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Knock-Knock ... Who\u27s There? : The Fourth Amendment Dilemma Posed by Warrantless Police Encounters at Home
Get PDFIn a world where police abuses of power seem more common, where are the judges-particularly the originalist judges-who strive to protect the Founder\u27s intentions? How is it that people living in certain states seemingly have less robust Fourth Amendment protections than others? This essay seeks to answer these questions and urges the Supreme Court to reassert its constitutional commitment to the Fourth Amendment so that all of us are, in fact, secure in our homes. The Court should accept the responsibility it has to provide uniform protection to all Americans and clarify the limits on constructive entry. If the Court does not intervene, the knock-knock quandary raised above could make the strength of a person\u27s Fourth Amendment rights dependent on their willingness to ignore armed police activity outside their doorway and their fortitude to suffer the consequences of taking that risk. This should not be the case. The Founders promised us-through Constitutional text-we would be secure in our homes. Law enforcement shouldn\u27t be able to circumvent Constitutional text, or the warrant requirement, through constructive entry
Blockchain Real Estate and NFTs
Get PDFNon-fungible tokens (popularly known as NFTs) and blockchains are frequently promoted as the solution to a multitude of property ownership problems. The promise of an immutable blockchain is often touted as a mechanism to resolve disputes over intangible rights, notably intellectual property rights, and even to facilitate quicker and easier real estate transactions.In this Symposium Article, we question the use of distributed ledger technologies as a method of facilitating and verifying the transfer of physical assets. As our example of an existing transfer method, we use real property law, which is characterized by centuries-old common law rules regarding fractionalized ownership and local land records that still, in many jurisdictions, rely on paper. We explain the history of real property title protection and then identify the problems with the existing system. We then compare the extant system (and its problems) with what blockchain could offer, concluding that a blockchain system would provide few, if any, benefits.That said, we concede that tracking and transferring ownership of certain rights—specifically, purely intangible rights—is a long-standing legal problem that begs for resolution. We focus on ownership signals, and contrast ownership of physical assets—which is broadcast in part by manual possession in addition to, in the real estate realm, recording—and ownership of intangible assets, which cannot be possessed in a way that easily gives a signal to the entire world that the possessor is the owner. Because of that difference, we conclude that the true use case for NFTs and distributed ledgers is in tracking and verifying ownership of intangibles
Maternal exposure to SSRIs or SNRIs and the risk of congenital abnormalities in offspring: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Get PDFBackground
The association of maternal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) with the risk of system-specific congenital malformations in offspring remains unclear. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine this association and the risk difference between these two types of inhibitors.
Methods
A literature search was performed from January 2000 to May 2023 using PubMed and Web of Science databases. Cohort and case-control studies that assess the association of maternal exposure to SSRIs or SNRIs with the risk of congenital abnormalities were eligible for the study.
Results
Twenty-one cohort studies and seven case-control studies were included in the meta-analysis. Compared to non-exposure, maternal exposure to SNRIs is associated with a higher risk of congenital cardiovascular abnormalities (pooled OR: 1.64 with 95% CI: 1.36, 1.97), anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (pooled OR: 1.63 with 95% CI: 1.21, 2.20), malformations of nervous system (pooled OR: 2.28 with 95% CI: 1.50, 3.45), anomalies of digestive system (pooled OR: 2.05 with 95% CI: 1.60, 2.64) and abdominal birth defects (pooled OR: 2.91 with 95%CI: 1.98, 4.28), while maternal exposure to SSRIs is associated with a higher risk of congenital cardiovascular abnormalities (pooled OR: 1.25 with 95%CI: 1.20, 1.30), anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (pooled OR: 1.14 with 95%CI: 1.02, 1.27), anomalies of digestive system (pooled OR: 1.11 with 95%CI: 1.01, 1.21), abdominal birth defects (pooled OR: 1.33 with 95%CI: 1.16, 1.53) and musculoskeletal malformations (pooled OR: 1.44 with 95%CI: 1.32, 1.56).
