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Court Decisions (court + decision)
Kinds of Court Decisions Selected AbstractsThe Implications of ADA Litigation for Employers: A Review of Federal Appellate Court DecisionsHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2001Barbara A. Lee Analysis of litigation outcomes indicates that most plaintiffs who sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act are unsuccessful. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforcement data and six years of federal appellate court decisions were reviewed, as well as recent rulings of the United States Supreme Court. The courts are interpreting the ADA very narrowly, and very few plaintiffs prevail. The results of this research suggest that if employers engage in an individualized assessment of whether an individual is protected by the law and whether the requested accommodation is reasonable, legal liability will be minimized. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] The Public Response to Controversial Supreme Court Decisions: The Insular CasesJOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY, Issue 3 2005BARTHOLOMEW H. SPARROW In the Insular Cases, the Supreme Court established a new category of areas and persons coming under the sovereignty of the United States. Added to (1) the member states of the Union and (2) the existing territories (and states to be), was (3) territory "belonging to" the United States, but not a part of it. Justice Edward White proposed this doctrine,that territories were of two types, "incorporated" territories, those fit to be states, and non-incorporated territories, to be the property of the United States,in his concurring opinion in Downes v. Bidwell.1 Congress could govern these latter territories as it wished, subject to "fundamental" protections under the Constitution, those protecting individual liberties rather than those granting political participation. [source] The Relative (Un)Importance of Rehnquist Court DecisionsPOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 5 2010ROBERT ROBINSON The Rehnquist Court took conservative positions more often than its immediate predecessors. Less clear, however, is the degree to which its decisions actually impacted the legal framework. Given studies that suggest that ideological heterogeneity within Supreme Court majority coalitions and systematic trends of "institutional thickening" hinder the creation of legally important decisions, I hypothesize that the decisions of the Rehnquist Court should be less legally important relative to prior courts, and should create more important liberal legal decisions than expected. Employing measures of legal importance developed through the network analysis of Supreme Court precedent, I find that Rehnquist Court decisions are less legally important than decisions from prior eras. Furthermore, I find that in the most salient legal subject areas, the Rehnquist Court's liberal and conservative decisions are of roughly equal importance. Given these findings, the Rehnquist Court's ideological impact on precedent is more modest than its critics charge. La Corte de Rehnquist tomó posiciones conservadoras más a menudo que sus predecesores inmediatos. Sin embargo, el grado en el que sus decisiones en realidad impactaron el marco legal es menos claro. Determinados estudios que sugieren que la heterogeneidad ideológica dentro de las coaliciones de mayoría de la Suprema Corte y las tendencias sistemáticas de "robustecimiento institucional" dificultan la formulación de decisiones legalmente importantes, planteo que las decisiones de la Corte de Rehnquist serán legalmente menos importantes en comparación con cortes previas, y formularán decisiones legales liberales más importantes de lo esperado. Utilizando medidas de la importancia legal desarrolladas a través del análisis de red de los precedentes de la Suprema Corte, descubro que las decisiones de la Corte de Rehnquist son legalmente menos importantes que las decisiones de las eras previas. Además, encuentro que en las áreas legales más importantes, las decisiones liberales y conservadoras de la Corte de Rehnquist son aproximadamente de una importancia similar. Dado estos hallazgos, el impacto ideológico de la Corte de Rehnquist sobre precedente es mucho más modesto de lo que sus críticos la acusan. [source] So mechanical or routine: The not original in FeistJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 4 2010Julian Warner The United States Supreme Court case of 1991, Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Service Co., continues to be highly significant for property in data and databases, but remains poorly understood. The approach taken in this article contrasts with previous studies. It focuses upon the "not original" rather than the original. The delineation of the absence of a modicum of creativity in selection, coordination, and arrangement of data as a component of the not original forms a pivotal point in the Supreme Court decision. The author also aims at elucidation rather than critique, using close textual exegesis of the Supreme Court decision. The results of the exegesis are translated into a more formal