Jurisdiction Commons^™

Patents Absent Adversaries, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Brooklyn Law Review

The adversarial system is lauded for determining the truth of claims, safeguarding procedural rights, and supporting the efficient direction of resources toward the most relevant and contested issues in a dispute. If a case proceeded to judgment with participation from only one party, it would raise concerns of justice, efficiency, accuracy, and the public interest. And yet, in a tribunal of steadily growing importance for intellectual property disputes—the International Trade Commission (ITC or Commission)—certain cases proceed without the benefit of participation from adverse parties. Following the default of named parties, administrative law judges determine the scope and validity of patent …

Judge Judith Kaye At Skadden, Arps, Barry H. Garfinkel

Brooklyn Law Review

This collection of remarks from scholars, practitioners, and judges serves as a tribute to the life of the beloved and esteemed Judge Kaye and her commitment to the New York State Constitution. The collection culminates with Judge Kaye’s final essay, written for the Brooklyn Law Review, with her reflections on opportunity in life and law and New York’s State Constitution.

Psychological Harm And Constitutional Standing, Rachel Bayefsky

Brooklyn Law Review

When do psychological or emotional harms count as “injury-in-fact” for the purposes of satisfying Article III standing requirements, and when should they? Courts have wrestled with whether to grant standing, for example, to family members of a man killed by the police who argued that as relatives of the deceased, they had suffered emotional pain; members of an animal-welfare organization who claimed they had undergone “sleeplessness, depression, and anger” when they were unable to visit an elephant at the zoo; and members of a Catholic organization who challenged a city resolution criticizing the Catholic Church’s stance on adoption by same-sex …

Dissecting Hobby Lobby'S Corporate Person: A Procedural Proposal For Aligning Corporate Rights And Responsibilities, Andrew J. Fleming

Brooklyn Law Review

Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court’s corporate personhood decisions have allowed for the corporation to become increasingly more “person-like” by recognizing corporate constitutional rights that were previously reserved for flesh-and-blood human beings. Yet in cases where the rights of corporations are evaluated, the Court’s analysis flows from an axiomatic conceptualization of the corporation as a static, theoretical being, as if plucked straight from a business organizations law school textbook. The result is a gulf between corporate rights as “persons” and corporate legal responsibilities. Nowhere is that gulf more evident than in the Court’s personal jurisdiction jurisprudence. In particular, this …

A Tribute To Judge Kaye, Nicholas W. Allard

Brooklyn Law Review

This collection of remarks from scholars, practitioners, and judges serves as a tribute to the life of the beloved and esteemed Judge Kaye and her commitment to the New York State Constitution. The collection culminates with Judge Kaye’s final essay, written for the Brooklyn Law Review, with her reflections on opportunity in life and law and New York’s State Constitution.

Religion, Liberty, And The Jurisdictional Limits Of Law [Review], Edited By Iain T. Benson And Barry W. Bussey, Nicholas P. Miller

Faculty Publications

"In recent years law and religion scholarship in Canada has grown significantly. This distinctive collection of 18 papers addresses, from a variety of angles, the jurisdiction of law itself and limits of law – an important but often overlooked aspect of settling the boundaries of church and state, religion and law."

The Energy Prosumer, Sharon B. Jacobs

Publications

Decentralization is becoming a dominant trend in many industries, and the electricity industry is no exception. Increasing numbers of energy consumers generate their own electricity and/or provide essential grid services such as storage, efficiency, and demand response. This Article offers a positive account of the emergence of these new energy actors, which it calls "energy prosumers. " It then frames several doctrinal and procedural puzzles that prosumers create, including jurisdictional puzzles, distributional concerns, and democratic challenges. Ultimately, it concludes that prosumers can be a positive disruptive force in the electricity industry if courts and regulators can manage these challenges effectively. …

How Presidents Interpret The Constitution, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

No abstract provided.

Ilya Somin's The Grasping Hand: Kelo V. City Of New London & The Limits Of Eminent Domain (Book Review), James J. Kelly Jr.

Journal Articles

Ultimately, Somin’s single-minded dedication to a federal constitutional ban on economic development taking prevents the book from offering a full and fair consideration of alternative responses to eminent domain abuse. His survey of the various state legislative reforms enacted as a result of homeowner backlash to Kelo quite rightly points out the shortcomings of populist challenges to sophisticated vested interests. But his blatant aversion to engage with the substantial problems that public purpose land assembly faces without resort to eminent domain closes off any fair comparison of proposals that rival his own, particularly the position of fellow libertarian and ardent …

Analysis Of A Bias-Based Exception To The Doctrine Of Exhaustion In Wilson V. Bull, R. Mitchell Mcgrew

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nothing Personal (Or Subject Matter) About It: Jurisdictional Risk As An Impetus For Non-Tribal Opt-Outs From Tribal Economies, And The Need For Administrative Response, Joel Pruett

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gateway-Schmateway: An Exchange Between George Bermann And Alan Rau, Alan Scott Rau, George Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

