Civil Procedure Commons^™

How To Use Financial Statements—A Handbook For Lawyers, James R. Flaker

Maine Law Review

It is always dangerous to write a handbook for lawyers on another discipline whether that discipline be medicine, engineering, actuarial science, or accounting. The demands on the lawyer for knowledge in any of these other disciplines differ both in breadth and depth in each of the multitudinous matters in which he finds himself involved. Moreover, among individual practicing lawyers are found widely varying degrees of sophistication in these other disciplines. Bearing in mind this inherent limitation of any handbook for lawyers, it is apparent that Irving Kellogg has done a good job with his handbook on financial statements.

Maine Real Estate Law, Donald W. Philbrick

Maine Law Review

The author, a former lecturer at the University of Maine School of Law, in the book's foreword, disclaims that his book is written for lawyers. In this disclaimer, he is far too modest. Most lawyers who deal with matters concerning real estate law will benefit by a refresher course. This volume provides an excellent and very readable combination of English and Colonial historical background and current Maine law.

Maine Civil Practice (2d Ed.), Charles A. Wright

Maine Law Review

Shortly after the first edition of this book appeared I referred to it as "an excellent treatise," and I have kept a copy close at hand in my office so that I may benefit from its useful insights into procedural problems when I am engaged in my own writing about procedure in the federal system. I have now had an opportunity to read the second edition from cover to cover and have no doubt that it is even better, and will be even more useful to judges and lawyers in Maine and to persons interested in procedure outside Maine, than …

Security Ins. Group V. Emery: A Step Backward For Interest Analysis In Maine, William F. Julavits

Maine Law Review

Security Insurance Group, the Connecticut insurer, sought declaratory relief' alleging that failure by its insured to furnish timely notice of the accident as prescribed by the policy precluded its liability. The insured contended that Maine's notice statute was applicable, requiring only that the insurer receive notice of the action before judgment, and that this requirement was satisfied. Alternatively, the insured contended that even if the Connecticut notice term were held applicable, since there was no contact between the two cars, it was his belief that he was not at fault and thus had no reason to notify his carrier of …

Preliminary Questions Of Fact: Respective Roles Of Judge And Jury In Maine Courts, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Virtually indisputable in the law is the notion that the trial judge determines questions of admissibility of evidence. However, when admissibility depends upon the evaluation of a preliminary question of fact, both courts and commentators disagree as to whether the judge should continue to occupy the role of sole decision-maker. The intertwining of fact, the preliminary condition, and law, the admissibility decision, raises some havoc with accepted views of the judge as arbiter of the law and the jury as fact finder. If the judge determines both questions, he is resolving not only legal, but also factual issues traditionally within …

Cross-Appeals In Maine: Pitfalls For The Winning Litigant, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

The question of when a winning party must cross-appeal to challenge non-determinative findings in defense of a favorable judgment was answered for the first time in Maine in the recent case of Littlefield v. Littlefield. Noting a split of authority between the federal and state courts, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court unpredictably determined that an appellee must file a cross-appeal if he seeks to attack adverse findings which, if decided differently, would adequately support the judgment. In Littlefield, the court's objective was to provide notice to opposing parties. Recognizing that this end is a legitimate concern, the question here is …

Vagueness And The Vermont Long-Arm Statute, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

The authority of state courts to assert jurisdiction over the person of nonresidents has expanded markedly since the days of Pennoyer v. Neff. Different theories for asserting jurisdiction over individuals, as opposed to corporations, have been discarded. For jurisdictional purposes, the common law classifications of in personam, in rem and quasi in rem have been abandoned. "Minimum contacts" has become the all-embracing rationale for reviewing any assertion of jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant by a state court. But if "minimum contacts" has replaced these former concepts and served to simplify and unify the requirements of due process, it has also …

Postjudgment Procedures For Collection Of Small Debts: The Maine Solution, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Debtors' rights and the due process of debt collection have received increasing attention recently in legislative as well as judicial spheres. There have been many efforts to rectify basic contractual inequities, to abolish summary prejudgment remedies and to limit extra-judicial collection abuses. However, comparatively little scrutiny has been focused on postjudgment or post-hearing remedies in the later stages of the collection process. Until recently, Maine's legal remedies for postjudgment debt collection were notorious for their harshness. Jail, the principal sanction, was freely used as a creditors' club to make debtors settle claims. Although inability to pay was not in itself …

State Action And Waiver Implications Of Self-Help Repossession, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

In Adams v. Egley, a California federal district court held the repossession sections of the Uniform Commercial Code to be unconstitutional as a denial of due process. The Adams court relied on Sniadach v. Family Finance Co., in which the Supreme Court invalidated the Wisconsin prejudgment wage garnishment law as violative of due process because property was garnished under the statute without hearing or notice to the wage-earning debtor. When Adams was decided, the scope of Sniadach was the subject of extensive judicial dispute. Since then, the Supreme Court's decision in Fuentes v. Shevin has clarified the meaning of Sniadach …

No Lawyer, No Jail: A Critical Case Study Of Pragmatism And The Flaws Of “Purposeful” Decision Making In Argersinger V. Hamlin, Alisa Smith, Sarah K. Stice

