Jurisdiction Commons^™

Interpleader As A Vehicle For Challenging The Constitutionality Of Private Citizen Action Statutes, Delia Parker

Fordham Law Review

The rise of vigilante-esque statutes creates obstacles for litigants seeking to challenge a statute’s constitutionality. State legislatures in Texas and California enacted laws regulating constitutionally protected activity (abortion and firearm possession, respectively) through statutes enforced solely by private actors. The state legislatures cleverly crafted Texas S.B. 8, as well as other copycat statutes, as bounty hunter statutes to block litigants’ usual path to pre-enforcement adjudication—filing a claim against the state to enjoin its actors from enforcing the improper provisions.

The Texas and California state legislatures attempted to forbid constitutionally protected conduct by granting enforcement power to an infinite number of …

Restoring Indian Reservation Status: An Empirical Analysis, Michael K. Velchik, Jeffery Zhang

Articles

In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court held that the eastern half of Oklahoma was Indian country. This bombshell decision was contrary to settled expectations and government practices spanning 111 years. It also was representative of an increasing trend of federal courts recognizing Indian sovereignty over large and economically significant areas of the country, even where Indians have not asserted these claims in many years and where Indians form a small minority of the inhabitants.

Although McGirt and similar cases fundamentally turn on questions of statutory and treaty interpretation, they are often couched in consequence-based arguments about the good …

Catch And Release Jurisdiction, Adam B. Sopko

Publications

No abstract provided.

Jurisdiction And The Moral Impact Theory Of Law, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

Positivists and interpretivists (Dworkinians) might accept that conceptual facts about the law—facts about the content of the concept of law—can obtain in the absence of communities with law practices. But they would deny that legal facts can obtain in such communities’ absence. Under the moral impact theory, by contrast, legal facts can precede all communities with law practices. I identify a set of legal facts in private international law—the law of jurisdiction—that concerns when a community’s law practices can, and cannot, have the legal effects that the practices claim to have. This law is noncommunitarian, in the sense …

State V. Regan, 273 A.3d 116 (R.I. 2022), Rebecca Costello

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Personal Jurisdiction And The Fairness Factor(S), Megan La Belle

Scholarly Articles

It has been more than seventy-five years since the Supreme Court decided International Shoe Co. v. Washington, yet questions surrounding the personal jurisdiction doctrine loom large. Over the past decade, the Roberts Court has issued a handful of personal jurisdiction opinions, including Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, a case decided in 2021 that addressed an issue related to specific jurisdiction. What is more, courts across the country, including several state supreme courts, have been grappling with the question whether a corporation’s registration to do business constitutes consent to personal jurisdiction in that state. This …

Investment Bankers And Inclusive Corporate Leadership, Afra Afsharipour

Seattle University Law Review

Few major deals happen without the engagement and advice of investment bankers. Whether a company is undertaking an initial public offering or engaging in a large merger or acquisition deal, investment bankers play a central role in advising corporate executives. Successful investment bankers are devoted to cultivating relationships with executives. And these relationships place bankers in a position to earn tens of millions in fees for their advisory and service roles in connection with corporate dealmaking. Investment bankers’ constant endeavors to nurture relationships with executives, while also maximizing their own ability to enhance fees, commonly leads to allegations of double-dealing, …

Selective Patronage, Omari Scott Simmons

Seattle University Law Review

Contemporary academic corporate governance narratives have a blind spot. They focus on institutions, rules, regulations, processes, procedures, intermediaries, and market forces. Yet, missing in this narrative, is the impact of corporate leadership. Ignoring the “black box” of corporate leadership, particularly individual actors, renders an incomplete descriptive assessment as well as potential miscalculations. The examination of key historical figures and their corporate activism provides an important lens through which to identify potential challenges and opportunities related to the contemporary ESG movement.

Generally, this essay examines corporate leadership’s potential to address socio-political issues through the prism of Civil Rights Movement activism. Specifically, …

Reframing The Dei Case, Veronica Root Martinez

Seattle University Law Review

Corporate firms have long expressed their support for the idea that their organizations should become more demographically diverse while creating a culture that is inclusive of all members of the firm. These firms have traditionally, however, not been successful at improving demographic diversity and true inclusion within the upper echelons of their organizations. The status quo seemed unlikely to move, but expectations for corporate firms were upended after the #MeToo Movement of 2017 and 2018, which was followed by corporate support of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement in 2020. These two social movements, while distinct in many ways, forced firms to rethink …

Women In Shareholder Activism, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Even a cursory review of the history of American environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) shareholder activism reveals the presence of women leaders. This Article sketches some of this history and interrogates the role of women in the shareholder activism movement. That movement typically has involved claims by minority shareholders to corporate power; activists are nearly always on the margins of power, though minority shareholders may, collectively, represent a majority interest. This Article ascribes women’s leadership in shareholder activism to their longstanding position as outsiders to corporate organization. Women’s participation in shaping corporate policy—even from the margins—has provided women with …

