Law and Society Commons^™

The Class Of Injuries Test: A Unifying Proposal To Determining Duty, Proximate Cause, And Superseding Cause In Negligence Claims, Judge Leonard J. Feldman, Julia Doherty

Seattle University Law Review

While there seems to be universal agreement that liability in tort cannot be unlimited, there is widespread disagreement regarding the various tests that courts utilize to limit such liability. We assume here that breach can be proven: the defendant failed to conduct themself in accordance with the salient standard of conduct (for example, failure to exercise reasonable care under all the circumstances). In the ensuing litigation, the court and jury are asked to decide several issues that each limit liability for negligence. Here, we focus on three oft-debated issues: duty, proximate cause, and superseding cause. The tests for each are …

Ai, New Technologies, And Corporate Governance: Three Phenomena, Martin Petrin

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies are increasingly influencing the operations, business models, and structures of companies. This Article focuses on three emerging phenomena that impact significant aspects of corporate governance and regulation: (1) perforation and blurring of firm boundaries through the ubiquitous use of externally provided AI services; (2) businesses engaging in strategic access and leveraging of critical resources held by third parties without owning them; and (3) the unusual hybrid role of online platforms between market facilitators and markets themselves. The Article explores how these phenomena challenge traditional views of firms as separate units, with technology leading …

A Meaningful Life: The Future Of Juvenile Justice In Washington After Anderson, Samuel Coren

Seattle University Law Review

Until 2022, Washington’s line of juvenile sentencing jurisprudence gave every indication of continuing along the course set by Miller v. Alabama, as Washington courts recognized that “children are different” and should not be subjected to the harshest punishments available in the criminal legal system. State v. Anderson marked a stark diversion from this course. In upholding the constitutionality of a de facto life sentence for a juvenile, the Washington Supreme Court all but rejected the well-established scientific consensus surrounding juvenile brain development and implicit racial bias. Whether this decision reflects a minor aberration or a broader trend in the court’s …

Reconciling Disjunct Cryptocurrency Securities Enforcement With Purchaser Expectations, Jacob E. Simmons

Seattle University Law Review

The Southern District of New York’s July 2023 decision in SEC v. Ripple Labs, Inc. has been touted as a monumental win for cryptocurrency purchasers and related businesses. The Ripple court held that, except institutional investor transactions, all sales of Ripple’s XRP token were not investment contracts, a class of security subject to federal securities law. The court’s ruling meant that Ripple could not be held liable for the unregistered trading of XRP beyond its sales to institutional investors. Ripple adds new insights to a pervasive policymaking dilemma addressed in this Note: is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) regulatory …

A Blueprint To Reclaim Legal Education From External Rankers, Scott Rempell

Seattle University Law Review

The U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News) law school rankings have impacted the perceptions and behaviors of everyone in the rankings ecosystem for decades. Commentators have almost universally condemned these ordinal rankings, yet they continue to influence the legal education market, often in highly detrimental ways.

The influence of these rankings stems from legitimate market demands, for reasons that the psychology of choice literature makes clear. People want (or need) to efficiently acquire and digest information that could help them make consequential decisions. At a time when consumers of law school information did not have such choice-making assistance, U.S. …

Real-World Consequences For Online Actions: The Case For Expanding Employee Harassment Protection Via Employers’ Rights Of Action, Alexander Barnes

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues for expanding employers’ access to legal remedies that allow them to recoup the costs of protecting their employees from swatting, doxing, and other online harassment arising from their employees’ professional activity. Part I provides a brief description and history of the online harassment problem and its potentially deadly dangers. Part II describes employers’ legal responsibility to take action to protect their employees from harassment aimed at their employees within the scope of their employment. Part III explores common legal remedies that are currently available to employers, using the state of Washington as an example. Part III also …

Foreseeability And Duty In Washington Negligence Law: Leaving The Road Less Traveled By, Leo Linder

Seattle University Law Review

Washington negligence law is a confusing labyrinth of foreseeability that not even Ariadne’s string could guide plaintiffs out of. Foreseeability is implicated in four distinct analyses, several of which overlap considerably. Doctrines that were once questions of law are now questions of fact, and vice versa. Something needs to change.

