Litigation Commons^™

Bison, Tribes, And Brucellosis In The Interagency Bison Management Plan, Bailey Nickoloff

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Introduction

It would be in the best interest of the Interagency Bison Management Plan (“IBMP”) and its affiliated agencies to allow Tribal governments and Tribal members to hunt bison within Yellowstone National Park (“YNP”). This would help to reduce the spread of brucellosis, reduce the environmental impacts from bison in YNP, and honor the treaties signed between the United States and Tribal governments. These agencies can accomplish this by implementing treaty hunting rights in a new Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) and within an existing legal framework.

Paving A Path To Independent Tiny Living: An Introduction To Roadblocks, Jaclyn Troutner

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

“Tiny living” is a growing trend in which small-scale, ecoconscious housing is used as an alternative means for homeownership. Tiny homes are smaller than the average detached home with the appearance and character of a traditional freestanding residential home. They are one-story, single-occupant dwellings and usually constructed on a trailer base for towing. State-of-the-art building techniques provide a lower environmental burden and utility cost per square foot. Due to their smaller size, tiny homes are cheaper with an average price of $52,000, opening a wider door to home ownership. The typical design is to include all the standard amenities and …

Rulemaking Doubletake: An Opportunity To Repair And Strengthen The National Environmental Policy Act, Rachel Keylon

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Introduction

In the middle of the twentieth century, there was a turning point in the United States and around the world in the understanding of the human relationship with the natural environment and natural resources. It was a shift from a perspective of natural resources endlessly available for exploitation to a perspective that natural resources are finite, and conservation and preservation are necessary to ensure that these resources are available for future generations. The accumulation of chronic environmental degradation, such as the unchecked proliferation of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, pollution to the nation’s waters, loss of land to erosion, …

About Sdlp

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief (ISSN 1552-3721) is a student-run initiative at American University Washington College of Law that is published twice each academic year. The Brief embraces an interdisciplinary focus to provide a broad view of current legal, political, and social developments. It was founded to provide a forum for those interested in promoting sustainable economic development, conservation, environmental justice, and biodiversity throughout the world.

Because our publication focuses on reconciling the tensions found within our ecosystem, it spans a broad range of environmental issues such as sustainable development; trade; renewable energy; environmental justice; air, water, and …

Editor's Note, Juliette Jackson, Bailey Nickoloff

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Dear Readers,

For more than two decades, the Sustainable Development Law and Policy Brief (SDLP) remains true to its mission of providing innovative solutions to some of the most important legal issues related to environmental law, energy law, and natural resources law. We are honored to be the Editors-in-Chief during these unprecedented times in our history, as we witnessed a historical presidential election and now enter the third year of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Despite these unparalleled times, the SDLP staff brought our readership another great issue.

In this issue, our authors provide an in-depth analysis into current regulations and …

Class Action Boundaries, Daniel Wilf-Townsend

Fordham Law Review

In recent years, some judges have begun doubting—and at times denying— their jurisdiction in class actions whose membership crosses state lines. This doubt has followed from the U.S. Supreme Court’s significant tightening of personal jurisdiction doctrine, which has led many to argue that courts no longer have jurisdiction over the claims of unnamed class members unless those claims have some independent relationship with the forum state. Such an argument raises foundational questions about due process and federalism, and has significant implications for the size, location, and feasibility of many class actions. This Article argues that what it terms the “state-border …

State Spoliation Claims In Federal District Courts, Jeffrey A. Parness

Catholic University Law Review

The increasing amounts of electronically stored information (ESI) relevant to civil litigation, and the ease of their loss, caused federal lawmakers explicitly to address the possible consequences of certain pre-suit or post-suit ESI losses. These lawmakers acted in both 2006 and 2015 through Federal Civil Procedure (FRCP) 37(e). But they acted only on certain ESI. Their actions have prompted increasing attention to the significant risks of pre-suit and post-suit losses of all ESI, and of non-ESI, otherwise discoverable in civil actions. In addition, their actions have spurred increasing attention to the availability of substantive law claims involving spoliation of information …

Why Arkansas Act 710 Was Upheld, And Will Be Again, Mark Goldfeder

Arkansas Law Review

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. - ironically, not Mark Twain The recent Eighth Circuit ruling in Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip, the lawsuit revolving around an Arkansas antidiscrimination bill, has led to a lot of (at best) confusion or (at worst) purposeful obfuscation by people unwilling or unable to differentiate between procedural issues and the constitutional merits of a case. In other words, reports of the bill’s death have been very much exaggerated.

Credibility In Empirical Legal Analysis, Hillel J. Bavli

Brooklyn Law Review

Empirical analysis is central in both legal scholarship and litigation, but it is not credible. Researchers can manipulate data to arrive at any conclusion they wish to obtain. A practice known as data fishing—searching for and selectively reporting methods and results that are favorable to the researcher—entirely invalidates a study’s results by giving rise to false positives and false impressions. Nevertheless, it is prevalent in law, leading to false claims, incorrect verdicts, and destructive policy. In this article, I examine the harm that data fishing in empirical legal research causes. I then build on methods in the sciences to develop …

Third Time’S The Charm: Remedying The Lack Of Uniformity And Predictability In Trade Secret Law, Matthew D. Kasner