#Metoo And The Corporation In Popular Culture, Brenda Cossman

Seattle University Law Review

#MeToo’s initial virtual explosion in the fall of 2017 was very much about Hollywood, with famous actresses speaking out against famous producers, media moguls and celebrities, exposing the ubiquity of sexual harassment and sexual violence in and around the entertainment industry. Since then, #MeToo has made its way into Hollywood representations without much irony. Films and television shows have explicitly taken up the #MeToo themes, exploring issues of sexual harassment and violence and its afterlives. Many television shows, from the relaunched version of Murphy Brown to Brooklyn Nine-Nine to The Good Fight have incorporated #MeToo themes into episodes exploring the …

Woke Capital Revisited, Jennifer S. Fan

Seattle University Law Review

Inclusive corporate leadership is now at the forefront of discussions related to corporate governance. Two corporate theories help to explain the rise in prominence of diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) efforts in corporate leadership. First, an expanded definition of corporate purpose which elevated the idea of the importance of stakeholders, contributed to the momentum from business and legal quarters for broader corporate inclusion. Second, the increasing publicness of corporations—the social expectation of how large, typically public corporations should act given their position of power—also led to corporations becoming more active in the DEI space. It is against this backdrop that …

Army Commander’S Role—The Judge, Jury, & Prosecutor For The Article 15, Anthony Godwin

Seattle University Law Review

Service members in the armed forces are bound by a different set of rules when compared to other U.S. citizens. Some of the normal safeguards and protections that civilians enjoy are much more restrictive for military service members, and this is generally for a good reason. Such restrictions are partly due to the complex demands and needs of the United States military. Congress and the President have entrusted military commanders with special powers that enable them to handle minor violations of law without needing to go through a full judicial proceeding. Non-judicial punishments (NJP), also known as Article 15s, are …

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

When Judges Were Enjoined: Text And Tradition In The Federal Review Of State Judicial Action, Alexandra Nickerson, Kellen R. Funk

Faculty Scholarship

It is virtually a tenet of modern federal jurisdiction that judges, at least when they are acting as judges, are inappropriate defendants in civil suits. Yet on rare but salient occasions, state judges might be the sole or primary party responsible for violating the constitutional rights of citizens, for instance by imposing excessive bail or by opening their courtrooms to oppressive private suits like those under Texas’s Senate Bill 8 bounty regime. In such cases, injunctive relief against judicial officers may be the only or most effective remedy against constitutional violations, but federal courts from the trial level up to …

In Search Of The First-Round Knockout A Rule 12(B) Primer, Kate Rogers, Leonard Niehoff

Articles

Boxing enthusiasts define success not just by wins and losses but also by knockouts. Many of the greatest fighters in the history of boxing—Rocky Marciano, Mike Tyson, Jack Dempsey, and Sugar Ray Robinson—were known for their knockout punching power. Within the category of knockouts, the gold standard is the first-round knockout, the moment when stunned fans watch a fighter take the opponent out of the contest before either of them has broken a sweat.

Contracting Against Slavery: Corporate Accountability For Human Rights Supply Chain Violations, Alexandra Hyken

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The United States Supreme Court decision in Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe effectively closed the door for forced laborers in the global supply chain to sue corporations headquartered in the United States for aiding and abetting in their human trafficking under the Alien Tort Statute. At the same time, however, the European Union and Canada are passing legislative measures that increase corporate accountability for human rights supply chain violations. This note argues that, in light of the Nestlé decision, contracts can be an effective mechanism for corporate accountability in the United States and that multi-national corporations will be incentivized to …

The Antiregulatory Arsenal, Antidemocratic Can(N)Ons, And The Waters Wars, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Clean Water Act has become a centerpiece in an enduring multifront battle against both environmental regulation and federal regulatory power in all of its settings. This Article focuses on the emergence, elements, and linked uses of an antiregulatory arsenal now central to battles over what are federally protected “waters of the United States.” This is the key jurisdictional hook for CWA jurisdiction, and hence, logically, has become the heart of CWA contestation. The multi-decade battle over Waters protections has both drawn on emergent antiregulatory moves and generated new weapons in this increasingly prevalent and powerful antiregulatory arsenal. This array …

Boeing, Boeing, Gone: General Jurisdiction Over Corporations, Principal Place Of Business, And A Second Look At The Total Activities Test, Robert Ellis Stengel

Brooklyn Law Review

In 2011’s Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, the United States Supreme Court redefined the contours of corporate personal jurisdiction, radically curtailing the “doing business” jurisdiction that previously predominated. Since then, corporations are only subject to general jurisdiction where they are “fairly regarded as at home,” a domicile test effectively limited to two locations: (1) the state in which the corporation is incorporated and (2) the state in which the corporation has its “principal place of business.” However, the Supreme Court has never explicitly defined the term “principal place of business” for personal jurisdiction purposes. The Court has addressed …

Subsidiarity & Vulnerability Theory: A Case Study For Deepening The Relationship Between Catholic Social Teaching And The Responsive State, Nathaniel Romano

Catholic University Law Review

Religion and religious voices have long had a role to play in shaping community norms and values and public policy; this role continues in contemporary America. Yet, legitimate questions arise about the extent of this role and its place in a pluralist and democratic state. These questions are particularly pronounced when religion is perceived as partisan, a situation that seems apparent in contemporary America. Hoping to combat this perception, this paper explores the relationship between Catholic Social Teaching and Vulnerability Theory, aiming to show how religious values can inform legal theory across the political spectrum. This paper surveys both Catholic …