Common Law Commons^™

Torres V. Texas Department Of Public Safety: Brief Of Scholars Of Constitutional Law And The Law Of Federal And State Courts As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Evan H. Caminker

Appellate Briefs

Amici curiae, listed in the Appendix, are professors of constitutional law and of the law of federal and state courts. Amici hold varying views on state sovereign immunity and the interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment. Amici join in this brief because they agree that the Court’s jurisprudence on these issues reflects inherent tensions that justify consideration of a new approach. Amici propose an approach to sovereign immunity that is grounded in both constitutional text and broader common law principles, and that, in amici’s view, is faithful to the original constitutional design and the text and purpose of the Eleventh Amendment. …

James Madison And Strict Constructionism, Drew Lemay

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

The United States Constitution has been a battleground between loose and strict constructionism since it was first ratified by the original thirteen colonies. To this day, the debate has continued to rage on across political groups. The question that remains to be answered is which method of interpretation did the Founding Fathers subscribe and intend to be utilized for the following generations. This essay seeks to partially answer that question by analyzing the view of one particular Founder: James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution.”

Survey Of State Laws Governing Fees Associated With Late Payment Of Rent, Ryan Sullivan

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

The Survey contains both a cumulative and detailed account of the laws of each state governing late fees and penalties associated with late payment of rent involving residential tenancies. States that impose late fee maximums vary greatly on the amount and form of the limitation—some limit the late fee to a certain percentage of the rental amount, a few states impose a dollar amount maximum, and several states impose both. Some states, rather than limiting the late fee to a certain amount, only require that the late fee be “reasonable.” Additionally, a handful of states mandate that late fees can …

Tech And Authoritarianism: How The People’S Republic Of China Is Using Data To Control Hong Kong And Why The U.S. Is Vulnerable, Bryce Neary

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The aim of this article is to analyze and compare current events in the People's Republic of China and the United States to discuss the moral dilemmas that arise when establishing the boundary between national security interests and individual privacy rights. As we continue to intertwine our lives with technology, it has become increasingly important to establish clear privacy rights. The question then becomes: at what point should individuals sacrifice their rights for what the government considers the "greater good" of the country?

Further, this article analyzes the development of U.S. privacy law and its relationship to national security, technology, …

Waste And The Governance Of Private And Public Property, Joseph A. Schremmer, Tara K. Righetti

Faculty Scholarship

Common law waste doctrine is often overlooked as antiquated and irrelevant. At best, waste doctrine is occasionally examined as a lens through which to evaluate evolutions in modern property theory. We argue here that waste doctrine is more than just a historical artifact. Rather, the principle embedded in waste doctrine underpins a great deal of property law generally, both common law and statutory, as well as the law governing oil and gas, water, and public trust resources. Seen for what it is, waste doctrine provides a fresh perspective on property, natural resources, and environmental law.

In this Article, we excavate …

Regulating Fraud On The Marketplace Of Ideas: Federal Securities Law As A Model For Constitutionally Permissible Social Media Regulation, Michael M. Epstein

Seattle University Law Review

This article begins with an introduction discussing speech falsity and the duty under U.S. law by comparing commercial and noncommercial speech. Part I explores the problem of online disinformation. Part II addresses online disinformation in a non-commercial context. Part III contains three subsections assesses non-transactional commercial speech as a basis for non-commercial disinformation regulation. Part IV advocates for a fiduciary duty to fashion a remedy. Part V of this article concludes by suggesting a possible solution for creating a online disinformation law that could survive the First Amendment.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Foreword, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Foreward

Waste And The Governance Of Private And Public Property, Tara K. Righetti, Joseph A. Schremmer

University of Colorado Law Review

Common law waste doctrine is often overlooked as antiquated and irrelevant. At best, waste doctrine is occasionally examined as a lens through which to evaluate evolutions in modern property theory. We argue here that waste doctrine is more than just a historical artifact. Rather, the principle embedded in waste doctrine underpins a great deal of property law generally, both common law and statutory, as well as the law governing oil and gas, water, and public trust resources. Seen for what it is, waste doctrine provides a fresh perspective on property, natural resources, and environmental law.

In this Article, we excavate …

Regulating Noncompetes Beyond The Common Law: The Uniform Restrictive Employment Agreement Act, Stewart J. Schwab

Indiana Law Journal

The common law has never treated a post-employment noncompete agreement between employer and employee like an ordinary contract. Rather, a court will enforce a noncompete only if it is reasonably tailored in time, geography, and scope of business to further a legitimate employer interest. Suppressing competition is an understandable but not legitimate interest.

