Legal History Commons^™

Copy Game For High Score: The First Video Game Lawsuit, 20 J. Intell. Prop. L. 1 (2012), William K. Ford

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Commentators and industry historians generally agree that the multi-billion dollar video game industry began forty years ago in November 1972 with Atari's release of Pong. Pong is among the simplest of video games: a version of ping pong or tennis requiring little more to play than a ball, two paddles, a scoring indicator, and a couple of memorable sounds. While it was not the first video game, Pong was the first video game hit. With unauthorized copying of a successful product occurring, it is not surprising that a lawsuit resulted in the fall of 1973, one that predates the more …

Agricultural Revolutions And Agency Wars: How The 1950s Laid The Groundwork For "Silent Spring", Roger E. Meiners, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter from the book Silent Spring at 50 analyzes the 1950s struggle over US food policy between USDA and FDA and how that struggle set the stage for the impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Using a public choice/interest group analysis, the chapter examines how the two agencies reacted to the large scale transformation of US agriculture and food production during and following World War II. Just as agriculture underwent a dramatic productivity revolution that changed the face of American farming, marketing, new home appliances, and increased participation in the labor force by women radically changed the kinds of …

Silent Spring At 50, Roger Meiners, Pierre Desrochers, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

This introduction from the book Silent Spring at 50 describes the various contributors’ insights into Rachel Carson’s landmark work. The authors come from a variety of disciplines, including conservation biology, English, law, and economics, and offer critical assessments of Silent Spring and its legacy. The first part has three chapters that put the book into the context of its time, examining it in light of Carson’s previous books on the sea (Wallace Kaufman); the larger tradition of authors warning against human hubris in environmental matters (Pierre Desrochers & Hiroko Shimizu); and the contest between “environmental religion” and “economic religion” that …

Federalism As A Safeguard Of The Separation Of Powers, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

States frequently administer federal law, yet scholars have largely overlooked how the practice of cooperative federalism affects the balance of power across the branches of the federal government. This Article explains how states check the federal executive in an era of expansive executive power and how they do so as champions of Congress, both relying on congressionally conferred authority and casting themselves as Congress's faithful agents. By inviting the states to carry out federal law, Congress, whether purposefully or incidentally, counteracts the tendency of statutory ambiguity and broad delegations of authority to enhance federal executive power. When states disagree with …

Were Standard Oil's Railroad Rebates And Drawbacks Cost Justified?, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

In this essay, written for a symposium on the centennial anniversary of the Supreme Court's Standard Oil decision, I reexamine the costjustification question. In the first part, I explain why the cost-justification question is central to the entire case and its acquired and evolving historical meaning. In the second part, I review the evidence of claimed efficiencies passed on to the railroads. I conclude that there is evidence that Standard Oil passed along significant cost savings to the railroads and that these savings could have justified a portion of the rebates and drawbacks. However, I conclude that there is little …

Dylan And The Last Love Song Of The American Left, John M. Facciola

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The reminiscences of an old man who had the joy of being a New York kid when an old American music form was transformed by the extraordinary efforts of a group of musicians who saw a new creative force that they thought could cause revolutionary social change. This article examines the impact of the friendship between Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie on folk music and describes the political consciousness of the music.

Symposium: Bob Dylan And The Law Foreword, Samuel J. Levine

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Taken together, the articles in this Symposium Issue provide a journey through both Bob Dylan’s career and the American legal landscape. Befitting a legal prophet, Dylan is often critical, skeptical, and cynical, at times uncompromising in his portrayal of the failures of American law and society. The presentations at the Dylan and the Law Symposium reflected, in part, the disappointment and frustration expressed in Dylan’s words and music. Yet, the speakers at the Symposium echoed another side of Bob Dylan’s work: a refusal to surrender or despair in the face of disheartening reality. Instead, drawing upon Dylan’s prophetic dreams and …

The Case For Original Intent, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

This Article seeks to situate the constitutional culture's heavy reliance on the Convention debates within an academic environment that is generally hostile to original intent arguments. The Article argues that intentionalist-friendly sources like the Convention records and The Federalist remain important not because they supply evidence of original meaning but rather because the practice of advancing historical arguments is best understood as a rhetorical exercise that derives persuasive authority from the heroic character of the Founding generation. This exercise fits within a long tradition of originalist argument and need not be abandoned in the quest for a more perfect originalism.