logical form to enhance clarity and rigor. The insufficiently creative is initially characterized as "so mechanical or routine." Mechanical and routine are understood in their ordinary discourse senses, as a conjunction or as connected by AND, and as the central clause. Subsequent clauses amplify the senses of mechanical and routine without disturbing their conjunction. The delineation of the absence of a modicum of creativity can be correlated with classic conceptions of computability. The insufficiently creative can then be understood as a routine selection, coordination, or arrangement produced by an automatic mechanical procedure or algorithm. An understanding of a modicum of creativity and of copyright law is also indicated. The value of the exegesis and interpretation is identified as its final simplicity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and potential practical utility. [source] A ,sea change' for collective bargaining as the U.S. Supreme Court permits unions to agree to arbitration for discrimination claimsALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, Issue 5 2009Christopher Walsh Last month's U.S. Supreme Court decision in 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett may signal a big change in the skills needed by labor arbitrators, according to Christopher Walsh, of Newark, N.J. He analyzes the case and tells readers what to expect as a result of Justice Clarence Thomas's majority opinion. [source] Sexual Orientation Discrimination and Its Challenges for Nonprofit ManagersNONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, Issue 1 2000Dennis W. Hostetler In the wake of the recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision, Dale v. Boy Scouts of America and Monmouth Council Boy Scouts (1999), this article examines the issue of sexual orientation discrimination and the challenges it presents nonprofit managers. Because of regional shifts in public opinion, the enactment of nondiscrimination laws at the state and local level, and now a state Supreme Court interpreting state law to include the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) as a "public accommodation," nonprofit managers may face a more complex legal and moral environment. It is hoped that this article will challenge nonprofit managers to carefully reexamine their membership and personnel policies with respect to lesbians and gay men and begin preparing their organizations for this cultural change. [source] No "Rip Van Winkles" Here: Amish Education Since Wisconsin v. YoderANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2006David L. McConnell This study examines the educational implications of the shift in economic livelihood in a Ohio Amish community since a landmark 1972 Supreme Court decision paved the way for control of their schools. The clash between tradition and economic pragmatism, and their multiple interpretations, has led to diverse educational pathways, including public schools, charter schools, homeschooling, GED programs, and vocational courses. The diverse ways in which the Amish continue to renegotiate social boundaries with their English neighbors suggests the need for more attention to internal diversity in the anthropological study of schooling in so called "folk societies." [source] THE APPRENDI-BLAKELY CASES: SENTENCING REFORM COUNTER REVOLUTION?CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 3 2007RICHARD S. FRASE Recent Supreme Court decisions have extended jury trial rights and beyond-reasonable-doubt proof standards to certain sentence-enhancement facts. The first two cases, Apprendi v. New Jersey and Ring v. Arizona, were narrow in scope and relatively uncontroversial. But Blakely v. Washington marked a substantial expansion of the rationale and scope of Apprendi, and threatened to invalidate entire sentencing reform systems, both legally-binding guidelines of the type at issue in Blakely and it's sequel, Booker v. United States, and statutory determinate sentence systems like the one invalidated in Cunningham v. California. Each of these decisions has potential effects not only on sentencing severity and disparity in the cases controlled by that decision, but also on prosecutorial, legislative, and sentencing commission measures designed to comply with the decision, avoid it, and/or mitigate its impact. Field resistance and avoidance measures are likely to be stronger in jurisdictions where the existing sentencing system enjoyed broad support; in such jurisdictions, resistance may be particularly strong to the more controversial Blakely ruling. Impact assessments must therefore carefully distinguish the separate impacts of Apprendi and Blakely in each jurisdiction being studied, and the extent of support for the existing sentencing system. Such assessments should also examine pre-existing trends and other independent sources of change; leadership by sentencing commissions or other officials in crafting responsive measures; structural and other features of the sentencing system which render compliance more or less difficult; and second-stage effects, on sentencing, prosecutorial, or sentencing policy decisions, that reflect the prior compliance, avoidance, and mitigation measures adopted in that jurisdiction. The greatest long-term effects may be on prosecutorial, legislative, and commission decisions, rather than on sentencing outcomes. [source] Duly Authorized Officers' practices under mental health law in New Zealand: Are nurses meeting the requirements of the law?