constitution. The run-up to the elections was marred by political disputes, violence, and legal challenges, as Iraqis argued over controversial …

Changing The International Law Of Sovereign Immunity Through National Decisions, Lori F. Damrosch

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The international law of sovereign immunity derives from state practice embodied in national judicial decisions and legislation. Although some U.S. Supreme Court decisions refer to this body of law using terms like "grace and comity," the customary international law of sovereign immunity is law, which national courts should consider when arriving at immunity decisions. While it would be possible for a widely followed international treaty to work changes in customary international law, the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property has not done so yet. National legislation such as the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act can precipitate …

The Islamic Rule Of Lenity: Judicial Discretion And Legal Canons, Intisar A. Rabb

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article explores an area of close parallel between legal doctrines in the contexts of Islamic law and American legal theory. In criminal law, both traditions espouse a type of "rule of lenity" that curious common law rule that instructs judges not to impose criminal sanctions in cases of doubt. The rule is curious because criminal law is a peremptory expression of legislative will. However, the rule of lenity would seem to encourage courts to disregard one of the most fundamental principles of Islamic and American legislation and adjudication: judicial deference to legislative supremacy. In the Islamic context, such a …