Jurisprudence Commons^™

Brookshire Bros.: Cleanup On Aisle 9 - The Current Messy State Of Spoliation Law., Xavier Rodriguez

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Enforcement Of Noncompetition Agreements: Protecting Public Interests Through An Entrepreneurial Approach., Griffin Toronjo Pivateau

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Revenge Pornography: Exploring Tortious Remedies In Texas., Kevin B. Bennett

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

How Mccullen Affects San Antonio's Anti-Panhandling Ordinance., Christopher M. Childree

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Potential Tort Liability For Personal Use Of Drone Aircraft., Benjamin D. Mathews

St. Mary's Law Journal

In the United States, the use of personal drones has become more prevalent. Businesses now use drones to deliver products to consumers. Consumers now use drones to video and photograph special events. As a result, new laws are needed concerning personal usage of drones. The number of drone sales is predicted to double by 2024. This is reflected by companies such as Parrot, a vendor of private drones, who in the first quarter of 2014 sold 670,000 drones. Citizens whose personal liberties have been infringed upon by another individual’s use of personal drones, often resort to common law torts because …

Hamrick V. Ward: Clarifying Implied Easement Law., Courtney R. Potter

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

The Ancient Magna Carta And The Modern Rule Of Law: 1215 To 2015., Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Law Journal

This article argues the text of the Magna Carta, now 800 years old, and reflects many of the values that are at the center of the modern concept of the Rule of Law. A careful review of its provisions reveals the Magna Carta demonstrates a strong commitment to the resolution of disputes based on rules and procedures that are consistent, accessible, transparent, and fair; and to the development of a legal system characterized by official accountability and respect for human dignity.

Lincoln V. The Proslavery Constitution: How A Railroad Lawyer's Constitutional Theory Made Him The Great Emancipator., Paul Finkelman

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

A Constitutional Amendment Allowing Broader Campaign-Finance Reform Would Not Criminalize Political Satire., Christopher W. Bell

St. Mary's Law Journal

Campaign finance remains a perennial issue, because contributions and expenditures define the political campaigns which shape our democracy. While a majority of the American public supports limiting campaign spending, campaign finance reform remains near the bottom of most voters’ priorities. Reformers have called the lack of the public’s interest “[o]ne of the persistent mysteries of campaign finance reform.” Citizens United v. F.E.C. focused national attention on the role of money in politics. Citizens United evoked such strong reactions, because it represents the two competing versions of the concept of freedom of speech: “free speech as serving liberty” and “free speech …

Texas Inventory Tax: Appraisal Districts' Misunderstanding Of The Law Causing Texas Retailers To Pay The Price., Timothy Johnson

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Employee Recourses To Manager-Revealed Private Health Information., Molly Thomson

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

A Personal Report On Methodological Developments In Us Law, Stephen Utz

Faculty Articles and Papers

A survey of contemporary legal research in the United States must to some extent be personal and impressionistic. No one can see the entire landscape or has the expertise to evaluate everything in it. The pitfall of myopia is heightened by the enormous variety of current methods and results, the need to mention and evaluate areas of specialty in which things are going well or poorly, and publication biases that should not influence content but inevitably do. The already huge variety of books, journals, and commercial guides to particular legal subjects has been overshadowed by an uncountable array of electronically …

Foreword: Theorizing Contemporary Legal Thought, Justin Deystone, Duncan Kennedy

Publications

This is a co-authored foreword to a symposium in Law & Contemporary Problems titled "Theorizing Contemporary Legal Thought." It includes a discussion of the background of the project, a brief summary of the articles included in the issue, and a very short statement from Desautels-Stein and Kennedy on the "loss of faith" indicative of Contemporary Legal Thought.

