Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
DigitalCommons@University of Georgia School of LawNot a member yet
17912 research outputs found
Sort by
Federalizing NCII Regulation: The Take It Down Act’s Approach to Criminalization, Platform Liability, and Threats to Disseminate
Full text linkFor years, legal scholars, advocates, and victims have pushed for the federal criminalization of the nonconsensual publication of intimate imagery. Until now, regulation has been inconsistent across jurisdictions, often leaving victims without meaningful remedies or mechanisms for image removal.
The recent passage of the Take It Down Act has finally realized the goal of federal criminalization of nonconsensual intimate image distribution, including that of artificially generated images. The Act further initiates a framework for victim-led takedown procedures and engages with § 230 liability. Additionally, the Act addresses threats to disseminate such content, which is crucial to curb the spread of nonconsensual intimate imagery and related coercive abuse.
Despite the strides made by the Act, certain provisions have notable vulnerabilities leaving the statute itself open to abuse and First Amendment challenges. Moreover, some victims are even left without a remedy for the statute’s ambiguity. This Note discusses these criticisms and offers alternative language that could fill current gaps in the Act
Using Public Nuisance Litigation to Address Industrywide Misconduct: Common-Law Statutes, Nondelegation, and Regulation
Full text linkIn this Article, we assert that broad, open-ended public nuisance statutes offer a legitimate legal tool to curb public health harms caused by the unreasonable design, marketing, and distribution practices of product manufacturers. We argue that these statutes are common-law statutes by which legislatures authorize courts to apply the concept of public nuisance to new situations using common-law-style reasoning. We demonstrate that this understanding of public nuisance statutes is consistent with well-established interpretive traditions regarding the codification of common law. Statutory delegation of broad interpretive discretion to courts concerning the application of public nuisance law constitutes a legislative choice to regulate through litigation. We contend that the delegation to courts to elaborate on public nuisance law is no less justified than delegation to administrative agencies to exercise policy discretion through adjudication and rulemaking
The Relevance of Natural Language Versus Terms and Connectors Searching in Westlaw and Lexis
Full text linkThirty years have passed since a published comparison of natural language and terms and connectors searching in legal databases, and that analysis included only Westlaw. The current study compares natural language and terms and connectors searching in both Westlaw and Lexis for two hypothetical scenarios. Searchers ran four searches for each hypothetical: Lexis natural language, Westlaw natural language, Lexis terms and connectors, and Westlaw terms and connectors. The results showed no statistically significant difference between natural language and terms and connectors for either hypothetical. This suggests it may be appropriate to reduce the time and energy spent teaching law students how to use terms and connectors in searches
Rectifying the Disconnect Between the Policy of the Doctrine of Equivalents and Practice
Full text linkThe doctrine of equivalents began as a measure to protect inventors from unscrupulous copiers who would make substitutions to avoid liability under literal infringement claims. Prosecution history estoppel was established as a guardrail to the doctrine, as a method of bringing some certainty to the scope of patent claims. However, in the Supreme Court’s zeal to contain the doctrine, they over-curbed its efficacy.
In cases that hinged on the doctrine of equivalents, patentees were only successful 21% of the time in district court, and 22% of the time in the federal circuit. A much lower success rate compared to the patentee’s 34% overall win rate in general patent litigation.
This exposes inventors to the risk of unscrupulous copying that the Graver Tank Court warned about. In order to better protect inventors, the solution is that the courts should not apply prosecution history estoppel to the patentee’s response to a first rejection. Examiners are severely overworked and do not spend much time per application, an estimated eighteen hours from receiving an application to the interview.