While the common-law approach works well enough for some occupations, it is problematic for both workers and employers in many cases. It is a challenge for workers who don’t know about the noncompete until after starting work, for lowwage workers who are unlikely to have trade secrets …

Laprocina V. Lourie, 250 A.3d 1281 (R.I. 2021), Jeffrey Prystowsky

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The American Experience With Employee Noncompete Clauses: Constraints On Employees Flourish And Do Real Damage In The Land Of Economic Liberty, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Xiaohan Sun, Phillip J. Jones

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Agreements not to compete are generally an anathema to free market advocates. Independent profit maximization is one of the fundamental assumptions of the neoclassical economic model and necessary to its conclusion that markets yield results that are Paraeto efficient. Consistent with this theory, and practical experience, agreements among competitors, or potential competitors, to divide a market, or fix price or quantity are per se violations under our antitrust laws.

Despite this fact, even some ardent free market advocates have argued on behalf of the enforcement of covenants not to compete in the employment relationship. The traditional economic argument in favor …

Theft, Extortion, And The Constitution: Land Use Practice Needs An Ethical Infusion, Michael M. Berger

Touro Law Review

There are many ways in which property owners/developers interact with regulators. To the extent that texts and articles deal with the ethical duties of the regulators, they tend to focus on things like conflicts of interest. But there is more. This article will examine numerous other ways in which regulators may run afoul of ethical practice in dealing with those whom they regulate

The Common Law And The Self-Driving Car, Mbilike M. Mwafulirwa

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Putting The Bar Exam On Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, And The Public Good, Scott Johns

Seattle University Law Review

Nothing to see here. Season in and season out, bar examiners, experts, supreme courts, and bar associations seem nonplussed, trapped by what they see as the facts, namely, that the bar exam has no possible weaknesses, at least when it comes to alternative licensure mechanisms, that the bar exam is not to blame for disparate racial impacts that spring from administration of this ritualistic process, and that there are no viable alternatives in the harsh cold world of determining minimal competency for the noble purpose of protecting the public from legal harms. All a lie, of course.

But rather than …

Race And Washington’S Criminal Justice System 2021: Report To The Washington Supreme Court, Task Force 2.0 Research Working Group

Seattle University Law Review

This report is an update on the 2011 Preliminary Report on Race and Washington’s Criminal Justice System. This update does not include as context the history of race discrimination in Washington, and readers are encouraged to view the 2011 report for its brief historical overview.14 The 2011 report began with that historical overview because the criminal justice system does not exist in a vacuum. Instead, it exists as part of a legal system that for decades actively managed and controlled where people could live, work, recreate, and even be buried.

Members of communities impacted by race disproportionality in Washington’s criminal …

What War Did To The Academy, What The Academy Did To War: A 20-Year Retrospective On The Effects Of The Post-9/11 Wars, Deborah Pearlstein

Articles

The history of the legal academy’s impact on the way states fight wars is hardly one of unmixed glory. It was a law professor moonlighting for President Lincoln who authored “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field” during the Civil War, a code still recognized worldwide today for having laid critical groundwork for the modern law of war. It was likewise a law professor whose work came to serve as both theoretical and practical justification for the sweeping powers of the Nazi state. So it should perhaps be unsurprising that, two decades of engagement …

The Genius Of Common-Law Intellectual Property, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

Among Richard Epstein’s influential contributions to legal scholarship over the years is his writing on common-law intellectual property. In it, we see his attempt to meld the innate logic of the common law’s conceptual structure with the realities of the modern information economy. Common-law intellectual property refers to different judge-made causes of action that create forms of exclusive rights and privileges in intangibles, interferences that are then rendered enforceable through private liability. In this essay, I examine Epstein’s writing on two such doctrines, hot-news misappropriation and cybertrespass, which embrace several important ideas to which modern discussions of intellectual property would …

Equity's Federalism, Kellen R. Funk

Faculty Scholarship

The United States has had a dual court system since its founding. One might expect such a pronouncement to refer to the division between state and federal courts, but in the early republic the equally obvious referent would have been to the division between courts of common law and the court of chancery — the distinction, that is, between law and equity. This Essay sketches a history of how the distinction between law and equity was gradually transformed into a doctrine of federalism by the Supreme Court. Congress’s earliest legislation jealously guarded federal equity against fusion with common law at …

Public Nuisance As Risk Regulation, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Public nuisance has always been defined in terms of the object of protection – the community, the public, or perhaps even the state as a whole. Public nuisance in this regard has been juxtaposed to private nuisance, which protects individual persons and their use and enjoyment of land. Commentary on public nuisance has thus long been concerned with defining (without notable success) what it means to advance a public as opposed to a private right.

In this paper, I offer a different take on the function of public nuisance. The common law is designed to provide redress for actual harm, …