Loyola University Chicago, School of Law: LAW eCommons
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Disentangling Dicta: Prince v. Massachusetts, Police Power and Childhood Vaccine Policy
Full text linkReference Pricing in Health Care: An Inventory of Techniques, and Practical and Policy Implications
Full text linkTHE EMERGENCE OF LAW AND MACROECONOMICS: FROM STABILITY TO GROWTH TO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Full text linkSTATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL AS AGENTS OF POLICE REFORM
No full textState attorneys general can and should play an important role in remedying police violations of constitutional rights. In 1994, Congress enacted 42 U.S.C. § 14141 to authorize the U.S. Attorney General to seek equitable relief against state and local police departments engaged in patterns or practices of misconduct. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has used this statute to reform some of the nation’s most troubled police departments. However, the DOJ has lacked the resources to pursue more than a few cases each year and the Trump Administration has recently announced it would no longer enforce § 14141.
In response, a small but growing number of state attorneys general have sought to fill the regulatory gap. These attorneys general claim legal standing under the common law doctrine of parens patriae to seek equitable relief in federal court against police departments within their states for violations of constitutional rights — even without any statutory authority for their lawsuits. Allowing these cases to go forward would give state attorneys general expansive and untapped potential as agents of police reform, with significant implications for police practices and accountability.
This Article provides a cautionary tale about uses of parens patriae by state attorneys general and an alternative. It urges that the common law doctrine of parens patriae should not allow state attorneys general to seek equitable relief in federal district court against local police departments engaged in patterns of misconduct. The Article shows that such uses of parens patriae raise numerous doctrinal and policy concerns. Nevertheless, the Article concludes that state attorneys general are uniquely situated to provide a check on abuses by local law enforcement and that they should be given the tools to do so. As an alternative to using common law parens patriae, both Congress and state legislatures should grant state attorneys general explicit statutory authority to seek equitable relief against local police departments. Empowering state attorneys general in this manner has the potential to curb seemingly intractable problems of police violations of constitutional rights
Study On Legal Systems For Transboundary CCS Implementation And Transboundary Environmental Liability Regarding CCS
No full textArbitration of Worker Contracts: New Prime\u27s Proper Statutory Interpretation of the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act
No full textIn 1925, the Congress that adopted the Federal Arbitration Act did not intend for it to cover any workers’ contracts. However, this changed dramatically when the Supreme Court determined in Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams (2001) that all workers’ contracts were covered except for transportation workers. Thus, today, thousands of workers are forced into adhesion contracts requiring arbitration. However, the recent unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in New Prime v. Oliveira unequivocally declares that the proper way to interpret the Act is to give it the meaning it had when Congress enacted the statute. This very reasonable conclusion stands in sharp contrast to how the Circuit City Court interpreted the Act with reference to arbitration of workers’ contracts.
New Prime is the first decision in decades that limits the broad interpretive scope the Court has given to the Federal Arbitration Act. The Court found that the exemption in Section 1 of the Act, which had been interpreted to exclude from the Act’s coverage employees working in interstate transportation, also applied to independent contractors in the transportation industry.
Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act provides that the Act does not apply “to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” At the time the FAA was enacted in 1925, it was well understood that Congress did not have the power under the Commerce Clause to regulate contracts of employees who were not acting in interstate commerce. Thus, ordinary workers were understood NOT to be covered by the FAA. The exemption was added to the statute to appease labor organizations who did not want those workers who actually worked in interstate commerce, like transportation workers, to be covered by the FAA. For decades after 1925, courts interpreted the statute as it was understood by the 1925 Congress that adopted it – that the Act applied only to merchant-to-merchant contracts, and not to workers’ contracts of any kind.
However, in Circuit City, the Supreme Court, contrary to the statutory methodology endorsed in the unanimous decision in New Prime, ignored the meaning of the statute in 1925 and instead imposed an interpretation of its own making. It found that all workers were covered by the FAA except transportation workers. This article discusses how Circuit City was incorrectly decided and should be overruled. The Circuit City Court disregarded the 1925 Congress’s understanding of the Commerce Clause, which was the background against which it legislated, and which informed the legislation it adopted. The various justifications the Circuit City Court offered for its unique interpretation of the exemption are incompatible with the proper statutory interpretation mandated in the unanimous decision in New Prime