This proposed change to the prosecution history estoppel rule would allow patentees and patent examiners to get on the same page without the patentee sacrificing future equivalent infringement arguments. In turn, this permits patentees to better protect their invention, which promotes innovation, the principal goal of the patent system
A Lawless Judiciary: The Gilded Age and Today
Full text linkThe American journalist Ambrose Bierce, who wrote in the late 1800s, was a fierce critic of the judiciary. He lampooned judges for their defective reasoning, arbitrary decisions, and ignorance of the law; he criticized their practice of legislating from the bench and even exposed their outright corruption. Bierce’s work was highly entertaining—in a satirical, cynical way. Yet, as law professor J. Gordon Hylton explained, “beneath the humor and the bitterness of his work lay a sophisticated understanding of the shortcomings of the late nineteenth-century bench and bar.”
This Essay examines Bierce’s criticisms of the judiciary and asks this question: After an intervening century, are his complaints still valid today? Amazingly, after more than 100 years, Bierce’s criticisms are still relevant; in fact, they apply as much to the modern judiciary as they did to that of the Gilded Age. Equally important, Bierce complained with purpose, offering “concrete recommendations” for reform. His primary recommendation—a call to arms for his fellow journalists to expose judicial lawlessness to the public—remains a viable cure for what ails our modern judiciary
McIntyre receives top advocate award at “best of the best” tournament
No full textCongratulations to third-year student Garfield A. McIntyre Jr. for being named the best advocate of the preliminary rounds at the Hicks Thomas LLP Moot Court National Championship. He and his classmates Hannah N. Ryninger and Emily C. Wood represented UGA Law as a team at the tournament and finished as semifinalists. This annual invitation-only tournament is reserved for the top 16 moot court programs from law schools across the country based on performances from the previous academic year. Cole Harper (J.D.\u2722) served as the alumni coach.
Pictured above (l. to r.) are Garfield McIntyre, Emily Wood and Hannah Ryninger
A Comparison Between American and Hong Konger Regulatory Efforts of Cryptocurrency Exchanges in the Light of the Bankruptcy of FTX Trading Ltd.
No full textTaking a Trip into Nature’s Medicine Cabinet: A Country Comparison of Efforts to Reschedule Psilocybin and MDMA for Therapeutic Use
No full textWellness and the Tax Law
Full text linkThe tax law has long provided extensive subsidies for “medical care.” These subsidies cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The definition of medical care, which is at the heart of these subsidies, originated many decades ago at a time when there was little to no conception of wellness.
Times have changed in the medical world. Medical science now emphasizes that wellness practices, like exercise, meditation, and social connection, have an important impact on physical as well as mental health, including by playing a significant role in preventing and treating disease. Under the tax statute, medical care includes “treatment . . . or prevention of disease.” The tax law nonetheless disallows subsidies for wellness expenditures under the theory that they are “merely beneficial to general health.” This tension between medical science and tax law demands that we reappraise tax law’s medical care subsidy.
This article engages in that reappraisal. It asks what justifies tax law’s extensive medical care subsidy and whether it remains justifiable today. The traditional justification for tax law’s medical care subsidy is that medical care is different from consumption. As a result, when tax law subsidizes medical care—even in a regressive way—it is not subsidizing spending on personal pleasure or regular, personal maintenance; rather, it is subsidizing compulsory expenses that restore a loss. Yet, the new medical science around wellness reveals that what we have long thought of as pure consumption constitutes medical care. Moreover, changes in the scope of the subsidy over time have resulted in tax law subsidizing many items that are far from compulsory, catastrophic medical expenses. The result is that tax law’s medical care framework subsidizes some forms of consumption, but not others, in a haphazard, incoherent, and ultimately unjustifiable way.
After exploring the problems with tax law’s medical care subsidy, this article offers three potential paths forward: an expansion of tax law’s medical care subsidies to more fully account for all expenses that prevent or treat disease; a contraction of tax law’s subsidies to more closely match justifiable goals, such as insuring against catastrophic and compulsory medical expenses; and a progressive wellness credit. This article finds that the third approach best accounts for how consumption can be medical care and best responds to the ways that high-income taxpayers benefit from higher privilege to consume