Conclusions
SSRIs and SNRIs have various teratogenic risks. Clinicians must consider risk-benefit ratios and patient history when prescribing medicin
Copyright, Literally
No full textThe Copyright Act is a statute, but courts seldom treat it as one. Instead of relying on the precise language of the statute, courts often treat the Act as some general prohibition on plagiarism or copying writ large. This article argues for a different approach. It argues that courts should treat the Copyright Act like a statute and define a copyright owner\u27s exclusive rights according to the precise language by which Congress defined those rights. The results are startling. Treating the Copyright Act as a statute, courts should define the exclusive rights far more narrowly than they currently and generally are
The Futures of Law, Lawyers, and Law Schools: A Dialogue Authors
Get PDFOn April 19 and 20, 2023, Professors Bernard Hibbitts and Richard Weisberg convened a conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law titled “Disarmed, Distracted, Disconnected, and Distressed: Modern Legal Education and the Unmaking of American Lawyers.” Four speakers concluded the event with a spirited conversation about themes expressed during the proceedings. Distilling a lively two days, they asked: what are the most critical challenges now facing United States legal education and, by extension, lawyers and the communities they serve? Their agreements and disagreements were striking, so much so that Professors Hibbitts and Weisberg invited those four to extend their conversation in writing. The University of Pittsburgh Law Review graciously agreed to publish the result
Revisiting Touch and Concern: The Perils of Degraded Contracts versus the Perils of Opportunism
Get PDFThe touch and concern doctrine addresses a very particular problem: Successors, at best, weakly assent to the land use promises that their predecessors made when they take the property with notice that their predecessors intended to bind them. Thus, there is little reason to presume that the deal we may bind them to would be one that they would strike. Of course, whenever deals persist over time, it is possible that one or the other contracting party would no longer feel that the gains from the deal outweighed its costs, but the problem is more pronounced when the identity of the potentially bound party has shifted, not just the tastes or circumstances of the contracting party. Moreover, initial contractors receive compensation for the risk that tastes or circumstances change, so although there are good paternalistic reasons to protect them against unduly binding long-term contracts, and reasons to give room for long-term flexibility to renegotiate, we need not worry that the initial bound contractor will receive little or no compensation for bearing a burden.
Those who advocate relying solely on initial contractors to figure out when it is sensible to make their promises run presume that successors will be compensated by paying less for property to account for the burdens of taking on unwanted obligations. This optimistic view is unwarranted: the predecessor’s promises are bundled together with large numbers of land use planning promises and with the purchase of the property. It is unlikely that purchasers will adequately depress bids to account for the disutility of taking on each of the burdens.
If we looked only at the successors, we would probably just adopt a blanket rule that promises are terminated upon conveyance. But we need to protect the promisees as well: If they have made site-specific, non-fungible investments relying on the promisor and successors meeting the contractual obligations, they are subject to opportunistic exploitation if the contracts simply die upon conveyance. We try to balance these concerns in the first instance by determining whether the deal the predecessor and promisee struck was one that the successor would likely undo rather than redo. Promises that touch and concern the land in this preliminary sense are ones that are location-specific (the benefits to the promisee are particularly high or the costs of compliance for the promisor are atypically low because the promisor occupies a particular parcel). If this is true, the fact that the predecessor and successor are different people, with presumably heterogeneous preferences, may be outweighed by the objective factors that would tend to make their preferences converge: each inhabits a parcel whose features make the contract atypically sensible.
This preliminary account of the best version of the doctrine is incomplete: It may bind too many successors. A promise may be somewhat location-specific, but distinctions in preferences may swamp the preference-homogenizing effects of locational specificity. It may also bind too few successors. If the promise is location-specific from the promisee’s vantage—benefits from fulfilling the promise are greater because of the promisor’s location—and the promisee made location-specific investments premised on the reasonable belief that successors would be bound, then the successor ought to be bound even though we are by no means confident she would have made the deal she is being asked to observe. But we ought to be alert to the possibility that the promisee indeed has reasonable substitute contracting partners and will not be held up by a uniquely situated parcel owner.