Brooklyn Law Review

The current legal framework governing trade secrets in the United States lacks the uniformity and predictability necessary to protect businesses. As a result, trade secret litigation has been on the rise over the course of the last decade. Whilst remote work becomes more ubiquitous, even beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, litigation will continue to increase as businesses are forced to entrust confidential information with remote workers. This note examines the current US trade secret scheme, exposes the current framework’s deficiencies, and suggests a “trade secret formalities model” to make for a more organized and efficient doctrine of law. More specifically, this …

An Easy Sell: The Third Circuit Protects Religious Advertising In Colts V. Freethought, William Zachary Mineo

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

So Sue Me: How The Justice Department Can Protect Children By Suing Indigent Defenders, Joshua Perry

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Raising Corporate Consciousness Of Employer Liability For Video Zoom While Driving, Nanci K. Carr

William & Mary Business Law Review

Imagine that you have logged onto a video Zoom meeting, and you notice that one of the participants is driving. He fumbles with the phone, trying to align the camera with his face, looking from the phone to the road ahead. Other participants on the call either say nothing or thank him for being willing to participate from his car. That is distracted driving, and if he collides with a car or pedestrian due to that distraction, each of those meeting participants could be held liable for distracting the driver. In addition, they would be witnesses to his distracted driving …

Disclaiming Disability, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

In the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) Amendments Act of 2008, Congress ordered the courts to broadly interpret the definition of disability under the ADA. For the most part, courts have followed that instruction, but there are still too many instances in which they have not. One particularly pernicious error made by courts is relying on a plaintiff’s statement “disclaiming” her disability — that is, testifying that she does not consider herself “disabled” — to hold that she does not meet the statutory definition of disability, and therefore loses her claim. This Article addresses this error. Specifically, after cataloguing this …

The Partnership Mystique: Law Firm Finance And Governance For The 21st Century American Law Firm, Maya Steinitz

Faculty Scholarship

This Article identifies and analyzes the de facto and de jure end of lawyers' exclusivity over the practice of law in the United States. This development will have profound implications for the legal profession, the careers of individual lawyers, and the justice system as a whole.

First, the Article argues that various financial products that have recently flooded the legal market are functionally equivalent to investing in and owning law firms and create all the same governance challenges as allowing nonlawyers to directly own stock in law firms.

Second, the Article analyzes Arizona's groundbreaking legalization of nonlawyer participation in law …

Omar Effendi Vs. Union Fenosa: Corruption As A Transnational Public Policy Consideration, Ahmed Badr Eldin

Theses and Dissertations

At the beginning of 2011, Egypt witnessed radical political developments that led to the emergence of a pressing tendency to adjudicate the collapsed regime’s policies and practices. Shortly thereafter, the Egyptian State Council issued a number of judicial decisions that confirmed that the sale of the privatized governmental enterprises had been tainted by corruption. Crucially, the Court maintained that flagrant breach of law, regulations, and administrative orders that encompassed these transactions created serious suspicions about corruption committed by public officials and investors. It concluded that the existence of corruption, as a transnational public policy consideration, had deprived foreign investors of …

Learning From South Korea’S Covid-19 Response: Why Centralizing The United States Public Health System Is Essential For Future Pandemic Responses, Meghan Ricci

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed stark differences in governmental preparedness across the globe. The United States, once thought of as a global leader in public health, had the theoretical skill and efficiency to handle the pandemic but failed to utilize those skills and resources during an actual health crisis. In the spring of 2020, everyone watched the U.S.’s reaction to the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic due to its historic placeholder as a global leader and innovator. However, the performance of the U.S. in response to the global pandemic disappointed both global commentators and U.S. citizens. This paper will compare the …

Firearms And Toolmark Error Rates, Susan Vanderplas, Kori Khan, Heike Hofmann, Alicia L. Carriquiry

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

We have outlined several problems with the state of error rate studies on firearm and toolmark examination. Fundamentally, we do not know what the error rate is for these types of comparisons. This is a failure of the scientific study of toolmarks, rather than the examiners themselves, but until this is corrected with multiple studies that meet the criteria described in Section 3, we cannot support the use of this evidence in criminal proceedings.

Juries, Democracy, And Petty Crime, John D. King

Scholarly Articles

The right to trial by jury in criminal cases is basic to the design of American criminal justice and to the structure of American government. Guaranteed by Article III of the Constitution, the Sixth Amendment, and every one of the original state constitutions, the criminal jury was seen as critically important not only to the protection of individual rights but also to the architecture of American democracy. The vast majority of criminal prosecutions today, however, are resolved without even the prospect of community review by a jury. Despite the textual clarity of the guarantee, the Supreme Court has long recognized …

Do Seven Members Of Congress Have Article Iii Standing To Sue The Executive Branch?: Why The D.C. Circuit’S Divided Decision In Maloney V. Murphy Was Wrongly Decided In Light Of Two Prior District Court Decisions And Historical Separation Of Powers Jurisprudence, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The D.C. Circuit’s divided decision in Maloney v. Murphy granting standing to minority party members of the House Oversight Committee appears questionable in light of two prior district court decisions in Waxman and Cummings that had denied standing in similar circumstances. Most importantly, Maloney is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent regarding standing for individual members of Congress. In Raines v. Byrd, the Supreme Court held that individual members of Congress generally do not have standing to enforce institutional congressional interests such as whether a statute is constitutional, but that one or both Houses of Congress must sue as an institution. …