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MENTAL HEALTH NURSING, Issue 4 2009Brian McKenna ABSTRACT The Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act (1992) introduced a number of statutory roles that are undertaken by mental health nurses. One of these roles is that of Duly Authorized Officer (DAO). The DAO is responsible for the procedural requirements necessary to facilitate compulsory assessment. Under Section 9(2)(d), the DAO is required to ensure that the purpose of the assessment and the requirements of the notice of assessment are explained to the person in the presence of a member of their family, a caregiver, or other person concerned with the welfare of the person. Three recent High Court decisions under the Habeas Corpus Act 2001 have challenged existing DAO practices in arranging the presence of a third party. This paper presents research, which focuses on unravelling some of the complexities associated with meeting this procedural requirement. It illustrates these complexities through a discussion of the results of an audit of files and three focus groups with mental health nurses who practise as DAO. The paper concludes that national guidelines for practice need to be developed for DAO to assist mental health nurses in meeting this statutory requirement. [source] The Clerk, the Thief, His Life as a Baker: Ashton Embry and the Supreme Court Leak ScandalJOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY, Issue 1 2002John B. Owens On December 16, 1919, Ashton Fox Embry, law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Joseph McKenna, abruptly resigned from the position he had held for almost nine years. His explanation? His fledgling bakery business required his undivided attention. Newspapers that morning hinted at a different reason: Embry resigned because he had conspired with at least three individuals to use inside knowledge of upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decisions to profit on Wall Street.2 A grand jury returned an indictment against Embry and his associates a few months later, and Embry's argument that he had committed no crime ultimately reached the Supreme Court, the very institution he was accused of betraying. Despite the sensational headlines and fierce legal battle arising from his indictment, the United States Attorney quietly dismissed Embry's case in 1929, almost ten years after the story had broken. Few Court scholars have ever heard of Embry, and the memory of Embry, much like the case against him, has disappeared with time.3 This article unravels the "Supreme Court Leak Case" by reconstructing what happened almost eighty years ago. [source] Fragmentation of Power and the Emergence of an Effective Judiciary in Mexico, 1994,2002LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2007Julio Ríos-Figueroa ABSTRACT Legal reforms that make judges independent from political pressures and empower them with judicial review do not make an effective judiciary. Something has to fill the gap between institutional design and effectiveness. When the executive and legislative powers react to an objectionable judicial decision, the judiciary may be weak and deferential; but coordination difficulties between the elected branches can loosen the constraints on courts. This article argues that the fragmentation of political power can enable a judiciary to rule against power holders' interests without being systematically challenged or ignored. This argument is tested with an analysis of the Mexican Supreme Court decisions against the PRI on constitutional cases from 1994 to 2002. The probability of the court's voting against the PRI increased as the PRI lost the majority in the Chamber of Deputies in 1997 and the presidency in 2000. [source] Sanctity of life , are some lives more sacred than others?LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2002Sabine Michalowski Court decisions concerning the life and death of patients become more and more frequent in the context of medical practice. One of the most controversial decisions in this area in recent years has been the decision of the Court of Appeal in Re A (Conjoined Twins: Medical Treatment),, authorising the separation of conjoined twins. This paper will argue that the decision was flawed both on legal and moral grounds and that its potential implications for future cases are more far-reaching than the judgment itself suggests. [source] The Relative (Un)Importance of Rehnquist Court DecisionsPOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 5 2010ROBERT ROBINSON The Rehnquist Court took conservative positions more often than its immediate predecessors. Less clear, however, is the degree to which its decisions actually impacted the legal framework. Given studies that suggest that ideological heterogeneity within Supreme Court majority coalitions and systematic trends