Civil Law Commons^™

The Fiduciary Game, Lauren R. Roth

Indiana Law Journal

Fiduciary duties are supposed to bridge the gap between public and private law. Private actors who engage in “public or quasi-public” functions (e.g., corporate directors and pension administrators) are often subject to fiduciary constraints to protect vulnerable parties who lack power in relationships with these actors. Recently, scholars have argued that both courts and legislatures have inappropriately expanded the use of fiduciary duties to purely private relationships. But what if the problem is not the expansion of fiduciary duties to private relationships, but the increasing delegation of public powers to private actors whose behavior cannot be adequately constrained by fiduciary …

Toxic Torts Are In Your Blood: An Examination Of Pfas And Tort Liability, Aiden M. Holden

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Abstract

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are a group of chemicals widely manufactured for industrial and commercial applications in the past decade due to their remarkable stability. Despite the “useful” nature of PFAS in various applications, they represent one of the most profound environmental and public health crises of the modern era. The chemical stability of PFAS has made them almost completely resistant to natural degradation, earning them the moniker “forever chemicals.” PFAS forever haunt our plant, contaminating the soil, water, and the blood of approximately 95% of the United States population. As the scale of corporate malfeasance by chemical …

Foreign States, Private Proxies, And “Discretionary” Torts On U.S. Soil, George K. Foster

Indiana Law Journal

The tortious act exception to sovereign immunity offers a vital path for tort victims to seek redress against foreign states for harms committed on U.S. soil. Yet some courts have narrowed the exception in troubling ways when rejecting claims alleging clergy abuse cover-ups, cyberattacks, and other serious misconduct. Some have held that the exception applies only to torts committed by state officials and employees, excluding private actors even when acting under state direction. Others have deemed conduct “discretionary”—and therefore immune—even when it patently violated U.S. law or contractual obligations. This Article challenges both readings. Drawing on legislative history, common law, …

Hryniak’S Erosion: Summary Judgment In Ontario, Suzanne Chiodo, Gerard J. Kennedy, Alyssa S. King

All Papers

No abstract provided.

More Than A Lawyer: Participation, Representation, And Outcomes In Los Angeles Debt Collection Court, Josephine V. Aspromonte

CMC Senior Theses

This paper estimates the effect of legal representation on case outcomes using 531,959 limited-jurisdiction debt-collection cases filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court between 2012 and 2022. Defendants are classified into three groups: those who defaulted without responding, those who responded pro se, and those who retained counsel. Because defendants are not randomly assigned to representation, three estimation strategies address selection bias: a binary logit, a multinomial logit with text-mined docket covariates, and propensity score matching on pre-treatment characteristics.Three findings emerge. First, the binary logit associates representation with a 10 to 13 percentage point reduction in default probability, but matching …

Toward A Framework For A Law Of Electronic Intangibles Liability, James M. Beck, Alexander M. Deguire

Marquette Law Review

Products liability law was built for a world of gears, levers, and physical failure. It now confronts a marketplace dominated by software, data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence—objects that do not break, shatter, or wear out, but nevertheless cause real and sometimes catastrophic harm. Courts and commentators increasingly respond to this tension by asking whether these digital systems are “product-like” enough to be squeezed into existing strict liability frameworks. This Article argues that this is the wrong question.

The Article traces the historical foundations of strict products liability; explains why courts have traditionally excluded intangibles from its reach; and examines recent …

Assessing Liability For School Shootings, Nanci K. Carr

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: How The New York Appellate Division Slowed The Progress Of Judge Cardozo’S Effort In Macpherson V. Buick Motor Co. To End Privity’S Stranglehold Over Negligence Claims In Product Injury Cases, Jeffrey A. Van Detta

Touro Law Review

This article aims to tell the story of how the various Departments of the New York State Appellate Division sometimes helped—and just as often hindered—the development of the product injury law in the wake of MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. (1916). Hailed for loosening the privity requirement that barred persons injured by products from suing manufacturers and suppliers for negligence, MacPherson has become the stuff of legal legend. No one put it more picturesquely than Dean William L. Prosser, who in a justly famous law review article described privity as a “citadel” and presented MacPherson’s author, Judge Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, …

Who Makes The Jury? Demographics And Decision-Making In The Jury Process., Ana B. Pons

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Within the American judicial system, juries have played a central role in promoting representation and fairness in the courtroom. However, limited information exists on whether prosecutorial decisions during jury selection, jury composition, or jury behavior differ based on the sex, race/ethnicity, type of case, political ideology, or geographic location of potential jurors. Following PRISMA guidelines, this scoping review synthesizes 48 peer-reviewed articles published between the 1940s and 2026 to examine whether prosecutorial decision-making and jury outcomes vary based on the sex, race/ethnicity, type of case, political ideology, or geographic location of potential jurors. Findings indicated that men are disproportionately selected …

Moréteau On Law, Language & Heritage, Agustin Parise, Mariano Vitetta, Michel Séjean

All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Roman V. City Of Providence, 333 A.3d 74 (R.I. 2025)., Alexander I. Sanchez

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nothing To See Here. Yet. Ames V. Ohio Department Of Youth Services, Michael J. Yelnosky

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Qui Tam Relators As Article Iv Officials, Chad Squitieri

Scholarly Articles

Since the earliest days of the republic, Congress has empowered private plaintiffs—called qui tam relators—to bring claims in court on behalf of the United States. Today, qui tam litigation accounts for billions of dollars in judgments and settlements each year. But despite qui tam’s modern significance and historical pedigree, its constitutionality has recently been questioned. To wit, several sitting Supreme Court Justices have suggested that qui tam violates the President’s Article II authority because it empowers private relators—who are neither appointed nor supervised by the President—to enforce federal law. Following similar logic, a lower federal court recently ruled a prominent …

It’S (Not All) Personal: Civil Litigation And The Values Of Rights Of Action, Hanoch Dagan, Avihay Dorfman, Issi Rosen-Zvi

American University Law Review

Existing approaches to civil litigation, both regarding its theoretical underpinnings and its practical instantiations, take diametrically opposing perspectives on the value of personal rights of action. Some view them as inviolable and thus vehemently oppose any mandatory arbitration clauses and treat class actions as presumptively dubious. Others have no principled objection to either, as they perceive personal rights of action as mere technologies that are painlessly dispensable if the substantive values underlying the claim at hand can be realized more effectively through a more efficient mechanism.

