Transportation Law Commons^™

Machinists Preemption In The New Administrative Law, Andrew J. Ziaja

Seattle University Law Review

This Article assesses Machinists preemption—a labor-specific form of implied field preemption—while freshly considering implications both for and of new developments in administrative law. The radical transformation of administrative law in the Supreme Court, particularly its newfound emphasis on clear-statement rules, provides opportunities to reconsider the Machinists rationale. Aligning with scholars who have called to question the doctrine’s “ossifying” influence on labor and employment policy, it argues that the modern-day version of Machinists preemption clashes with the Supreme Court’s newly constrained view of delegated power and its differing conceptions of the major questions doctrine.

On the other hand, Machinists preemption might …

Abortion Travel Restrictions Under The Dormant Commerce Clause After National Pork Producers Council V. Ross, Katherine Bartley

Fordham Law Review

Since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, twelve states have banned abortion entirely, and seven states have banned abortion earlier in pregnancy than the standard set in Roe v. Wade. As abortion access dwindles, patients increasingly cross state lines to seek reproductive healthcare. In response, antiabortion state officials and lawmakers have made efforts to restrict interstate travel for abortion care.

This Note examines abortion travel restrictions under the “Dormant” Commerce Clause doctrine, which limits state laws that burden interstate commerce. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed but narrowed the judge-made doctrine in National Pork Producers Council v. …

“Appeals On Wheels” Brings Court Of Appeals Of Indiana To Bloomington, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Court of Appeals of Indiana will hold oral arguments at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law on Thursday, April 3 inside Baier Hall.

The event is part of the court’s Appeals on Wheels series and is open to the public. Arguments begin at 1:45 p.m. and are expected to conclude around 2:45 p.m.

“The Appeals on Wheels program is the best trust-building tool we have as a judiciary,” said Anne Fuchs, the Court’s director of communications. “The court brings real oral arguments to communities around the state so the public can understand how the judiciary really works. We …

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

In Defense Of The Texas Statutory Easement, Matthew Crockett

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

More than half the states, including Texas, have adopted a little-known statutory procedure by which a landlocked property owner may ask the government to exercise eminent domain to gain an easement over a neighbor’s property. Texas’s version, the rarely cited Texas Transportation Code section § 251.053, raises as many questions as it answers. This Article dissects section § 251.053, discusses the arguments for and against statutory easements, and argues in favor of statutory easements, particularly in Texas.

Beyond Congestion Pricing, Gregory H. Shill

Journal of Law and Mobility

After years of political and legal efforts to block it, congestion pricing finally went into effect in New York City in January 2025. Early indications are positive, though threats to its continuation from the Trump administration and others remain. But its journey to this point has already made one thing clear: it is time for the Big Apple to seize more of its own destiny in transportation policy.

The battles that delayed and still imperil the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s congestion pricing scheme underscore the need for policies that New York City can implement unilaterally. Making urban transportation policy in the …

A Constitutional Mandate To Adopt Avs, Kevin Frazier

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The rapid advancement of autonomous vehicle (“AV”) technology presents a unique opportunity to enhance public safety by drastically reducing road fatalities. Despite significant private sector investment and demonstrated improvements in AV performance, public adoption and integration remain hindered by regulatory gaps and societal skepticism. This Article argues that the federal government has an affirmative obligation, rooted in the doctrine of a right to effective government, to champion the adoption of technologies like AVs that meaningfully promote the general welfare.

Drawing on the Preamble’s mandate to advance the general welfare and lessons from the transition from the Articles of Confederation to …

Regulating Light Trucks And Suvs: Making America’S Roads Safer And Air Cleaner, Daniel Delap

Utah Law Review

The increase of trucks and SUVs on the roads in the United States has made streets less safe while contributing to poorer air quality. Compared to other vehicles, trucks and SUVs have a higher center of gravity, a ridged vehicle frame with a larger engine block, a heavier weight requiring more gas to move, and emitting more greenhouse gases. These vehicle features make accidents more common, decrease driver visibility, increase the potential for pedestrian fatalities, and make car accidents more deadly for non-truck or SUV vehicles. This Note explores solutions to these issues and discusses regulatory actions that the Environmental …

How Safe Is Safe Enough? Analyzing The Incentive Structure Of The Products Liability Scheme On Commercial Aviation Manufacturers, Ethan Schwab

University of Miami Law Review

How do aviation manufacturers work to prevent tragedy? After tragedy strikes, how does the legal system’s imposition of a remedy change the operations and decision-making of these manufacturers, if at all? This Note explores whether the current products liability framework effectively achieves the goals of tort law—including whether it deters unsafe innovation in the high-risk commercial aviation manufacturing industry. The Note explores these topics through the lens of the recent Boeing 737 Max disasters of 2018 and 2019, using such disasters to exemplify the skewed incentive structure that manufacturers face in the modern products liability tort system. This Note argues …

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Through A Glass Darkly: How Securities Disclosures Give A Distorted View Of The Economy, Gerald F. Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Our understanding of the American economy often relies on stylized facts derived from mandatory disclosures by listed corporations. Data vendors like Standard & Poor’s vacuum up 10Ks and proxy statements into databases, and scholars distill these into tentative maps. This may have been adequate for a postwar economy centered on asset-heavy manufacturers, but it is increasingly out of step with an information-based economy. Companies listed on the stock market are fewer in number and less representative than they were, light in tangible assets and people, and heavy on IP. Basic facts such as what industry they are in are increasingly …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Human Masters/Robot Servants: Highly Automated Vehicle Design, Intoxicated Drivers & Vicarious Liability, William H. Widen, Marilyn C. Wolf

Articles

A traditional engineering role is to design a safe product. Safety engineering is an exercise in harm avoidance ex ante. In contrast, liability attribution is an exercise to compensate for loss post hoc — traditionally viewed as a legal matter. We observe that, when a natural person incurs liability for a loss that exceeds insurance coverage, economic ruin can follow. Neither engineering nor law focus on the loss suffered by defendants considering law as a "safety risk." The highly automated vehicle (HAV) design space, however, provides an opportunity to prevent this kind of economic harm from occurring ex ante just …