Civil Law Commons^™

Don’T Let The Bed Bugs Bill: Landlord Liability For Bed Bug Infestations In Georgia, Megan M. Harrison

Georgia State University Law Review

Although the historical relationship between bed bugs and humans dates back to ancient Egypt, the common bed bug, or Cimex lectularius, vanished from the beds of Americans around World War II. In the late 1990s, however, our bloodsucking bedfellows returned. Bed bug infestations are a growing public health issue. Bed bugs are now found in all fifty states, with populations in five states reaching epidemic levels. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) consider bed bugs a “pest of significant public health importance."

Despite their name, bed bugs are not limited to …

Who Determines What Is Egregious? Judge Or Jury: Enhanced Damages After Halo V. Pulse, Brandon M. Reed

Georgia State University Law Review

Enhanced damages in patent law are a type of punitive damage that can be awarded in the case of “egregious misconduct” during the course of patent infringement. Authorization for enhanced damages comes from 35 U.S.C. § 284, which allows the district court to increase total damages up to three times the amount of actual damages found by the jury. It is well understood that, since enhanced damages are punitive in nature, enhancement should only be considered for cases of “wanton” or “deliberate” infringement. However, determining what constitutes this “egregious” misconduct has vastly transformed over time to include a negligence standard, …

Not So Good: The Classification Of “Smart Goods” Under Ucc Article 2, Chadwick L. Williams

Georgia State University Law Review

Refrigerators can now tweet. Today, almost sixty years after the states widely adopted the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), the line between goods and services is more blurred than ever. When the UCC was drafted, a good was the simple opposite of a service. A good was something “movable” and tangible, and a service was not. Article 2 of the UCC, which governs sales, limits its scope to goods.

However, because Article 2 was drafted long before the proliferation of so-called “smart goods,” courts continuously struggle to determine when a smart good falls within Article 2’s scope. Courts have developed different …

How Special Is The Special Timing Rule? Analyzing The Timing Of Fica Taxation In Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plans, Alan J. Ponce

Georgia State University Law Review

Many employers offer nonqualified deferred compensation plans as a benefit to select employees, and those plans allow the employees to prepare for retirement in a tax-efficient manner. For employers,designing and administering such plans in compliance with federal law represents a paramount concern in order to achieve the tax advantages such plans entail. However, for these employers, there remains an inherent ambiguity in the tax code regarding how and when employers should withhold Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) taxes—that is, Social Security and Medicare taxes—on deferred compensation in nonqualified retirement plans.

Tax regulations provide two distinct methods for withholding FICA taxes …

When You Should Have Known: Rethinking Constructive Knowledge In Tort Liability For Sexual Transmission Of Hiv, John A. Turcotte

Maine Law Review

AIDS is a modern epidemic that has grabbed the forefront of this nation's attention like no other disease in the twentieth century. Despite vigorous medical research and experimentation, the disease remains incurable and ultimately fatal. Protecting the health of the citizens has always been a strong policy of the law. Tort liability for the spread of contagious diseases dates back to the early nineteenth century. Tort liability for sexual transmission of AIDS began to appear in the late 1980s, not long after the appearance of the disease. Based as it was on the tort actions arising from other transmittable diseases, …

The Maine Civil Rights Act: History, Enforcement, Application, And Analysis, J. Christopher Parr

Maine Law Review

Since the passage of the “Maine Civil Rights Act” (MCRA, Act) in 1989, the Maine Department of the Attorney General has made enforcement of that civil “hate crime” law one of its highest priorities. According to one statistic, “more than 125 people have been prosecuted in Maine's civil courts on hate crime charges since 1994,” and only two of those actions have been lost by the State. The Attorney General at the time of this writing, Andrew Ketterer, has stated that he takes the perpetration of hate crimes seriously, and that it has been important to him “that the message …

Civil Society And Cybersurveillance, Andrew Mccanse Wright

Arkansas Law Review

There is no such thing as benign surveillance. It always comes with costs because of the chill it visits upon conduct, education, associations, and expression. Government surveillance has been magnified by cybersurveillance in the Digital Age to a degree unimaginable by the Founders of the United States of America.

Fulfilling U.S. Commitment To Refugee Resettlement: Protecting Refugees, Preserving National Security, & Building The U.S. Economy Through Refugee Admissions, Harvard Immigration And Refugee Clinical Program

Texas A&M Law Review

At a time when the U.S. refugee admissions program is under serious threat and the world’s displaced population is at its highest, this Report sets forth extensive recommendations regarding the United States’ role in protecting vulnerable refugees and compliance with its commitments under domestic and international law that together safeguard people fleeing persecution and fearing return to torture. The Report also identifies key national security reasons for supporting and enhancing the refugee program in keeping with U.S. foreign policy priorities. Additionally, the Report provides an in-depth discussion of the robust, multistep security-assessment mechanisms already in place for screening refugees; offers …

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Diana Hassel's Blog: How Will Supreme Court Slice Wedding Cake Case 01-11-2018, Diana Hassel