of "institutional thickening" hinder the creation of legally important decisions, I hypothesize that the decisions of the Rehnquist Court should be less legally important relative to prior courts, and should create more important liberal legal decisions than expected. Employing measures of legal importance developed through the network analysis of Supreme Court precedent, I find that Rehnquist Court decisions are less legally important than decisions from prior eras. Furthermore, I find that in the most salient legal subject areas, the Rehnquist Court's liberal and conservative decisions are of roughly equal importance. Given these findings, the Rehnquist Court's ideological impact on precedent is more modest than its critics charge. La Corte de Rehnquist tomó posiciones conservadoras más a menudo que sus predecesores inmediatos. Sin embargo, el grado en el que sus decisiones en realidad impactaron el marco legal es menos claro. Determinados estudios que sugieren que la heterogeneidad ideológica dentro de las coaliciones de mayoría de la Suprema Corte y las tendencias sistemáticas de "robustecimiento institucional" dificultan la formulación de decisiones legalmente importantes, planteo que las decisiones de la Corte de Rehnquist serán legalmente menos importantes en comparación con cortes previas, y formularán decisiones legales liberales más importantes de lo esperado. Utilizando medidas de la importancia legal desarrolladas a través del análisis de red de los precedentes de la Suprema Corte, descubro que las decisiones de la Corte de Rehnquist son legalmente menos importantes que las decisiones de las eras previas. Además, encuentro que en las áreas legales más importantes, las decisiones liberales y conservadoras de la Corte de Rehnquist son aproximadamente de una importancia similar. Dado estos hallazgos, el impacto ideológico de la Corte de Rehnquist sobre precedente es mucho más modesto de lo que sus críticos la acusan. [source] "An Informal and Limited Alliance": The President and the Supreme CourtPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2008BRETT W. CURRY Presidential influence transcends some of the barriers imposed by the separation of powers to influence decision making by the Supreme Court. Specifically, we test Robert Scigliano's proposition that an informal and limited alliance exists between the president and the Court. The analysis utilizes Supreme Court decisions on civil rights and civil liberties cases from 1953 to 2000 to assess the effects of the presidency, Congress, judicial policy preferences, and legal factors on the Court. The findings demonstrate that presidential ideology influences Court decisions, while the effects of Congress are more conditional and limited. The results provide support for Scigliano's notion of an informal alliance. [source] Supreme Court Litigants and Strategic FramingAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2010Justin Wedeking Although litigants invest a huge amount of resources in crafting legal briefs for submission to the Supreme Court, few studies examine whether and how briefs influence Court decisions. This article asks whether legal participants are strategic when deciding how to frame a case brief and whether such frames influence the likelihood of receiving a favorable outcome. To explore these questions, a theory of strategic framing is developed and litigants' basic framing strategies are hypothesized based on Riker's theory of rhetoric and heresthetic as well as the strategic approach to judicial politics. Using 110 salient cases from the 1979,89 terms, I propose and develop a measure of a typology of issue frames and provide empirical evidence that supports a strategic account of how parties frame cases. [source] IMPROVING THE ENFORCEMENT OF RESTRAINING ORDERS AFTER CASTLE ROCK V. GONZALES*FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 2 2007Mandeep Talwar After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Castle Rock, reliance on domestic violence restraining orders does not offer the solution in and of itself. Our legal system needs to provide greater protection for victims of domestic violence. This note explores ways to use risk assessment tools to augment restraining orders, in addition to examining integrated domestic violence courts that take a proactive approach to aiding victims of abuse. [source] REAL OPTIONS AND PATENT DAMAGES: THE LEGAL TREATMENT OF NON-INFRINGING ALTERNATIVES, AND INCENTIVES TO INNOVATEJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 4 2006Jerry Hausman Abstract Patent litigation has become an increasingly important consideration in business strategy. Damage awards in patent litigation are supposed to compensate the patent owner for economic harm created by infringement and are therefore important for protecting returns to innovation. We analyze the effects that a recent court decision in the United States, called Grain Processing, has had on the incentives of potential infringers to infringe and innovators to innovate. We find that Grain Processing has decreased the expected value of damages awards in patent cases by conferring a ,free option' on infringers. Grain Processing also concluded