Preview of the Late March 2022 Supreme Court Arguments
March 28 Southwest Airlines, Co. v. Saxon 21-309, 7th Cir. Preview by Erica Hackett, Online Editor The issue in Southwest Airlines, Co. v. Saxon is whether airline baggage ramp supervisors are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Agreement (FAA). The FAA requires that courts enforce arbitration agreements, however it exempts “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad... Read More
Copyright’s Legal Mistake
March 22, 2022 Unicolors, Inc v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, LP, 142 S. Ct. 941 (2022) (Breyer, J.) Response by Jasper L. Tran† Geo. Wash. L. Rev. On the Docket (Oct. Term 2021) Slip Opinion | SCOTUSblog Copyright’s Legal Mistake Not every Supreme Court case is monumental.1 While some have certainly changed the law in drastic ways,2... Read More
Preview of the March 2022 Supreme Court Arguments
March 21 Berger v. North Carolina State Conf. of NAACP 21-248, 4th Cir. Preview by Erica Hackett, Online Editor The issue in this case is whether the President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina State Senate and the Speaker of the State House may intervene in litigation regarding a North Carolina voter ID law. Petitioners... Read More
Course-Correcting the Jones Act: A Solution for the Unintended Costs of a Maritime “Buy American” Law
Joshua Keyser 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 270 The Jones Act, which mandates that coastwise trade between points in the United States be conducted by U.S.-built and flagged vessels, is a controversial piece of legislation. The century-old Act reserves the construction, crewing, and operation of all vessels engaged in domestic oceangoing shipping for American nationals... Read More
‘Cornerstone Upon Which Rest All Others’: Utilizing Canons of Statutory Interpretation to Confirm an Enforceable Trust Duty for Native American Health Care
Brayden Jack Parker 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 237 In 1976, the federal government passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (“IHCIA”) in furtherance of its special trust responsibility owed to Native Americans. Through the IHCIA, Congress created the Indian Health Service, which provides health care to five million members of federally recognized tribes. In... Read More
Regional Cooperative Federalism and the U.S. Electric Grid
Hannah J. Wiseman 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 147 The U.S. Constitution makes no direct mention of regional governing entities, yet they are an entrenched part of our federalist system. In the area of electric grid governance, the federal government enlists independent, private entities called regional transmission organizations (“RTOs”) to implement federal policy and achieve... Read More
Contracts in the Age of Smart Readers
Yonathan A. Arbel & Shmuel I. Becher 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 83 What does it mean to have machines that can read, explain, and evaluate contracts? Recent advances in machine learning have led to a fundamental breakthrough in machine language models, portending a profound shift in the ability of machines to process text. Such... Read More
Identity-Conscious Administrative Law: Lessons from Financial Regulators
Brian D. Feinstein 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1 Administrative law’s conventional mechanisms for bolstering democratic accountability are under strain. Open-access procedures like notice-and-comment rulemaking promise to inject a dose of popular responsiveness into agency decision-making. Well-resourced groups’ outsized use of these measures, however, causes that promise to remain unfulfilled. Likewise, assertions that the White... Read More
Amending the Endangered Species Act: Wildlife Protection in a Post-Tiger King Society
Jonathan Peloquin · February 2022 90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. Arguendo 1 Roadside zoos—such as the one in Netflix’s Tiger King documentary—present pressing issues concerning mistreatment of animals and the lack of meaningful federal regulation or oversight for captive animal care. These problems largely stem from the fact that the only federal statute designed to... Read More
Preview of the February 2022 Supreme Court Arguments
February 22 Denezpi v. United States No. 20-7622, 10th Cir. Preview by Reid Ostrom, Online Editor The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall “be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” U.S. Const. amend. V. In general, the dual sovereignty doctrine... Read More