SelectedWorks @ Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law
Not a member yet
1539 research outputs found
Sort by
An Experiment on Protecting Intellectual Property
No full textWe conduct a laboratory experiment to explore whether the protection of intellectual property (IP) incentivizes people to create non-rivalrous knowledge goods, foregoing the production of other rivalrous goods. In the contrasting treatment with no IP protection, participants are free to resell and remake non-rivalrous knowledge goods originally created by others. We find that creators reap substantial profits when IP is protected and that rampant pirating is not uncommon when there is no IP protection. But most importantly, we find that IP protection in and of itself is neither necessary nor sufficient for generating wealth from the discovery of knowledge goods
Designing Research Assignments to Encourage Critical Thinking and Creative Problem-Solving Skills
No full textAdvanced legal research (ALR) courses are unique in that they provide continual and immediate feedback to both students and teachers over the course of the semester. Unlike traditional doctrinal courses, ALR typically employs a variety of teaching methods and students receive multiple forms of assessment. This level of interaction allows teachers to respond quickly when students are struggling with specific concepts or need clarification. This article analyzes lessons learned from two assignments
Graduated Consent in Contract and Tort Law: Toward a Theory of Justification
No full textWe often speak of consent in binary terms, boiling it down to \u27yes\u27 or \u27no.\u27 In truth, however, consent varies by degrees. We tend to afford expressly consensual transactions more respect than transactions backed by only implied consent, for instance, which we in turn regard as more meaningful than transactions justified by merely hypothetical consent. A mirror of that ordinal ranking appears in our judgments about unconsensual transactions, too. Those gradations of consent mark a deep structure of our social world, one especially evident in the contours of contract and tort law. This article draws on those and other sources to outline a theory of graduated consent, one that establishes a standard for measuring the justification of a wide variety of human relationships. Though its basic tenets comfortably agree with everyday common sense, graduated-consent theory offers surprising answers to such old problem as enforcing standardized agreements, justifying political coercion, and discerning the meaning of a constitution. In those and other applications, graduated-consent theory promises to enrich our understanding of contract and tort law, as well as other areas of legal
Constitutionalizing Judicial Ethics: Judicial Elections after Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, Caperton and Citizens United
No full textTestimony on Internet Gambling: Is there a Safe Bet?
No full textThis Congressional testimony discusses the possible legalization of Internet gambling in the United States, and the need for adequate consumer protection if online gambling were legalized. The testimony begins by discussing the importance of consumer protection in the gambling industry and the relative lack thereof in current casino regulation. A basic element of consumer protection for slot machine play would be mandating that slot machines display the hold percentage for that slot machine, with an interactive display that would change as the hold percentage changes. The testimony discusses how consumer protection, which focuses on giving recreational gamblers the tools they need to be good shoppers, differs from “harm minimization,” which is designed to reduce the detrimental effects of problem gambling. The testimony then discusses the special problems facing legalized Internet poker. With the development of poker playing software, “bots,” and other computerized poker aids, recreational poker players can find themselves defeated by much stronger computer-aided opponents. As poker “bots” gain in strength and defeat better and better opponents, they threaten the entire online poker industry. While poker sites may try to exclude bots, they would be engaging in an arms race with “bot” creators that the poker sites may well lose, leaving gamblers unprotected. The testimony proposes a solution to this problem, poker ratings for all players that would help players to determine whether they are playing opponents much more capable than they. While this would not prevent the use of “bots,” it would level the playing field by helping players avoid much stronger “bots.
Stern v. Marshall, and the Power of Bankruptcy Courts to Issue Final Orders on All Compulsory Counterclaims
No full textArticle III of the Constitution grants federal district judges, appellate court judges, and Supreme Court Justices important constitutional protections (lifetime tenure and no salary diminution) to guarantee their independence. However, the Supreme Court has allowed Congress to create, under Article I, a different class of judges (called Article I judges ). These judges (such as tax court and bankruptcy court judges) do not have Article III protection and thus do not share Article III independence. Although we might think of Article I judges as administrative law hearing officers, they do exercise some judge-like powers. The extent of those powers raises fundamental questions because we do not want Congress to avoid the guarantees of Article III by simply shifting Article III powers to Article I judges.
In Stern v. Marshall, the Supreme Court will examine the scope of the power of Article I judges. For core matters, bankruptcy judges have full power to enter final orders. For non-core matters, bankruptcy judges can only issue proposed orders, which Article III courts review de novo. Does the Constitution permit Article I judges to issue final orders simply because a claim is a compulsory counterclaim?
Stern v. Marshall involves the probate dispute between Anna Nicole Smith (former Playboy Playmate) and E. Pierce Marshall, the son of billionaire J. Howard Marshall. Smith’s claim in the bankruptcy court was that Pierce Marshall had tortiously interfered with his father’s oral promises to Smith. However, the probate court, after a jury trial, rejected that claim, before the Article III district court heard the issue. If this tort dispute is not a core matter, the probate court’s decision is collateral estoppel and bars Smith. If it is core simply because it is a compulsory counterclaim, then the bankruptcy court’s contrary decision supporting Smith is not merely proposed but final. Then, it governs because it came before the probate courts’ decision. This lengthy litigation (continuing for approximately 15 years, with both of the original parties now dead) has all the elements of a TV drama. However, the legal issues are quite serious. If the Court allows Article I courts to issue final orders simply because the rules of procedure designate a counterclaim as compulsory, that will greatly broaden the powers of Article I judges
Corporate First Amendment Rights after Citizens United: An Analysis of the Popular Movement to End the Constitutional Personhood of Corporations
No full textNo case in the Supreme Court’s last term was more controversial than Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Citizens United). In a sharply divided 5:4 decision, the Court invalidated strict federal campaign finance laws and upheld the First Amendment right of corporations to spend unlimited sums of corporate money to support or oppose candidates in political elections. Although mainstream criticism of Citizens United was fierce and widely publicized, a lesser known response to the case is a grassroots popular movement calling for an amendment to the Constitution establishing that money is not speech and that human beings, not corporations, are the only “persons” entitled to constitutional rights. The movement has ignited a national campaign to reverse the legal doctrine of corporate personhood, a doctrine that has allowed corporations for the last century to claim the same legal rights that natural persons possess. Anti-corporate activist groups revile the dominance of corporate power in modern society and believe now is the time to “overthrow corporate rule.” By orchestrating a nationwide initiative to amend the Constitution, these groups hope to follow in the steps of other social justice movements, like the suffragists and the civil rights activists, who successfully organized to demand legal reform. This Article seeks to bring attention to this burgeoning popular movement and the challenges it faces. The grassroots mobilization of these activist organizations in response to Citizens United raises important questions about the relevance of citizen interpretations of constitutional meaning and the role of law in shaping beliefs. This Article uses the doctrine of corporate personhood and the constitutional amendment campaign as points of departure for a broader analysis of the relationships between social movements, constitutional legal reform, and the expressive function of the law