The Pragmatic Court: Reinterpreting The Supreme People’S Court Of China, Taisu Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the institutional motivations that underlie several major developments in the Supreme People's Court of China's recent policy-making. Since 2007, the SPC has sent off a collection of policy signals that escapes sweeping ideological labeling: it has publically embraced a populist view of legal reform by encouraging the use of mediation in dispute resolution and popular participation in judicial policy-making, while continuing to advocate legal professionalization as a long-term policy objective. It has also eagerly attempted to enhance its own institutional competence by promoting judicial efficiency, simplifying key areas of civil law, and expanding its control over lower …

A Jurisprudence Of Insurgency: Lawyers As Companions Of Unimagined Change, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interpretive Contestation And Legal Correctness, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Paul Finkelman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Backdrops, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

The Constitution is often said to leave important questions unanswered. These include, for example, the existence of a congressional contempt power or an executive removal power, the role of stare decisis, and the scope of state sovereign immunity. Bereft of clear text, many scholars have sought answers to such questions in Founding-era history. But why should the historical answers be valid today, if they were never codified in the Constitution's text?

This Article describes a category of legal rules that weren't adopted in the text, expressly or implicitly, but which nonetheless have continuing legal force under the written Constitution. These …

The Aba, The Aall, The Aals, And The “Duplication Of Legal Publications”, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

Between 1935 and 1940, the American Bar Association, the Association of American Law Schools, and the American Association of Law Libraries joined forces to work on solutions to a problem often referred to as the “duplication of legal publications.” The need for practicing attorneys and law libraries to purchase multiple and duplicative versions of published law reports and other law books was burdensome in costs, complicated the research process, and contributed to what the American Law Institute identified as the two chief defects of American law: “its uncertainty and its complexity.” This article highlights the efforts of the ABA, the …

From Multiculturalism To Technique: Feminism, Culture And The Conflict Of Laws Style, Karen Knop, Ralf Michaels, Annelise Riles

Faculty Scholarship

The German chancellor, the French president and the British prime minister have each grabbed world headlines with pronouncements that their state’s policy of multiculturalism has failed. As so often, domestic debates about multiculturalism, as well as foreign policy debates about human rights in non-Western countries, revolve around the treatment of women. Yet there is also a widely noted brain drain from feminism. Feminists are no longer even certain how to frame, let alone resolve, the issues raised by veiling, polygamy and other cultural practices oppressive to women by Western standards. Feminism has become perplexed by the very concept of “culture.” …

Historical Gloss And The Separation Of Powers, Curtis A. Bradley, Trevor W. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

Arguments based on historical practice are a mainstay of debates about the constitutional separation of powers. Surprisingly, however, there has been little sustained academic attention to the proper role of historical practice in this context. The scant existing scholarship is either limited to specific subject areas or focused primarily on judicial doctrine without addressing the use of historical practice in broader conceptual or theoretical terms. To the extent that the issue has been discussed, most accounts of how historical practice should inform the separation of powers require “acquiescence” by the branch of government whose prerogatives the practice implicates, something that …

You Can't Go Holmes Again, Lumen N. Mulligan

Faculty Works

Under the standard interpretation of 28 U.S.C. § 1331, the so called Holmes test, pleading a federal cause of action is sufficient for finding federal question jurisdiction. In January 2012, the Supreme Court, in Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC, recharacterized this standard test for § 1331 jurisdiction as one that considers whether “federal law creates [both] a private right of action and furnishes the substantive rules of decision.” In this first piece to address the Mims Court’s significant change to the § 1331 canon, I applaud its rights-inclusive holding. I contend that this rights-inclusive view rests upon a firmer …

Defending The Right To Do Wrong, Ori J. Herstein

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Are there moral rights to do moral wrong? A right to do wrong is a right that others not interfere with the right-holder's wrongdoing. It is a right against enforcement of duty, that is a right that others not interfere with one's violation of one's own obligations. The strongest reason for moral rights to do moral wrong is grounded in the value of personal autonomy. Having a measure of protected choice (that is a right) to do wrong is a condition for an autonomous life and for autonomous moral self-constitution. This view has its critics. Responding to these objections reveals …

The Dialectic Of Obscenity, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Until the 1960s, pornography was obscene, and obscenity prosecutions were relatively common. And until the 1970s, obscenity prosecutions targeted art, as well as pornography. But today, obscenity prosecutions are rare and limited to the most extreme forms of pornography.