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Hb 338 - Turnaround Elligible Schools, Eleanor F. Miller, Heather E. Obelgoner

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act creates the position of Chief Turnaround Officer (CTO) and authorizes the State Board of Education, in collaboration with the State School Superintendent and the Education Turnaround Advisory Council, to search for and appoint the CTO. The CTO has the authority to recommend individuals to serve as turnaround coaches upon approval by the state board. The Act defines the term “turnaround eligible schools” and identifies factors upon which the CTO may identify such schools. The Act provides procedures by which the CTO and turnaround coaches shall intervene in such schools. The Act creates the Education Turnaround Advisory Council, which …

Hb 280 - Campus Carry, Taylor Morgan Koshak, Nicholas J. Roger

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act broadens lawful gun owners’ rights by allowing weapons carry license holders to carry concealed guns on property owned or leased by public institutions of postsecondary education. The Act creates exceptions for sporting events, student housing, childcare spaces, classes for a college and career academy and other specialized schools, classrooms for dual enrollment programs, and spaces for administrative disciplinary proceedings. The law creates a misdemeanor penalty for noncompliance, and provides definitions for clarification.

Hb 359 - Power Of Attorney, Roma A. Amin, Catherine V. Schutz

Georgia State University Law Review

The bill would have repealed and replaced Georgia’s Power of Attorney for the Care of a Minor Child Act. The category of people who could be given power of attorney for the care of a minor child would have expanded from only grandparents and great-grandparents to a broad category of the child’s relatives, and anyone associated with a non-profit organization focused on child or family services or a licensed child-placing agency.

Sb 104 - Carjacking, Fentanyl And "Upskirting", Katherine H. Krouse, Lauren R. Light

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act includes various amendments to Georgia’s criminal code. Three changes are most notable. First, the Act designates the offense of hijacking a motor vehicle as hijacking a motor vehicle in the first degree and creates the offense of hijacking a motor vehicle in the second degree. Second, the Act criminalizes the use of a device to film underneath or through an individual’s clothing. Lastly, the Act adds the drug Fentanyl and its various analogs to the list of controlled substances.

Old Issues New Perspectives, Ronald Griffin

Faculty Books and Book Contributions

The book commences with Ronald C. Griffin‟s essay Ghost Town: The Death of Marriage, the Birth of Cohabitation, and the Emergence of the Single Woman. In his essay he revisits the history of marriage, the economics of marriage, the rise and demise of childhood, the emergence of new couplings and the social traumas that come with them.

The New Settlement Tools, Bernard Chao, Christopher Robertson, David Yokum

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

By protecting the right to a jury, the state and federal constitutions recognize the fundamental value of having civil and criminal disputes resolved by laypersons. Actual trials, however, are relatively rare, in part because parties seek to avoid the risks and cost of trials and courts seek to clear dockets efficiently. But as desirable as settlement may be, it can be a difficult way to resolve a dispute. Parties view their cases from different perspectives, and these perspectives often cause both sides to be overly optimistic and to expect unreasonably large or unreasonably small resolutions.

This article describes a novel …

How Defendant Characteristics Affect Sentencing And Conviction In The Us, Payton Kuenzli

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research study analyzes whether or not there is any relationship between sentencing and conviction and certain defendant characteristics in the US legal system. In the midst of a time where the nation is strongly divided politically, the topic is often the center of research projects and discussions in academic journals. Specifically, this research explores the 3 characteristics- race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Within this article, multiple case studies from other journals are cited in which research and experiments have suggested that these factors do have influence on both whether or not a defendant gets convicted or for how long …

Opioid Addiction Litigation And The Wrongful Conduct Rule, Samuel Fresher

University of Colorado Law Review

The United States is facing an opioid addiction crisis. Can our civil courts help? This Comment explores obstacles to recovery for plaintiffs in tort suits against health care institutions and practitioners in opioid addiction litigation. It argues that defenses based on plaintiffs' wrongful conduct, which deny plaintiffs access to civil remedies due to their immoral or illegal conduct, should be eliminated or avoided in suits arising out of addiction. This Comment concludes that comparative fault principles adequately protect the interests of plaintiffs and defendants in drug addiction suits and advance important public policy goals. Finally, this Comment suggests that irrespective …

Book Review: Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation By Renate Klein, Kate Rose

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Pimping Of Prostitution: Abolishing The Sex Work Myth By Julie Bindel, Roger Matthews

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Toward Universal Deportation Defense: An Optimistic View, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

One of the most positive responses to heightened federal enforcement of immigration laws has been increasing local and philanthropic interest in supporting immigrant legal defense. These measures are tentative and may be fleeting, and for the time being are not a substitute for federal support for an immigration public defender system. Nevertheless, it is now possible to envision many more immigrants in deportation having access to counsel, maybe even a situation in which the majority do. In this paper, Professor Michael Kagan makes no real predictions. Instead, he offers a deliberately-perhaps even blindly optimistic assessment of how concrete steps that …