Common Law Commons^™

Is The Contempt Power Obsolete?, Nino C. Monea

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Contempt power has been with us for as long as we’ve had courts in this country. Through summary contempt proceedings, judges may imprison any person they deem insufficiently respectful to the authority of the court—with significantly less due process than a person would be entitled to under any other criminal offense. In theory, this is necessary to maintain order in the court. But in practice, summary contempt power is serially and seriously abused. Judges use incarceration to deal with piddling offenses or for no real reason at all. This Article argues that the concept of allowing judges nearly unbridled discretion …

The Move Toward An Indigenous Virgin Islands Jurisprudence: Banks In Its Second Decade, Kristen David Adams

Fordham Law Review

In 2011, the Supreme Court of the U.S. Virgin Islands decided Banks v. International Rental & Leasing Corp. and, with that decision, introduced a new era in Virgin Islands jurisprudence that embraced a much more active role for Virgin Islands courts and a correspondingly diminished role for the American Law Institute’s restatements. This Essay examines what I will call “second-generation” decisions referencing Banks with the goal of determining whether Banks and its progeny have met, or are at least in the process of meeting, “the goal of establishing ‘an indigenous Virgin Islands jurisprudence’” set by the Banks court. Ultimately, this …

Rural America As A Commons, Ann M. Eisenberg

University of Richmond Law Review

With many ready to dismiss non-urban life as a relic of history, rural America’s place in the future is in question. The rural role in the American past is understandably more apparent. As the story of urbanization goes in the United States and elsewhere, the majority of the population used to live in rural places, including small towns and sparsely populated counties. A substantial proportion of those people worked in agriculture, manufacturing, or extractive industries. But trends associated with modernity—mechanization, automation, globalization, and environmental conservation, for instance—have reduced the perceived need for a rural workforce. Roughly since the industrial revolution …

Cultural Identity And Territorial Autonomy: U.S. Virgin Islands Jurisprudence And The Insular Cases, Dolace Mclean

Fordham Law Review

This Essay utilizes the lens of postcolonial theory to analyze the development of U.S. Virgin Islands jurisprudence. This Essay asserts that the United States’s acquisition of the territory served the purpose of helping to construct an American narrative of moving from colony to colonial power that surpassed its European forebears. The colonial narrative is fractured by instances of the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands re-narrating territorial space by utilizing legal principles that are informed by local cultural expressions. Consequently, Virgin Islands jurisprudence is transformed from “colonial dependent” to “postcolonial independent” based on intersectional, progressive principles.

The Future Of Property, Yael R. Lifshitz, Maytal Gilboa, Yotam Kaplan

Cardozo Law Review

Property law focuses predominantly on spatial conflicts of interest between neighbors but neglects temporal conflicts between generations. This lack of attention to the temporal dimension leads to a troubling mismatch in property law: while property rights last forever, the corresponding duties that require property holders to respect the interests of others are remarkably short lived. The result is that property law currently does not adequately protect the rights of future generations. In this Article, we offer a blueprint for correcting this anomaly. We advocate a change in the current conception of property and propose that property law focus more on …

Climate Discrimination, Duane Rudolph

Catholic University Law Review

This Article focuses on the coming legal plight of workers in the United States, who will likely face discrimination as they search for work outside their home states. The Article takes for granted that climate change will have forced those workers across state and international boundaries, a reality dramatically witnessed in the United States during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. During that environmental emergency (and the devastation it wrought), workers were forced across boundaries only to be violently discriminated against upon arrival in their new domiciles. Such discrimination is likely to recur, and it will threaten the livelihoods of …

Theseus In The Labyrinth: How State Constitutions Can Slay The Procedural Minotaur, Marcus A. Gadson

Washington Law Review

Civil procedure is one of the biggest hurdles to access to justice. An array of rules and interpretations of those rules have turned lawsuits into meandering mazes with a procedural minotaur waiting to gobble up meritorious claims. The problem is especially acute for the many Americans without abundant resources or access to a lawyer. Fortunately, there is a ready remedy, albeit one access to justice advocates have ignored: state constitutions. Forty state constitutions, which protect hundreds of millions of Americans, generally guarantee “[t]hat all courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done him in his person, property …

Implied Organizations And Technological Governance, Shawn Bayern

William & Mary Law Review

Common law historically adapted creatively and gracefully to the emergence of new types of organizations. Today, statutory forms of organizations predominate. But statutory organizational forms may be ill-suited to govern the novel, loosely coupled, and rapidly changing organizations that can arise through distributed technological mechanisms. This Article suggests that the common law of implied organizations can be a fertile ground for legal responses to technological organizations and indeed may be important not just for regulating such organizations but for giving them important legal capabilities.

Chevron: Fueling The Right Against Title 42 And The Denial Of U.S. Asylum Rights, Nicholas Pierre-Paul

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This Note was inspired by the questionable treatment of Haitian asylum seekers in Del Rio, Texas, where horseback U.S. officials charged at them using reins as whips, before immediately deporting them back to Haiti. The U.S. government justified its actions by claiming that Title 42 permits U.S. officials to prohibit the entry of individuals when there is a danger of introducing certain diseases, such as COVID-19. However, Title 42 conflicts with the United States’ codified commitment to the principle of non-refoulment, prohibiting it from returning certain refugees to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. Accordingly, the …

Sanchez V. Mayorkas: Is This The End Of Green Cards For Temporary Protected Status Holders?, Thalia G. Rivet

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This Note was inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas. This decision put an end to the decade-long circuit split over whether a Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) recipient, who entered the United States unlawfully, could still become a Lawful Permanent Resident (“LPR”). Since its inception, TPS holders have been denied an avenue to adjust their status despite their socioeconomic impact on the United States and every TPS-designated country. This Note will break down and analyze the decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas through (1) the examination of the circuit split cases, (2) the analysis of TPS holder’s …