So why did obscenity largely disappear? The conventional history of obscenity is doctrinal, holding that the Supreme Court’s redefinition of obscenity in order to protect art inevitably required the protection of pornography as well. In other words, art and literature were the vanguard of pornography.

But the conventional history of obscenity is incomplete. While it accounts for the development of obscenity …

Constitution Day 2012: The American Judiciary, Robert Berry

Librarian Publications

Robert Berry, research librarian for the social sciences at the Sacred Heart University Library, has written an essay about the role of the American Judiciary in interpreting laws of the United States government. The essay was written for the occasion of Constitution Day 2012 at Sacred Heart University.

A Natural Law Approach To An Issue Of The Day: A Critique Of The (Equality) Justification For Same Sex Marriage, Robert J. Araujo S.J.

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Grassroots Originalism: Rethinking The Politics Of Judicial Philosophy, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

How has originalism become so politically successful? In answering this question, leading scholarship has focused on the ways in which political leaders, judges, and lawyers have cultivated popular support for originalism. In one account, legal academics, politicians, and judges have explained the legal merits of originalism as a method of interpretation: its political neutrality and its democratic legitimacy. In a second version, political leaders—in particular, the Reagan Administration and the judges it nominated—made apparent that originalism would often produce outcomes that social conservatives found satisfactory. With some exceptions, leading studies primarily address the contributions made by elites to rhetoric about …

Still Too Close To Call? Rethinking Stampp's "The Concept Of A Perpetual Union", Daniel W. Hamilton

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

A Decision Theory Of Statutory Interpretation: Legislative History By The Rules, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We have a law of civil procedure, criminal procedure, and administrative procedure, but we have no law of legislative procedure. This failure has serious consequences in the field of statutory interpretation. Using simple rules garnered from Congress itself, this Article argues that those rules are capable of transforming the field of statutory interpretation. Addressing canonical cases in the field, from Holy Trinity to Bock Laundry, from Weber to Public Citizen, this article shows how cases studied by vast numbers of law students are made substantially more manageable, and in some cases quite simple, through knowledge of congressional procedure. …

Meaning, Purpose, And Cause In The Law Of Deception, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Laws designed to affect the flow of information take many forms: rules against misrepresentation, disclosure requirements, secrecy requirements, rules governing the formatting or packaging of information, and interpretive rules designed to give people new reasons to share information. Together these and similar rules constitute the law of deception: laws that aim to prevent or cure deception. One encounters similar problems of design, function and justification throughout the law of deception. Yet very little has been written about the category as a whole. This article begins to sketch a general theory. It identifies three regulatory approaches. Interpretive laws, such as common …

Assessing The Impeachment Of President Bill Clinton From A Post 9/11 Perspective, Susan Low Bloch

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The impeachment of President Clinton was more a circus than a serious effort to remove the President of the United States. The reason is simple: Few people--in the Congress or the country--wanted to remove him or believed the impeachment effort would actually result in his removal. Instead, it was a partisan political effort to embarrass Clinton and "send a message" of disapproval. Congress was attaching a "scarlet letter." But this was an indulgence that posed considerable danger that few in Congress considered. In particular, few tried to assess the potential impact this use of the process would have on the …

The Missing Jury: The Neglected Role Of Juries In Eighth Amendment Punishments Clause Determinations, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

A recent study of death penalty cases has revealed that judges, who are ordinarily thought of as the guardians of criminal defendants’ constitutional rights, are more likely to impose harsher punishments than jurors. This may be unsettling in its own right, but it is especially concerning because judges are the individuals charged with determining whether punishments are unconstitutionally cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment, and these determinations are supposed to be based on “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” The study suggests that judges are out of step with society’s moral norms, …

The Aftermath Of 9/11: Reflections Of Michael A. Cardozo, Michael A. Cardozo

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Affiliations: Foreign Law Firms’ Path Into India, Christine Garg

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law And The Argumentative Theory, 90 Or. L. Rev. 837 (2012), Timothy P. O'Neill

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Like many law professors, I have coached my share of moot court teams. As you probably know, in most competitions students either choose or are assigned one side of the case to brief. But for the oral argument segment of the competition, students must argue both sides of the case, “on-brief” and “off-brief,” often in alternate rounds.

At the end of a competition, with their heads still swimming with arguments and counterarguments, students will sometimes ask, “OK, so can you tell us which is the correct side?” I always say, “Of course I can. . . . The correct side …