What role do national courts play in international arbitration? Is international arbitration an “autonomous dispute resolution process, governed primarily by non-national rules and accepted international commercial rules and practices” where the influence of national courts is merely secondary? Or, in light of the fact that “international arbitration always operates in the shadow of national courts,” is it not more accurate to say that national courts and international arbitration act in partnership? On April 27, 2015, the Pepperdine Law Review convened a group of distinguished authorities from international practice and academia to discuss these and other related issues for a symposium …

The Day Doctrine Died: Private Arbitration And The End Of Law, Myriam E. Gilles

Articles

This story begins in 1980, when a budding anti-lawsuit movement found an energetic champion in a new conservative President. Over time, the movement became a dominant feature of political life, as its narrative of activist judges, jackpot justice, and a thriving lawsuit industry stirred partisan passions. And yet, some thirty years on, it is clear that the primary legacy of the anti-lawsuit movement is the movement itself--not legislative achievements, which have been few and far between, but committed adherents, including future Supreme Court Justices, lower court judges, and business leaders.

Meanwhile, and also in the early 1980s, federal courts began …

A Brook With Legal Rights: The Rights Of Nature In Court, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Over two decades ago, Professor Christopher Stone asked what turned out to be a question of enduring interest: should trees have standing? His question was recently answered in the affirmative by a creek in Pennsylvania, which successfully intervened in a lawsuit between an energy company and a local township to prevent the lifting of a ban against drilling oil and gas wastewater wells. Using that intervention, this Article examines whether such an initiative might succeed on a broader scale. The Article parses the structure, language, and punctuation of Article III, as well as various theories of nonhuman personhood to see …

The Value Of Uncertainty, Cathy Hwang, Benjamin P. Edwards

Northwestern University Law Review

In recent years, federal courts have heard, without clear subject matter jurisdiction, contract disputes involving billions of dollars worth of securitized financial instruments (SFIs). These SFI disputes are litigated in federal court under the federal interpleader statute, which specifies that a federal court has subject matter jurisdiction over these cases only when parties deposit the disputed amount with the court. SFI litigants have ignored this requirement, so courts have, at best, uncertain jurisdiction over these cases. Why have no parties raised the jurisdictional defect, even though some would stand to gain from raising it? This Essay advances game theoretical explanations …

When Is An Agency A Court? A Modified Functional Approach To State Agency Removal Under 28 U.S.C. § 1441, Nicholas Jackson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that courts should interpret 28 U.S.C. § 1441, which permits removal from state court to federal court, to allow removal from state administrative agencies when the agency performs “court-like functions.” Circuits that apply a literal interpretation of the statute and forbid removal from state agencies should adopt this “functional” approach. The functional approach, which this Note calls the McCullion-Floeter test, should be modified to comport with legislative intent and public policy considerations: first, state agency adjudications should not be removable when the adjudication requires technical expertise, which federal courts cannot obtain because they adjudicate cases in a …

The Lost History Of The Political Question Doctrine, Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

This Article challenges the conventional narrative about the political question doctrine. Scholars commonly assert that the doctrine, which instructs that certain constitutional questions are “committed” to Congress or to the executive branch, has been part of our constitutional system since the early nineteenth century. Furthermore, scholars argue that the doctrine is at odds with the current Supreme Court’s view of itself as the “supreme expositor” of all constitutional questions. This Article calls into question both claims. The Article demonstrates, first, that the current political question doctrine does not have the historical pedigree that scholars attribute to it. In the nineteenth …

Pit River Tribe V. Bureau Of Land Management, 793 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 2015), Kathryn S. Ore

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Pit River Tribe v. Bureau of Land Management, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit explained the correct application of the zone of interests test and further solidified the importance of proper NEPA and NHPA analysis in geothermal leasing. The court reaffirmed that the BLM and the Forest Service must conduct additional cultural and environmental analysis when granting lease extensions under the Geothermal Steam Act. Furthermore, it rejected the BLM’s decision to grant forty-year lease continuations to unproven geothermal leases by treating them as a unit rather than individually.

Personal Jurisdiction Based On The Local Effects Of Intentional Misconduct, Allan Erbsen

William & Mary Law Review

Intentional misconduct frequently has extraterritorial consequences. Terrorist attacks, toxic pollution, civil rights violations, and other intentional torts can cause harm within a state despite originating outside the state. Those harms raise a vexing constitutional question: when do the local effects of intentional wrongdoing authorize personal jurisdiction over a defendant whose conduct occurred outside the forum? The answer has several significant implications. Granting or denying jurisdiction can support or undermine regulatory interests by allocating power between states, imposes burdens on the parties that can impede access to justice, and alters risk assessments that shape both socially desirable and socially destructive behavior.

Home Is Where The Heart Is: Determining The Standard For Habitual Residence Under The Hague Convention Based On A Child-Centric Approach, Aimee Weiner

Seton Hall Circuit Review

No abstract provided.