When Theory Met Practice: Distributional Analysis In Critical Criminal Law Theorizing, Aya Gruber

Publications

Progressive (critical race and feminist) theorizing on criminal law exists within an overarching American criminal law culture in which the U.S penal system has become a "peculiar institution" and a defining governance structure. Much of criminal law discourse is subject to a type of ideological capture in which it is natural to assume that criminalization is a valid, if not preferred, solution to social dysfunction. Accordingly, progressives’ primary concerns about harms to minority victims takes place in a political-legal context in which criminalization is the technique of addressing harm. In turn, progressive criminal law theorizing manifests some deep internal tensions. …

Empirical Studies Of Claim Construction, Jonas Anderson

Working Papers

Patent claims define the scope of the patent right and hence are central to the operation of the patent system. Patent prosecutors devote substantial effort to crafting patent claims so as to maximize the scope of their right without “reading on” prior art (and thereby defeating novelty). Businesses seeking to enter a technology marketplace must be careful to avoid encroaching patent claims. Thus, when patentees enforce their rights, the interpretation of claim boundaries guides both validity and infringement analysis. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Markman v. Westview Instruments (517 U.S. 370 (1996)), holding that “the construction of a patent, …

Obergefell At The Intersection Of Civil Rights And Social Movements, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

A judicial decision striking down formalized discrimination marks a crucial moment for those it affects and, in some instances, for the surrounding society as well. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges was unquestionably one of those instances.

This essay considers the distinct ways in which the civil rights and social movements for marriage equality gave rise to this durable socio-political transformation. While some scholarship is skeptical about whether rights-focused advocacy can bring meaningful change to people’s day-to-day lives, I argue that the marriage equality movements demonstrate a synergistic relationship between law reform and social change efforts. During the …

Resisting Wholesale Electronic Invasion Of The Fourth Amendment, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Professor Greenawalt's Unfashionable Idea, H. Jefferson Powell

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

There's A Dyin Voice Within Me Reaching Out Somewhere: How Tj Can Bring Voice To The Teaching Of Mental Disability Law And Criminal Law, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

In this article, I discuss my historical involvement with therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ), how I use it in my classes (both in the free-standing TJ class and in all the others that I teach), its role in my written scholarship, and its role in conferences that I regularly attend. Although this is all positive and supportive of all efforts to widen the appeal of TJ as well as its applicability in the classroom, in scholarship and in “real life,” I also share some information that is far from optimistic with regard to the way that TJ is being reacted to by …

Why Law Matters For Our Obligations, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

Political philosophers have long debated the problem of political and legal obligation: how the existence of a political community and its laws can affect our obligations. This paper applies Alon Harel’s argument that law has intrinsic value to this venerable problem. It interprets Harel’s argument as a Kantian claim that law enables us to treat our fellows with the respect they deserve, by requiring us not only to treat them decently, but to recognize decent treatment as their right.

Latcrit Praxis @ Xx: Toward Equal Justice In Law, Education And Society, Tayyab Mahmud, Athena D. Mutua, Francisco Valdes

Journal Articles

This article marks the twentieth anniversary of Latina and Latino Critical Legal Theory or the LatCrit organization, an association of diverse scholars committed to the production of knowledge from the perspective of Outsider or OutCrit jurisprudence. The article first reflects on the historical development of LatCrit’s substantive, methodological, and institutional commitments and practices. It argues that these traditions were shaped not only by its members’ goals and commitments but also by the politics of backlash present at its birth in the form of the “cultural wars,” and which have since morphed into perpetual “crises” grounded in neoliberal policies. With this …

Regleprudence – At Oira And Beyond, Nestor M. Davidson, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

There are significant domains of legality within the administrative state that are mostly immune from judicial review and have mostly escaped the attention of legal theorists. While administrative law generally focuses on the products of agency action as they are reviewed by the judiciary, there are important aspects of regulatory activity that are legal or law-like but rarely interrogated by systematic analysis with reference to accounts about the role and nature of law. In this Article, we introduce a category of analysis we call "regleprudence," a sibling of jurisprudence and legisprudence. Once we explore some regleprudential norms, we delve into …

Judicial Conflict Resolution (Jcr): A New Jurisprudence For An Emerging Judicial Practice, Michal Alberstein

