Legal History Commons^™

Crossing The Toll Bridge: American Pipe And The Fate Of State Law Claims After Class Certification Denial In Federal Court, Alexander Schnur

Fordham Law Review

Rule 23(c)(1)(A) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) provides that, “At an early practicable time after a person sues . . . as a class representative, the court must determine by order whether to certify the action as a class action.” In American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the interplay of this FRCP 23(c)(1)(A) class certification decision and statutes of limitations, holding that the commencement of a putative class action suspends the statute of limitations for putative class members while class certification is pending. Over the last fifty years, the American …

Rethinking Remittitur In Texas Law, David M. Gunn

Texas A&M Law Review

The Texas appellate rules say next to nothing about remittitur. About as far as they go is to state in Rule 46.3 that a court of appeals “may suggest a remittitur.” The text and history of this provision might raise more questions than they answer. Nineteenth-century courts across the country began resorting to remittitur, but they spent little time explaining remittitur’s origins. Texas courts followed a similar path, until an 1893 statute expressly told the courts what to do in instances of excessive damages: they had a “duty” to “indicate” to the damage claimant the amount of the excess, with …

Judicial Independence As A Constitutional Construction, Keith E. Whittington

Texas A&M Law Review

An independent judiciary, in the American context, might best be understood as a constitutional construction. That is, it is a politically constructed set of practices, institutions, and norms that extend, but do not contradict, the legal requirements of the formal constitution. As such, judicial independence has come to occupy a fundamental status within our inherited constitutional order. But importantly, it is mutable. Our inherited practice of judicial independence has been built up and fought over across time, and within the contours of the written constitution, can be significantly reconstructed.

The example of judicial independence can serve as a useful illustration …

Bibliographie, Poej, Pierre Vialle

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

La Représentation Successorale, Principe Général De La Loi De 1959 (À Propos De L'Arrêt De La 2e Ch. Civile De La Cour De Cassation N° 3/1980, Du 15 Juillet 1980), Ibrahim Najjar

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

Le Droit De La Famille Au Liban Au Xviiie Et Xixe Siècles : Contribution À L'Étude Du Droit Des Non-Musulmans Sous L'Empire Ottoman, Après La Révolution Française, Ibrahim Najjar

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

وثيقة الوفاق الوطني وتعديل الدستور, إدمون رباط

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

Législateurs Déguisés En Juges Ou Fidèles Serviteurs De La Loi?, Michel Halbecq S.J.

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam Louis Boyer, Ibrahim Najjar

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam Jean Chevallier, Pierre Gannagé

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

Lessons From The Fall Of The Roman Empire: The Patent Law Edition, Emma Masters

Latin American & Caribbean Law Review

This article examines the crises threatening the U.S. Patent System through the historical lens of the fall of the Roman Empire, arguing that a loss of predictability and the hollowing out of property rights threaten to dismantle American innovation. Drawing parallels between the Roman Empire’s economic decay and modern legal trends, this piece explores how costly litigation—often surpassing millions of dollars—and the rise of “efficient infringement” among other troubling phenomena, act as a “tax” on innovation that disproportionately stifles small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The U.S Patent System’s original purpose of incentivizing innovation is being compromised by patent thickets, a …

The Silent Bench: How The Chilean Judiciary Failed To Check Pinochet's Executive Power And The Continued Struggle For Judicial Independence, Daniela González García

Latin American & Caribbean Law Review

Although authoritarian regimes are often associated with lawlessness, many consolidate power through carefully crafted legal framework that create the illusion of illegality. Chile under Augusto Pinochet offers a critical case study of this phenomenon. In Chile, Pinochet ushered in his “authoritarian legality” after spearheading a military coup in 1973 that toppled a democratically elected left-wing government. Through Chile’s 1980 Constitution, drafted by hand-picked loyalists and approved in a tightly controlled setting, Pinochet’s regime embedded executive supremacy, restricted judicial review, and transformed Chile’s courts into a silent bench. Applying David S. Clark’s theory that judicial review must be evaluated within a …

Constitutions, The State And Law In Republican Venezuela (1830-2025), Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo

Latin American & Caribbean Law Review

This panoramic article poses the question of the relation between the state, the constitution and the law in Venezuelan republican history. In the 19th century, Venezuela became independent, congresses approved constitutions that organized the national state, comprehensive legal codes and legislation were produced and the universities developed legal studies and produced a small number of lawyers. Nevertheless, the law had little impact on a turbulent and impoverished country, and lawyers mainly found occupation in the state and political system. In the 20th century, Venezuela constructed a powerful state that pacified the country that created conditions for a relatively prosperous economy. …

Whose Burden Is It Anyway? A Historical Resolution To Burden Allocation Under Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 12(B)(3), Curtis Valencia

Northwestern University Law Review

Today, venue is generally treated as secondary to jurisdiction: statutory, waivable, and concerned with where litigation should proceed, rather than whether it should proceed at all. Yet the courts of appeals remain split over a basic question of federal venue procedure: who bears the burden of proof when a defendant moves to dismiss for improper venue under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(3)? Though seemingly technical, in practice, burden allocation can determine whether a suit survives.