that the patent owner in the case did not suffer lost profits due to the infringement because the infringer would have adopted an (inferior) non-infringing technology had it not infringed. We demonstrate that this conclusion is inconsistent with standard economic models. [source] Rules of proof, courts, and incentivesTHE RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2008Dominique Demougin We analyze the design of legal principles and procedures for court decision making in civil litigation. The objective is the provision of incentives for potential tort-feasors to exert care when evidence is imperfect and may be distorted by the parties. Efficiency is consistent with courts adjudicating on the basis of the preponderance of evidence standard together with common law exclusionary rules. Inefficient equilibria may nevertheless also arise under these rules. Burden of proof guidelines are then useful as a coordination device. Alternatively, guidelines are unnecessary if courts are allowed a more active or inquisitorial role in contrast to that of passive adjudicator. [source] BUSINESS METHOD PATENTS AND U.S. FINANCIAL SERVICESCONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 3 2010ROBERT M. HUNT A decade after the State Street decision, more than 1,000 business method patents are granted each year. Yet, only 1 in 10 is obtained by a financial institution. Most business method patents are also software patents. Have these patents increased innovation in financial services? To address this question, we construct new indicators of research and development intensity based on the occupational composition of financial industries. The financial sector appears more research intensive than official statistics would suggest but less than the private economy taken as a whole. There is considerable variation across industries but little apparent trend. There does not appear to be an obvious effect from business method patents on the sector's research intensity. Looking ahead, three factors suggest that the patent system may affect financial services as it has electronics: (1) the sector's heavy reliance on information technology, (2) the importance of standard setting, and (3) the strong network effects exhibited in many areas of finance. Even today litigation is not uncommon; we sketch a number of significant examples affecting financial exchanges and consumer payments. The legal environment is changing quickly. We review a number of important federal court decisions that will affect how business method patents are obtained and enforced. We also review a number of proposals under consideration in the U.S. Congress. (JEL O31, O34, G20) [source] A LAWYER FOR EVERY CHILD: CLIENT-DIRECTED REPRESENTATION IN DEPENDENCY CASESFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 4 2009LaShanda Taylor The article begins with a due process analysis concluding that children are legally entitled to counsel and continues by presenting examples of federal and state legislation, court decisions, and public policy arguments that support this right. The article then goes a step further to advocate for a traditional, client-directed model of representation, which empowers children and leads to better judicial decision making. Finally, the article discusses the impact of high caseloads and lack of training on attorney performance. This article serves as an important addition to the academic literature examining the need for and role of the child's attorney in dependency proceedings. [source] A SHORT COMMENTARY ON TIMOTHY M. TIPPINS AND JEFFREY P. WITTMANN'S "EMPIRICAL AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS WITH CUSTODY RECOMMENDATIONSFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 2 2005A Call for Clinical Humility, Judicial Vigilance" In this commentary, the call for clinical humility and judicial vigilance in custody recommendations is confirmed as valid and the Australian experience, where the child custody report writer has for some years been permitted to express an opinion on the ultimate issue, is considered. The inherent risks are briefly discussed, and the question of who of the judge and the social scientist might be better placed to decide the exquisitely difficult children's issues after family breakdown is touched upon. It suggests that a combination of the expert's opinion and judicial fact finding probably produces a result that is as good as it gets. But a greater danger is highlighted. It is the impact of the adversary system, and whether it is suitable in any event to these sensitive court decisions. [source] The Implications of ADA Litigation for Employers: A Review of Federal Appellate Court DecisionsHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2001Barbara A. Lee Analysis of litigation outcomes indicates that most plaintiffs who sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act are unsuccessful. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforcement data and six years of federal appellate court decisions were reviewed, as well as recent rulings of the United States Supreme Court. The courts are interpreting the ADA very narrowly, and very few plaintiffs prevail. The results of this research suggest that if employers engage in an individualized assessment of whether an individual is protected by the law and whether the requested accommodation is reasonable, legal liability will be minimized. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] Private Enforcement of Corporate Law: An Empirical Comparison of the United Kingdom and the United StatesJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2009John Armour It is often assumed that strong securities markets require good legal protection of minority shareholders. This implies both "good" law,principally, corporate and securities law,and enforcement, yet there has been little empirical analysis of enforcement. We study private enforcement of corporate law in two common-law jurisdictions with highly developed stock markets, the United Kingdom and the United States, examining how often directors of publicly traded companies are sued, and the nature and outcomes of those suits. We find, based a comprehensive search for filings over 2004,2006, that lawsuits against directors of public companies alleging breach of duty are nearly nonexistent in the United Kingdom. The United States is more litigious, but we still find, based on a nationwide search of court decisions between 2000,2007, that only a small percentage of public companies face a lawsuit against directors alleging a breach of duty that is sufficiently contentious to result in a reported judicial opinion, and a substantial fraction of these cases are dismissed. We examine possible substitutes in the United Kingdom for formal private enforcement of corporate law and find some evidence of substitutes, especially for takeover litigation. Nonetheless, our results suggest that formal private enforcement of corporate law is less central to strong securities markets than might be anticipated. [source] Dissecting Damages: An Empirical Exploration of Sexual Harassment AwardsJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2006Catherine M. Sharkey My empirical study first replicates and then extends a prior preliminary empirical study by Cass Sunstein and Judy Shih of sexual harassment damages awards. It covers a comprehensive set of 232 cases in which plaintiffs won some positive amount of compensatory damages from state and federal, trial and appellate court decisions from 1982,2004 (published either in official reporters or solely on Westlaw). Contrary to Sunstein and Shih's finding, my analysis of these data reveals a consistent, and statistically significant, positive relationship between punitive and compensatory damages (at least in cases where punitive damages are awarded). My new empirical study then employs dependent variables that, in my view, are more theoretically and statistically sound than those employed by Sunstein and Shih and others who have focused exclusively on the relationship between punitive and compensatory damages: total combined damages (i.e., all compensatory and punitive damages), and what I term "outrage" damages, or combined noneconomic compensatory and punitive damages. My empirical results, using these new dependent variables, essentially confirm Sunstein and Shih's conclusions regarding the irrelevance of variables pertaining to the nature and severity of harassment. What my study reveals as crucial predictive factors, by contrast, are factors pertaining to damages limitations. My study highlights that these factors,including the effect of the 1991 Civil Rights Act, and whether plaintiffs append state civil rights and tort claims to their Title VII claims,are critical to a fuller understanding of damages determinations in sexual harassment cases. [source] Do "Off-Site" Adult Businesses Have Secondary Effects?LAW & POLICY, Issue 2 2009Empirical Evidence, Legal Doctrine, Social Theory Recent federal court decisions appear to limit the ability of cities to mitigate the ambient crime risks associated with adult entertainment businesses. In one instance, a court has assumed that criminological theories do not apply to "off-site" adult businesses. After developing the legal doctrine of secondary effects, we demonstrate that the prevailing criminological theory applies to all adult business models. To corroborate the theory, we report the results of a before/after quasi-experiment for an off-site adult business. When an off-site adult business opens, ambient crime risk doubles compared to a control area. As theory predicts, moreover, ambient victimization risk is most acute in night-time hours. The theoretical development and empirical results have obvious implications for the evolving legal doctrine of secondary effects. [source] The Privatization of Public Legal Rights: How Manufacturers Construct the Meaning of Consumer LawLAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 3 2009Shauhin A. Talesh This article demonstrates how the content and meaning of California's consumer protection laws were shaped by automobile manufacturers, the very group these laws were designed to regulate. My analysis draws on and links two literatures that examine the relationship between law and organizations but often overlook one another: political science studies of how