There are two kinds of restrictions upon human liberty — the restraint of law and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by public opinion.
Carrie Chapman Catt, in a speech at Senate hearing on Woman’s suffrage
Every Thursday, we ask you questions. Sometimes we need help with a reference question. Sometimes we need better heads than ours to interpret odd facts that pile up, like dustbunnies, in the corners of the LII. Sometimes we need an alibi. Or bail.
Today, though, it’s an easy one — we want to get to know you better. We really don’t know much about the people who use our site, and we don’t know much about who is reading or subscribing to this blog. So…. we hope you’ll use the comments to tell us your story. Why are you here? How often do you come to the LII site? What’s your favorite collection? Do you have professional or personal reasons to visit us? What are they?
We didn’t hear from many of you last week. We know you’re out there. We can hear you breathing. Tell us a story.
To set aside; to void. As in “to quash a motion,”
or “quash evidence.” See, e.g. Arizona v. Evans, 514 US 1 (1995).
The District of Columbia bans possession of handguns, and bans anyone from carrying a handgun or other deadly or dangerous weapon without a license within its borders (the “Gun Banâ€). It also requires that any firearms which may be kept within the District, such as rifles, be kept either disassembled or with a trigger lock. These are some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. In 2003, Mr. Heller filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia claiming that these laws violate his Second Amendment right to “keep and bear Arms.” The District Court found that the Second Amendment does not give an individual a right to gun ownership except where the individual is a member of an organized militia, but the Court of Appeals reversed the decision. It found that handguns are lineal descendents of the pistols in use at the time of the American Revolution, and held, therefore, that the Gun Ban is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on March 18th.
The Supreme Court has not taken a Second Amendment case since 1939, and has never decided whether the Second Amendment confers a right to bear arms upon individuals or only upon the militias it refers to in its opening clause. In the intervening 69 years, the federal and state governments have passed many laws regulating and restricting the ownership and use of guns. Should the Supreme Court uphold the D.C. Circuit’s invalidation of the Gun Ban, it could have a substantial impact on these gun laws and will almost certainly lead to more litigation as gun rights advocates challenge those laws as violating the Second Amendment. If the Court finds that the Gun Ban is constitutional, it will strengthen the ability of government to regulate gun ownership, and may result in more restrictive gun laws across the country.
The full analysis, including a comprehensive set of links to briefs on both sides of the argument, is here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/07-290.html
The timorous may stay at home.
Benjamin Cardozo, Murphy v. Steeplechase Amusement Co., 250 NY 479 .
Frequently used at the LII when deploying new software or hardware. (A recent assumption of risk case is here.)
Like everything else about web statistics, it’s hard to be sure what our users’ browsers are telling us about the languages they speak. But by any measure the LII is a polyglot place. LII users’ Accept-Language headers show them using 73 different languages.
English is in first place by a long shot (in both US and UK flavours flavors), followed by French, German, Spanish, two variants of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Polish, and Dutch. Slovenian is tied with several others for last place.
Sites linking to the LII are also linguistically diverse — 32,100 in French, 800 in Chinese, 517 in Arabic, and 220 in Vietnamese.
Our friends and colleagues here at Cornell have just announced publication of these working papers in Cornell’s Research Papers Series at SSRN :
The Anti-Network: Global Private Law, Legal Knowledge, and the Legitimacy of the State
American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2008, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-025
Annelise Riles *
Plaintiphobia in State Courts? An Empirical Study of State Court Trials on Appeal
Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-006
Theodore Eisenberg * and Michael Heise *
Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution
Bernadette A. Meyler *
The State Attorney General and Preemption
PREEMPTION CHOICE: THE THEORY, LAW, AND REALITY OF FEDERALISM’S CORE QUESTION, William Buzbee, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2008, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-001
Trevor W. Morrison *
Reversal, Dissent, and Variability in State Supreme Courts: The Centrality of Jurisdictional Source
NYU School of Law, Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper No. 08-01, NYU School of Law, Law and Economics Research Paper No. 08-01, Cornell Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series
Theodore Eisenberg * and Geoffrey P. Miller *
Questions are in regular supply here at the LII. And we have a lot of smart people in our audience, so we thought we’d see if we could get your help in answering a few of them.
So….every Thursday we’re going to throw a few out and see what you have to say about them. Sometimes they’ll be straightforward reference-desk stuff. Sometimes they’ll be quirks and oddities of life in the legal infosphere that we’re trying to explain. Sometimes neither you nor we will be able to imagine why we’re asking.
Good answers will get a tip of the hat from us the next week (and in any case will be on display in the comments).
Here are three to get you started. Answers can be submitted as comments.
1) What are your five favorite web pages for legal-research novices (how-tos, not information resources per se)?
2) Can you think of a reason why, on February 8, the New York State Thruway Authority would have had a sudden need to do research in the US Code? A lot of research?
3) Are government works in Argentina protected by copyright?
Yeah, I know, it’s not exactly the Car Talk Puzzler. But then, we’re not exactly Click ‘n’ Clack, either….
Potential plaintiffs sometimes take the risk of injury onto themselves and absolve potential defendants from any liability. Formerly, this was an affirmative defense available to defendants, but has since been subsumed by contributory and comparative negligence in most jurisdictions. see, e.g. Justice Ginsburg’s dissent in Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512 US 415 (1994).
On February 26, the Supreme Court hears arguments in Allison Engine Co. v. United States.
In 1985, the U.S. Navy contracted with two shipyards for the production of a new fleet of destroyers. Each destroyer required an electrical generator set to provide electricity. Several companies became involved in the project to build the generator sets. None of these companies billed the federal government, but rather billed the company directly above them in the chain of production. The company directly above them did not include these bills when submitting for payment from the government. This case began when two whistleblowers sued their former employer and other government subcontractors under the False Claims Act. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio dismissed their claim after holding that no FCA violation could occur without evidence that the federal government actually relied on a fraudulent bill. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the case should continue because the False Claims Act does not categorically require proof that the fraudulent bill was actually presented to the federal government. The ultimate decision by the Supreme Court could have important economic consequences for taxpayers, government contractors, and any party who seeks to file suit under the False Claims Act. Continues…
On Thursday, February 27, the Supreme Court hears arguments in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, a case at the intersection of maritime law, environmental regulation, and tort law.
In 1989 the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, off the Alaska coast, spilling millions of gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. In the years following the spill, Exxon would pay millions of dollars in private claims and over a billion dollars to settle government suits under environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act (“CWAâ€). An additional class action suit by private parties sought compensatory damages for economic harm, as well as punitive damages (a civil penalty for particularly egregious conduct). In the final suit, an Alaska district court awarded roughly $20 million in compensatory damages against Exxon—and $5 billion in punitive damages. The Ninth Circuit eventually reduced the punitive damages award to $2.5 billion but upheld the decision to award such damages. Exxon now asks the United States Supreme Court to strike down the award of punitive damages or reduce its amount. In addressing Exxon’s petition, the Court must set maritime law standards for punitive damage awards against a ship’s owner for acts of the ship’s master. The Court will also consider whether Congress meant penalties under the CWA to be the full punishment for a spill, excluding punitive damages under maritime law. Continues…