Washington has taken the novel approach of bifurcating the duty element into two parts—duty’s mere existence, which is a question of law for the court to determine; and duty’s scope, which is a question of fact handed off to the jury to determine. Foreseeability impacts both of these assessments, but …

On The Importance Of Listening To Crime Victims . . . Merciful And Otherwise, Paul Cassell

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

What role should mercy play in the criminal justice system? While several of the other symposium’s articles here in the Texas Law Review argue for expanding mercy’s role, I write to raise a cautionary note. Expanding mercy could potentially conflict with another important feature of contemporary criminal justice: the expanding role of crime victims. Because considerations of mercy focus exclusively on the offender, greater attention to mercy necessarily means less attention to victims. This change in focus would be at odds with a broadly advancing crime victims’ movement in this country and, indeed, in many countries around the world. This …

Out-Of-State Abortion On Company Dime: An Analysis Of State Legislation And Erisa, Erin Elizabeth Hanlon

American University Business Law Review

This Note analyzes the various types of state abortion bans, focusing on those with aiding and abetting clauses. These bans impose civil liability for anyone, including companies providing abortion access benefits, who help a pregnant person gain access to abortion. Additionally, this Note analyzes federal legislation to determine if any retaliatory actions taken against companies violate federal law. This legislation includes the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) which creates uniformity in insurance and benefits coverage by superseding any state law that references or relates to an ERISA plan. Many advocates believe that ERISA is a company’s greatest defense to …

Restorative Justice As A Democratic Practice, Daniel S. Mcconkie Jr.

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Our criminal justice system, to be truly democratic, should be more responsive to those most affected by it, and this calls for significant participation from citizens. Unfortunately, the state-centered, professionalized criminal justice system marginalizes citizens at every stage, depriving them of a voice and power. Instead, the system should embody and encourage criminal justice citizenship, which refers to the rights and privileges of ordinary people to participate directly in certain aspects of the criminal justice system and to deliberate in some of its workings. Such citizenship is indispensable to democracy, or rule by the people.

Restorative justice, especially where it …

Network Capabilities In Land Use And Disability Law, Robin Paul Malloy

American University Law Review

Our communities must be made safe and easy to navigate by people with disabilities and by those who are seeking to age in place. This requires us to do land planning and zoning in a cost-conscious way that empowers a diverse population to readily participate in community life. Accomplishing this goal involves working at the intersection of land use law and disability law. This means we must work at the intersection of competing legal frameworks, one based on the exercise of the sovereign police powers and the other based on the prevention of discrimination under civil rights law.

The fundamental …

"The Reed That Bends With The Wind Does Not Break"-The Complexities Of Multicultural Mediation And The Use Of Artistic Tools To Overcome Them, Nokukhanya Ntuli

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Mediation processes are inherently complex and require flexibility and adaptability. This is especially true for mediation processes involving multiple parties with diverse cultural backgrounds. This paper examines the complexities created by cultural diversity in mediation. The paper highlights a dispute between the local community of Msango, West Africa, and an international mining company. It highlights how linguistic and literacy barriers complicated the process, undermining effective communication and progress. The complication identified at the start of the process necessitated the process design to encompass tools to overcome the barriers identified early on. As the mediation progressed, the mediators continued to uncover …

Economic And Social Rights, Corruption, And Covid-19: The Indian And South African Experiences, Anashri Pillay