In this Article, we reject both of these ‘all or nothing’ approaches and offer …

Tyranny Of A Feather: Asymmetry In Civil Burdens Of Proof, Thomas O. Main

American University Law Review

Civil litigation suffers from a paradox that is at once self-evident, unfair, and overlooked: the trial process promises equality between plaintiffs and defendants under the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, even as the pretrial process is skewed dramatically in defendants’ favor. At trial a plaintiff needs only “50% plus a feather” to tip the scales and prevail, reflecting a commitment to equal treatment of the parties. Pretrial, however, the playing field tilts steeply: plaintiffs alone must navigate a procedural gauntlet of motions that impose pleading and production burdens for which defendants face no equivalent. This entrenched asymmetry in pretrial practice has become so …

Implementasi Land Freezing Di Kabupaten Kutai Kartanegara Dan Penajam Paser Utara: Antara Pengendalian Pertanahan Dan Pelindungan Hak Keperdataan, Anggita Mustika Dewi, Destriananda Safa Aina, Ananda Mulia Putri Maharani

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

To prevent land speculation by land mafias in the Nusantara Capital City (IKN), the government introduced a land-freezing policy aimed at restricting the transfer of land rights within the IKN area. However, in practice, this policy has been alleged to hinder land registration processes and undermine civil rights of communities within the IKN delineation zone. This study seeks to examine the regulatory framework, implementation, and impacts of the land-freezing policy on land registration and the civil rights of affected communities. Employing an empirical normative legal research method with a statute approach, this research finds that the land-freezing policy has not …

Dualisme Tujuan Pembebanan Uang Pengganti: Analisis Putusan Angelina Sondakh Di Berbagai Tingkat Peradilan, Valencia Puspa Novandra Ali, Tamsil .

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Studi ini meneliti perbedaan interpretasi dan penerapan hukuman tambahan berupa restitusi (uang pengganti) dalam kasus korupsi melalui analisis komparatif keputusan Angelina Sondakh di pengadilan tingkat pertama, pengadilan banding, pengadilan kasasi, dan pengadilan peninjauan yudisial. Muncul interpretasi ganda antara memandang restitusi sebagai kompensasi atas kerugian keuangan negara dan sebagai mekanisme untuk menyita keuntungan ilegal. Judex facti menolak penerapan restitusi dengan alasan bahwa tidak terjadi kerugian negara dalam kasus suap dan gratifikasi, sementara judex juris di tingkat kasasi menafsirkan restitusi sebagai instrumen pemulihan aset yang ditujukan untuk keuntungan yang diperoleh secara ilegal. Orientasi konseptual yang bertentangan ini menghasilkan perbedaan signifikan dalam penjatuhan …

Politics As Usual: Racial Pay Inequity And The Illusion Of Inclusion In The Rise And Fall Of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Accessibility Executive Orders, Francois C. Melville

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

This research examines pressing moral policy questions of our time: who determines when the United States of America has fulfilled its broken promise of equality for all, and what constitutes an appropriate measure of reparative justice. It interrogates why the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Executive Orders (EOs) implemented across presidential administrations, intended to advance social equity, were grounded in conflict and symbolic gestures rather than scientifically evidenced issues such as wage inequality directly linked to upward career mobility. Race conscious policy generates cultural clashes centered on the perception that gains made by Black and Brown Americans come at the …

Tinjauan Frasa “Setiap Orang” Dalam Pasal 3 Ayat (1) Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 56 Tahun 2021 Tentang Pengelolaan Royalti Hak Cipta Lagu Dan/Atau Musik, Fajar Hidayansyah Ilham, Luna Dezeana Ticoalu

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Copyright is one form of legal protection for intellectual works, occupying an important position within the intellectual property law system. The Copyright Law explicitly grants exclusive rights to creators, encompassing both moral rights and economic rights. Economic rights, as stipulated in Article 9 paragraph (1), allow creators to obtain economic benefits from their works, ranging from publication, reproduction, distribution, performance, to communication to the public. This provision shows that creators hold a primary position as legal subjects entitled to protection, while also serving as central actors in the creative industry ecosystem. In practice, the mechanism for copyright protection requires implementing …

Magang Atau Pekerja? Menggugat Status Abu-Abu Tenaga Paruh Waktu Mahasiswa Di Fakultas Hukum Ugm, Patricia Nerissa Krisna Putri, Markus Togar Wijaya

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

This study highlights the controversy surrounding the change in nomenclature for student workers at Gadjah Mada University, particularly within the Faculty of Law. The status of these workers has shifted from 'part-time' to 'student intern'. This unilateral change has created a legal grey area that could lead to students being subjected to disguised employment practices. Using socio-legal research methods, this article examines the validity of the 'internship' status based on the elements of an employment relationship (work, orders and wages) within the labour law regime, analysing it using the theory of structural injustice. The research findings suggest that reclassifying part-time …