Each of the proposals I offer to affirm a functional version of touch and concern contradicts the positions taken in the Third Restatement, which, in my view, utterly misunderstands the role the doctrine plays
Until the Cows Come Home: Ancillary Probate Reform is Needed Across the Country to Better Serve Farmers and Ranchers
Get PDFProperty law has long established a difference between real and personal property. When an individual dies, if they owned real property in another state, they may be subject to the other state’s probate or estates code. This means that the decedent’s beneficiaries may have to probate the estate again in the secondary state’s courts if the statutes state that is a requirement. This secondary probate proceeding is called ancillary probate. This Article aims to show the negative effects that ancillary probate has on certain people and industries. Specifically, ancillary probate is a problem that negatively affects farmers and ranchers across the nation due to increased costs and time, problems with estate planning, and the effects it has on the individual needs of families. Because farming and ranching is a vital industry to the survival of the United States, reform is needed to increase uniformity across state codes. This Article demonstrates why uniformity will better serve those who farm and ranch when they own land in another state at the time of death. The original contribution to scholarship is showing how the effects of ancillary probate affect farmers and ranchers and proposing that states should adopt an estates code that mimics the Texas Estates Code. This Article urges states to not only adopt a code provision that better serves the farming and ranching industry but to adopt a provision that mimics Texas Estate Code sections. This Article shows why ancillary probate is an increasing problem for farmers and ranchers while also showing why this group is important to the country. It displays the importance of this group of people and why measures should be taken to protect their ability to be on the land and to farm. Lastly, this Article aims to encourage states to adopt a new provision by showing the negative effects that the current system has on this industry by highlighting necessities that are the product of this industry
How Far Does Natural Law Protect Private Property?
Get PDFThis Article first explores the ambiguous relationship between natural law and the rights of property owners in American history. It points out that invocation of natural law principles was frequently conflated with English common law guarantees of property rights in the Revolutionary Era. Reliance on natural law as a source of protection for private property faded during the nineteenth century and was largely rejected in the early twentieth century.
The Article then considers the extent to which natural law principles are useful in addressing contemporary issues relating to eminent domain and police power regulation of private property. Taking a skeptical review, it concludes that natural law, standing alone, is largely theoretical and does not appear to offer meaningful guidance to current problems
Business Organizations as Natural Objects of Ownership
Get PDFGiven the importance of “property rights” in American law and cul- ture, academic and judicial disagreement over the content of the con- cept is a problem. Professor Eric Claeys makes considerable progress toward resolving this problem in his forthcoming book, Natural Prop- erty Rights. Using John Locke’s labor theory of property, the treatise identifies intelligible limits to the kinds of objects that qualify as prop- erty and provides guidance on how legal rights should operate for a given category of objects. It also identifies several examples of American law that already follow a Lockean framework. The chapters Designing Property Rights and Dividing Property Rights pull examples from cases discussing rights in animals, land, and water. This Article is the first to use Claeys’s natural property rights approach to explain the law of busi- ness organizations
(A)Woke Workplaces
Get PDFWith heightened expectations for a reckoning in response to the broad support for the Black Lives Matter movement after the senseless murder of George Floyd in 2020, employers explored many options to improve racial understanding through discussions with workers. In rejecting any notions of the existence of structural or systemic discrimination, let alone the need to address the consequences of such discrimination, certain groups have begun to oppose BLM by seeking to diminish any social justice actions. One of those key resistance efforts includes labelling in pejorative terms any employers that pursue anti-racism objectives via social justice statements or internal initiatives as being “woke” workplaces. These groups have also criticized employers who adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion training to help workers address racial differences by arguing these sessions apply divisive Critical Race Theory principles that discriminate against and seek to stigmatize white participants. By using CRT and woke labels as weapons, critics leave employers in the unenviable position of determining how to implement anti-racism trainings in an environment of BLM reforms and race discrimination concerns. These all-encompassing anti-anti-racism narratives now force employers to show how their DEI trainings and related initiatives do not discriminate against white employees