National Law School of India Review

India and South Africa have been at the forefront of debates about economic and social rights for many decades. Whilst the apex courts in these states have led the way in interpreting and handing down remedies stemming from these rights, vast social and economic inequalities persist. This article uses the responses to Covid-19 as a basis to consider how corruption has affected the realisation of economic and social rights in each of these countries. The article goes on to address broader arguments about the value of international human rights in tackling corruption. A human rights perspective is a relatively recent …

Stolen By Wolves: A Critique On The Supreme Court’S Understanding Of Women’S Reservations In India, Rashmi Raghavan

National Law School of India Review

Women’s reservations were envisioned under Article 15(3) to fulfil the goal of substantive equality in the Constitution of India. This article tries to uncover the procedural missteps that have occurred by the Supreme Court while administering the policy of women’s reservations to various public positions in the country. I argue that the reservation procedure currently put in place by the apex Court by a cumulative reading of the decisions in Anil Kumar Gupta v State of UP and Ors and Rajesh Kumar Daria v Rajasthan Public Service Commision have created an enclosed ceiling on women candidates and is contrary to …

Front Matter, National Law School Of India Review

National Law School of India Review

Front Matter (Title Page, Publisher Information, Masthead, Table of Contents).

Introduction: Twail And The International Law Of Jurisdiction, Rohini Sen

National Law School of India Review

Introduction: TWAIL and the International Law of Jurisdiction.

Universal Civil Jurisdiction And International Law: A Response To B.S. Chimni, Chimène Keitner

National Law School of India Review

The exercise of various forms of jurisdiction, and the delineation of a political entity’s jurisdictional reach over persons, places, and conduct, can sharpen and entrench inequities within and between states. One can thus aptly characterize certain exercises of jurisdiction, and particularly certain forms of extraterritorial jurisdiction, as assertions of imperial and/or hegemonic power. Importantly, however, jurisdiction can also be invoked to redress certain power inequities by providing access to judicial remedies for conduct that has evaded other forms of regulatory control. In addition, while certain assertions of extraterritorial prescriptive jurisdiction can represent overreaching by powerful states, the practice of disclaiming …

Theorising Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: The Travails Of Twail, Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah

National Law School of India Review

Discussion of extraterritoriality focussing on capitulation theories looks backwards at an historical period. The present need is to study extraterritoriality used by hegemonic states both in an oppressive manner to advance their national interests and in a manner that protects common interests. As hegemonic power of the United States recedes, new actors like China and India will come to use extraterritoriality largely in an offensive manner. Preoccupation with the past is inapposite in a field in which the rapid developments are taking place. A theory must be found that permits defensive extraterritoriality that promotes community interests while curbing the offensive …

A New Research Programme For International Relations And International Law: Jurisdiction, Capitalism, And Imperialist Infrastructures, Maïa Pal

National Law School of India Review

This article argues that Chimni’s proposed framework for historically and theoretically reconceptualising jurisdiction in ‘The international law of jurisdiction: A TWAIL perspective’ has important implications for a much-needed renewed encounter between the disciplines of International Law and International Relations. It begins by summarising the contribution of Chimni’s article in terms of its two historical and theoretical contributions. It then focuses on the theoretical reconceptualization of jurisdiction as structurally interdependent with capitalism and sovereignty, rather than territory and sovereignty as found in mainstream and liberal approaches. Moreover, Chimni’s article fills gaps in critical approaches by thinking of jurisdiction in more material …

Extra-Territoriality And Solidarity, Vasuki Nesiah

National Law School of India Review

Bhupinder Chimni calls for a subaltern internationalism that stands in contrast to and challenges extraterritorial jurisdiction by imperial and capitalist forces. We have a productive instantiation of subaltern internationalism in the jurisprudence on jus standi at the International Court of Justice.1 A sovereign that is not the injured party may still legitimately represent injured peoples if the representation is grounded in a commitment to those peoples’ self- determination; the court’s admissibility jurisprudence has come to recognize this commitment as a legitimate erga omnes partes claim. Its most recent and spectacular expression was South Africa’s representation of Palestinians with a genocide …