This Note offers the first historically grounded approach to resolving Rule 12(b)(3)’s burden allocation problem and argues that the circuit majority approach rests on …

Arbitration In Name Only, Myriam Gilles

Northwestern University Law Review

Modern arbitration clauses hide a dirty secret: many don’t actually provide for genuine arbitration. These provisions masquerade as mutual commitments to fair and efficient private dispute resolution but, in truth, are mere imitations of genuine arbitration provisions. Some reserve for the drafter the power to amend or terminate the clause at will without notice or consent; others design the arbitration process to ensure bias from the start; still others depart so radically from the bilateral, informal model blessed by the Supreme Court that they scarcely resemble arbitration at all. These arrangements are arbitration in name only, falling outside the Federal …

Originalism's General-Law Turn, Nina Varsava, Bill Watson

Northwestern University Law Review

Originalists are increasingly turning to a general-law theory of constitutional rights. Under this theory, constitutional enactment declared but did not create constitutional rights. The content of those rights was, and remains, a question of general law—a species of common law, regularly employed at the Founding, that transcends jurisdictional boundaries. This preoccupation with general law has precipitated a wave of scholarship developing general-law accounts of various constitutional rights. Yet the nature of general law itself remains poorly understood.

This Article offers a theory of general law. Using philosophical methods to reexamine early American cases and recent work in legal history, the …

Where Do I Live, Again?: Finding Kentucky Geographic Information, Kurt X. Metzmeier

Brandeis School of Law Faculty Scholarship

Since the foundation of the United States, Americans have surveyed and recorded deeds to their properties in the county where they resided. However, until recently, those property surveys, as well as county maps, were the product of human surveyors drawing lines on paper. Only in the late 20th century, when satellites began surveying the globe and the internet made information readily accessible, did human maps give way to geographic information systems (GIS). This article surveys the GIS systems available to Louisville lawyers.

Fabricating The Crime Of Undocumented Presence, Eric S. Fish, Doug Keller

Fordham Law Review

In 2025, the Trump administration’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) declared that it is a federal crime simply to be an undocumented immigrant. Congress has enacted no such crime. Congress has made it a crime for an immigrant to enter the United States in a manner that “eludes examination or inspection.” For nearly 100 years, this “elude” offense has been understood to occur only at the moment an immigrant enters the country. But the Trump administration’s OLC has reinterpreted this crime as a continuing offense. Under this new reading, an immigrant who entered unlawfully eludes examination until the moment of …

The Insular Cases “Are Not A Life Preserver”: The Covenant And Self-Determination In The Northern Mariana Islands At Fifty, Neil Weare

Cardozo Law Review

The Insular Cases—Supreme Court rulings from the early 1900s addressing the constitutional status of U.S. Territories—are facing what Justice Neil Gorsuch has called “a long overdue reckoning.” In 2022, Gorsuch declared that the Insular Cases “deserve no place in our law” because they “have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed, stating that the Insular Cases “were premised on beliefs both odious and wrong.” Together, these Justices—who do not agree on much—expressed a shared “hope [that] the Court will soon recognize that the Constitution’s application should never depend on . . . …

The Alien Enemies Act Of 1798, Andrew Kent

Fordham Law Review

For the first time since World War II—and for the first time ever outside a formally declared war—an American president has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain and deport noncitizens. Enacted during the Quasi-War with France, the Act’s operative language remains largely unchanged today. In March 2025, President Donald J. Trump proclaimed that members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua present in the United States are “alien enemies,” asserting that their activities, allegedly coordinated with President Nicolás Maduro’s government, constitute an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” within the meaning of the statute. Litigation challenging the invocation of …

Splitting The Baby: Determining The Causation Standard In Family And Medical Leave Act Retaliation Claims, Eliana C. Singer

Fordham Law Review

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) guarantees employees unpaid leave following certain qualifying events. The FMLA not only provides substantive rights but also prohibits retaliation against employees who exercise those rights. When employees face unlawful retaliation, they can bring retaliation claims against their employers. However, there is disagreement among courts as to how to evaluate these claims. More precisely, courts are split concerning whether employees must prove their use of leave was a but-for cause of retaliation, or merely that it was one of an employer’s mixed motives for retaliating. The U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and …