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In the past few decades, the role of judges has changed dramatically, yet its nature has remained largely unexplored. To date, most cases settle or reach plea-bargaining, and the greater part of judges' time is spent on managing cases and encouraging parties to reach consensual solutions. Adjudication based on formal rules is a rare phenomenon which judges mostly avoid. This Article argues that the various Conflict Resolution methods, which are used outside the courtroom, as alternatives to adjudication, could have a strong and positive influence, both theoretical and practical, on judicial activities inside the courts. Theoretically, the Article develops a …

Egads! Preservation Run Amok: A Call For Change To Arkansas's Was It Raised?, Was It Developed?, Was It Ruled On? Jurisprudence, Brian G. Brooks

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dictionaries 2.0: Exploring The Gap Between The Supreme Court And Courts Of Appeals, James J. Brudney, Lawrence Baum

Faculty Scholarship

The remarkable rise in dictionary usage by the Supreme Court since themid-1980s has been a subject of considerable scholarly and media interest. Wepublished an article in November 2013 that explored the Court’s new dictionary culture in depth from empirical and doctrinal perspectives. In a Yale Law Journal Note one year later, John Calhoun embraced some of our findings, criticized others, and—importantly—broadened the inquiry to identify asizeable gap in overall frequency of citation to dictionaries between the Supreme Court and the federal courts of appeals.

This gap in dictionary usage is our primary focus here. Previously we analyzed nearly 700 Supreme …

Reasonableness In And Out Of Negligence Law, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

The word "reasonable" and its cognates figure prominently in innumerable areas of the law – from antitrust and contract law to administrative and constitutional law, from the common law of nuisance to an assortment of rules in statutes and regulations. While some thinkers have equated "reasonableness" with "rationality," others have looked to "justifiability," and others still have decided that "reasonableness" means virtually nothing at all, but serves the important function of allocating decisionmaking authority. The reality is that the term "reasonable" is both vague and ambiguous, and thus plays many different roles in the law. As with terms such as …

Pluralism And Its Perils: Navigating The Tension Between Gay Rights And Religious Expression, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The conflict between gay equality claims and religious liberty claims permeates debates over marriage equality and LGBT civil rights. Using as its centerpiece a decision that forced Georgetown University to provide benefits for a gay student organization, this article examines both the doctrinal underpinnings of how courts resolve the tension between gay rights and religion and the principles of pluralism that are at stake.

The Georgetown case is rightly understood as an exemplar of judicial minimalism. This article argues that the values of learning things undecided, while real, may be outweighed by lost opportunities for advancing principles that also foster …

A Deer In Headlights: The Supreme Court, Lgbt Rights, And Equal Protection, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I argue that the problems with how courts apply Equal Protection principles to classifications not already recognized as suspect reach beyond the most immediate example of sexual orientation. Three structural weaknesses drive the juridical reluctance to bring coherence to this body of law: two doctrinal and one theoretical. The first doctrinal problem is that the socio-political assumptions that the 1938 Supreme Court relied on in United States v. Carolene Products, Inc. to justify strict scrutiny for “discrete and insular minorities” have lost their validity. In part because of Roe v. Wade-induced PTSD, the courts have …

The Triumph Of Gay Marriage And The Failure Of Constitutional Law, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court's much anticipated invalidation of gay marriage bans improved the personal lives of millions of ordinary Americans. It made the country a more decent place. Even Chief Justice Roberts, at the conclusion of his otherwise scathing dissent, acknowledged that the decision was a cause for many Americans to celebrate.

But although the Chief Justice thought that advocates of gay marriage should "by all means celebrate today's decision," he admonished them "not [to] celebrate the Constitution." The Constitution, he said, "had nothing to do with it".

Part I of this article quarrels with the Chief Justice's assertion that the …

Gatsby And Tort, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Great Gatsby is filled with potential tort claims, from drunken or reckless driving to assault and battery. In a pivotal passage Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, judges Daisy and Tom as “careless people,” who “destroy creatures and leave others to clean up the mess.” The carelessness, negligence, and recklessness portrayed by Fitzgerald’s characters shows an absence of due care, long regarded as the foundation for tort law. Although there are torts, tortfeasors, and tortious behavior aplenty in The Great Gatsby, the novel is void of even a mention of tort law. Why?

The first part of …