Implications Of Good Faith In Construction Contracts, Nadine Rashed

Theses and Dissertations

The principle of good faith is making inroads and continues to significantly impact various contractual arrangements. In most civil legal systems, good faith is present as a core principle. Nevertheless, its definition is beyond doubt scarce in the construction industry. However, the common law lacks the good faith obligations. Good faith is one of the fundamental principles that impact the contractual obligations between the contracting parties. This paper creates an urge to address the implications of good faith on construction contracts in the pre-contract and post-contract award stages. Therefore, the paper’s objective is to propose a legal/contractual clause that meets …

Higher Law And Lincoln's Antislavery Constitutionalism: What It Means To Say The Civil War Was Fought Over Slavery, Joel A. Rogers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The US Civil War was fought over slavery. But what do we really mean when we say that? This paper examines that question, first by exploring the idea of “higher law,” which gained tremendous traction in American society starting around 1850. Proponents of the idea claimed that laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act are immoral; that the immorality of such laws is self-evident, and that such immoral laws should be resisted—sometimes even with violence. Meanwhile, opponents of the idea of higher law were not necessarily in favor of slavery, but they opposed the use of extra-Constitutional means to bring …

Routine Activities And Their Relationship To Crime Among Community Members In Ramallah And Al-Bireh, Younes Ahmed Rabee, Ayed Awad Al-Wareikat

Journal of the Association of Arab Universities for Research in Higher Education مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للبحوث في التعليم العالي

The study aimed to identify the practical routine activities of individuals and their daily routine activities and their relationship with their being victims of crime, and used the qualitative descriptive approach by conducting fifty personal interviews with victims of crime of all kinds in the past years 2020 in Ramallah and A Bireh governorate, and reached The study found, notably the existence of a relationship between the practical routine activities of individuals of victims of various crimes and their occurrence in crime, and the absence of a relationship between the daily routine activities of victims of various crimes and their …

Saying What The Law Should Be, F. Andrew Hessick

BYU Law Review

Recent years have seen a resurgence of the view that the role of the federal courts is to declare what the law is, not what the law should be. Scholars and judges, including a majority of the current U.S. Supreme Court justices, have expressed this view that the law is fixed at its creation and the function of courts is to declare its meaning. But this view is inaccurate. Descriptively, federal courts often say what the law should be. Judges fashion common law, inject their views into interpretations, and issue opinions that do not merely describe the law but have …

By Any Other Name, Shay Elbaum

Law Librarian Scholarship

The use of names to refer to individuals is probably as old as language itself, but many features of naming in the United States are much newer. For the most part, our naming laws and norms derive from England, where the use of surnames, for example, can be traced back to the Norman conquest and did not become a common practice until the 13th or 14th century. The idea of a surname as a family name, permanent and hereditary, is even newer.

The common law method of changing one’s name — simply using a different name, for non-fraudulent purposes — …

Transition-Denial And Structural Adjustment: Causation And Culpability In The Cuban Economy Culpability In The Cuban Economy, Jose Gabilondo

Faculty Publications

In 2020, Cuba implemented the Tarea Ordenamiento (Tarea), the most significant economic reform since the construction of the socialist economy after the Revolution. Signaling an eclectic brand of Cuban socialism, the Tarea clears away three decades of tried and failed economic doctrines, drawing a new fiscal border around state enterprises, nodding to market realities, and preparing the island for greater insertion into the world economy. While the political economy of post-Castro Cuba has changed in this way, the United States continues to subject the island to an unprecedented program of unilateral sanctions, universally condemned as a breach of human rights, …

When Congress Passes The Buck: How Russia’S Invasion Of Ukraine Exposed Flaws In Granting The President Sanctioning Powers, Artem M. Joukov, Samantha M. Caspar

Seattle University Law Review

The United States (U.S.) Constitution provides few limitations on endowing the Executive Branch with powers to govern foreign trade, which was initially granted to the Legislature. In a world where global trade dominates, the power over foreign trade can be more important than the power over domestic matters. Leaving unrestrained trade authority to the Executive Branch may cause hazards for Americans and foreigners alike. Russia’s war in Ukraine demonstrates the flaws in permitting the Executive Branch to unilaterally sanction foreign states. This Article demonstrates how reactive Executive Branch policies infringed on the welfare and safety of American citizens and foreigners …

Pedaling Backwards: Examining The King County Board Of Health’S Choice To Repeal Its Bicycle Helmet Law, Schuyler M. Peters

Seattle University Law Review

In Part I, this Comment will explain the Helmet Law itself and the timeline that ultimately led to its repeal. Part II will focus on the positive impact of the Helmet Law, the dangers associated with the repeal, why the repeal should not have occurred in the manner it did, and what societal costs stem from the BOH’s decision. Part III will address the actions that must be taken to revoke this repeal and the reasons behind these alternative pathways, including an Equity Impact Review study specifically on the consequences of repeal, a collaborative outreach program to bring helmets to …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Beyond The Business Case: Moving From Transactional To Transformational Inclusion, Jamillah Bowman Williams

Seattle University Law Review

While workplace diversity is a hot topic, the extent to which the diversity management movement has effectively improved intergroup relations and reduced racial inequality remains unclear.1 Despite large investments in diversity and inclusion training and other company wide initiatives, historically excluded groups remain vastly underrepresented in leadership and the most lucrative careers, such as finance, law, and technology. This calls the efficacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts into question, particularly with respect to reducing racial inequality in the workplace.

This Article explains why it is time for organizational leaders to move beyond the transactional case for diversity and …