Twenty-Five Years After September 11, 2001: Display Boards, Natasha Nandlal Varyani

Institute for Race and the Law

These slides are quotes by the contributors to the book “Twenty-Five Years After September 11, 2001: A Collection of Personal Narratives from the Day and What Followed, edited by Professor Natasha Nandlal Varyani, Director of the Institute for Race and the Law. The slides were displayed at the program “September 11th: 25 Years After, Remembrance, Reflection & Community,” held at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse on Friday, September 11, 2026. The Roger Williams University Institute for Race and the Law, the Boston Bar Association, and the South Asian Bar Association of Greater Boston co-sponsored this program. The book …

Twenty-Five Years After September 11, 2001: A Collection Of Personal Narratives From The Day And What Followed, Natasha Nandlal Varyani

Institute for Race and the Law

This book is a collection of personal reflections on 9/11, edited by Professor Natasha Nandlal Varyani, Director of the Institute for Race and the Law, printed and distributed at the program “September 11th: 25 Years After, Remembrance, Reflection & Community,” held at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse on Friday, September 11, 2026. The Roger Williams University Institute for Race and the Law, the Boston Bar Association, and the South Asian Bar Association of Greater Boston co-sponsored this program. A collection of quotes from the contributors is also available in the collection.

Litigating Birthright Citizenship In The Shadow Of World War Ii: The Continuing Relevance Of A Forgotten Case, Rachel E. Rosenbloom

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

With the question of birthright citizenship before the Supreme Court this term in Trump v. Barbara, this Article explores the last time that federal courts confronted an attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. It tells the story of two lawsuits, Regan v. King and Fisk v. Wade, filed in 1942 by organizations seeking to overturn United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 Supreme Court decision that affirmed the broad scope of birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. While the cases left little mark doctrinally, their history sheds light on a dimension of birthright citizenship litigation that has …

The Vanishing Voice: Juror Disenfranchisement In Capital Cases And The Erosion Of Constitutional Protections, Yacenda Hudson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

After years of battling to have an uninfringed right to vote and participate on a jury panel, the removal of the unanimity requirement for a death penalty recommendation threatens to disenfranchise minority jurors, thereby implicating the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. The death penalty is one of the most controversial issues in our society, and it has evolved over time. Due to a paradigm shift in beliefs, the death penalty’s constitutionality was challenged under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Pivotal legal decisions, such as Furman v. Georgia and Hurst v. Florida, required states to institute changes to the death penalty. …

Think Twice Before You Sign! An Experiment On A Cautionary Function Of Contractual Formalities, Monika Leszczynska

Faculty Scholarship

Contractual formalities, such as handwritten signatures, have long been viewed as serving a cautionary function that protects individuals from entering ill-considered agreements. With the rise of digital contracting, it is uncertain whether online forms of assent can play the same role. In an incentivized laboratory experiment, four modes of contract confirmation were compared: clicking “OK,” typing one’s name, entering a PIN code (analogous to a qualified e-signature), and handwritten signing. The study examined how these methods affect choices between smaller–sooner and larger–later rewards. Results show that participants were more impulsive when confirming by clicking “OK” or typing their name than …

The Coming Health Insurance Transition, Brendan S. Maher

Faculty Scholarship

For decades, the dominant form of private health insurance in the United States—by far—has been employment-based group health insurance. Somewhere in the range of 175 million employees and their families receive health care coverage through a system in which employers serve as financiers, procurers, administrators, and fiduciaries of the health insurance promise. An overwhelming percentage of those health insurance arrangements are governed by ERISA, with little room for state law.

That is going to change.

This Article explains—for the first time anywhere—why and how. Because of the tremendous and as-yet unrecognized power of an obscure-sounding funding arrangement called the Individual …

Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Getting Money Out Of Politics By Putting Money Into Politics: A Few Modest Proposals To Reform Seattle’S Democracy Voucher Program, Decker O’Donnell

Seattle University Law Review

Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program offers an unconventional response to the growing influence of money in American elections: rather than restricting political spending, it seeks to amplify the participation of ordinary voters by providing publicly funded vouchers that residents may assign to participating candidates. This Article examines the program’s development, operation, and constitutional foundation within the modern campaign-finance framework established by Buckley v. Valeo and subsequent Supreme Court decisions. It argues that democracy vouchers provide a constitutionally viable means of broadening participation in campaign financing while mitigating the influence of wealthy donors. The Article identifies two weaknesses in the current system: …