Seattle University Law Review

By releasing conference notes and internal communications, Supreme Court Justices provide insight into the otherwise private decisionmaking process, shedding light on how case outcomes and legal reasoning are framed and negotiated. The watershed case of Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) extended the constitutional right to counsel to some, but not all, misdemeanor defendants. The case was argued twice, and the Court relied on empirical and authoritative sources to answer complex and practical questions about requiring counsel. This case study employs critical discourse analysis to uncover what influenced the Justices’ decisions and how they framed, shaped, and constructed social realities to foreground …

The Race To Erase: Destruction Of Government Documents Undermines Freedom-Of-Information Laws, Frank D. Lomonte

Seattle University Law Review

In August 2019, reporters with Chattanooga’s daily newspaper, the Times Free Press, filed what seemed to be a routine request for access to emails and other public records held by their local county government. The seemingly unremarkable request set the newspaper’s staff on a months-long journey of unpleasant surprises. The first was a demand to pay the county $717 in advance before being allowed to inspect the documents. The second was that—during prolonged haggling over the fee assessment— the county attorney’s office simply destroyed almost all of the disputed records. Third, and most glaringly, the journalists discovered that Tennessee law …

When You’Re Arrested For A Felony In Seattle, You’Ll Meet Me., Austin Field

Seattle University Law Review

In this Essay, Austin Field, a practicing public defender, uses a first-person perspective to describe what it is like to meet a criminal defendant for the first time. He explains the process from start to finish, detailing everything from the way he introduces himself to how bail works.

"I’ll ask you for your name. Most of the time, you tell me. I check your name against my list. On any given day I’m supposed to interview between five and fifteen people. I have a lot of questions for you. We only have about ten minutes."

The Public Square In A Private-Property Obsessed Country: What New York City’S Pops Regulations Get Right And Why Other Cities Should (Mostly) Copy Them, Carson Mcgregor

Seattle University Law Review

When New York City (NYC) was first becoming the metropolitan monolith it is today, it had a problem: the city streets were chock full of skyscrapers, and sunlight, air, and usable open space were at a premium. In response, the City promulgated its first Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) regulations, which allowed developers to build skyward in exchange for providing public space on the street level. Unfortunately, in July of 2023, the New York Times (NYT) discovered that New Yorkers received only a fraction of what they were promised. Building owners received billions of dollars’ worth of added floor space, …

Modern Day Colonialism Through HawaiʻI’S Quiet Title And Partition Laws, Cheyann Fujii

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will attempt to highlight important aspects of Hawaiian history to provide readers with a clear picture on how Native Hawaiians are still impacted by colonialism, specifically when plaintiffs bring a quiet title or partition action against Native Hawaiian owners of kuleana lands. Before colonization, the concept of private land ownership did not exist in Hawai‘i, and Native Hawaiians adopted a feudal system by dividing land into geographical areas. Missionaries and businessmen brought Western ideas to Hawai‘i and influenced legislation such as the Great Māhele and the Kuleana Land Act of 1850, which solidified the concept of private property. …

Data Advantage And Merger Review: Can Entrenchment Theory Reform Antitrust Enforcement?, Shin-Ru Cheng

Seattle University Law Review

A merger involving giant digital companies is likely to dampen competition, as it allows those companies to combine and control data access, enabling them to entrench their dominant positions in relevant markets and extend those positions into related markets. While competition law in many jurisdictions aims to prohibit mergers that may substantially lessen competition or create a monopoly, arguably the review of digital mergers is failing because antitrust agencies lack an effective approach to identify data-generated anticompetitive harms. This Article demonstrates that entrenchment theory, recently reintroduced in the 2023 U.S. Merger Guidelines, would help reform the process of antitrust enforcement. …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Caution: Potholes In E-Scooter Data Collection, Dakota Rakestraw

Seattle University Law Review

Lime scooters keep ending up in major waterways in Washington state metro areas, a testament to the ubiquity of e-scooters in the metropolitan landscape. How they get there is unclear. Why they get there is even murkier. Perhaps the answer lies in the implications of modern geolocation data collection through e-scooters and gaps in current data collection regulation curbing individual liberties.

Since September 2020, electric scooters have run Seattle’s streets and have dramatically overtaken ridesharing bike trips. For example, from September 2020 to September 2021, there were about 1.4 million scooter and bike trips with September 2021 seeing 300,000 scooter …

Machinists Preemption In The New Administrative Law, Andrew J. Ziaja

Seattle University Law Review

This Article assesses Machinists preemption—a labor-specific form of implied field preemption—while freshly considering implications both for and of new developments in administrative law. The radical transformation of administrative law in the Supreme Court, particularly its newfound emphasis on clear-statement rules, provides opportunities to reconsider the Machinists rationale. Aligning with scholars who have called to question the doctrine’s “ossifying” influence on labor and employment policy, it argues that the modern-day version of Machinists preemption clashes with the Supreme Court’s newly constrained view of delegated power and its differing conceptions of the major questions doctrine.

On the other hand, Machinists preemption might …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Defining Deference: Impacts Of Abandoning Chevron On Emerging Technology Governance And Administrative Law, R. Aubrey Davis Iii

Seattle University Law Review

Emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI), often lead to unforeseen legal outcomes. Notable abuses in areas such as facial recognition, employment bias, and housing discrimination are well known. However, legislative responses to these issues either have been largely reactive or there has been no legislative response at all. In lieu of legislation, agencies have sought to fill the gap. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently proposed a rule mandating voter notification for all AI-generated political phone calls citing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 as authority. However, the TCPA was originally passed to curtail telemarketing, not …