businesses influence public legal institutions, and neo-institutional sociology studies of how organizations shape law within their organizational field. By integrating these literatures, I develop an "institutional-political" theory that demonstrates how organizations' construction of law and compliance within an organizational field shapes the meaning of law among legislators and judges. This study examines case law and more than 35 years of California legislative history concerning its consumer warranty laws. Using institutional and political analysis, I show how auto manufacturers, who were initially subject to powerful consumer protection laws, weakened the impact of these laws by creating dispute resolution venues. The legislature and courts subsequently incorporated private dispute resolution venues into statutes and court decisions and made consumer rights and remedies largely contingent on consumers first using manufacturer-sponsored venues. Organizational venue creation resulted in public legal rights being redefined and controlled by private organizations. [source] The judicial duty to give reasonsLEGAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2000H L Ho The desirability of having a general duty to give reasons for court decisions has been much debated in Commonwealth jurisdictions. In England, a series of recent cases has consistently upheld the duty, albeit with qualifications. The existence of this general duty is defensible in principle. However, exactly what is required to comply with the duty is not clear. The explanation the judge is expected to give may be analysed in terms of its structure, contents and standard. These aspects are dependent on many factors, such as the rationale underlying the duty, the limitations faced by the judicial system, the nature of the decision- making process, and the significance of the decision. While one can identify the major considerations that operate at a general level, the scope and extent of the duty to explain a particular decision are dependent on the circumstances of the case. This variability makes it difficult to be certain as to when a breach of the duty has occurred. The duty must meet the purposes for which it is imposed and at the same time must not be too unrealistic in its demands. [source] The President and Representative Bureaucracy: Rhetoric and RealityPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2 2000Katherine C. Naff Policy makers have long recognized the importance of achieving a representative federal bureaucracy, but the four most recent presidents have expressed divergent views about policies designed to achieve this goal. Meanwhile, there have been widespread perceptions among federal employees that the administrations' ideologies have had a direct impact on the opportunities of minorities, women, and white men for advancement. Using government-wide data from 1979 to 1996, this article examines whether such employment opportunities have varied in the manner suggested by these perceptions. We find little evidence of a correlation between the president's views on affirmative action and minority and female representation in the overall federal workforce. Moreover, the curtailment of promotion opportunities during the Reagan and Clinton administrations has affected all groups nearly equally. Potential presidential influence has been more notable in the representation of women and minorities in politically appointed and career senior executive jobs. We conclude that equal employment opportunity and affirmative action policies have remained basically intact during the 18-year period, but that recent court decisions, along with efforts to reduce the size of government, may slow progress toward achieving a representative bureaucracy. [source] Federal Repatriation Legislation and the Role of Physical Anthropology in RepatriationAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue S41 2005Stephen D. Ousley Abstract Two laws governing the disposition of Native American human remains in museums and institutions have had a profound impact on anthropology, and especially physical anthropology. In contrast to the perception of constant conflict between Native Americans and physical anthropologists, the repatriation process based on these laws has been in large part harmonious between institutions and Native peoples in the US. Despite misconceptions, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAPGRA; 25 United States Code (U.S.C.) 3001-3013) was not intended to halt further research on Native American remains in museums. In fact, court decisions have affirmed that the documentation of human remains produces information no other methods can provide, and provides necessary evidence to be incorporated and weighed, along with other evidence, in evaluating "cultural affiliation," the legal term for the required connection from federally recognized Native American groups to their ancestors. The wide variety of osteological data collected at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Smithsonian Institution, have proven indispensable when evaluating cultural affiliation, especially when other information sources are unhelpful or ambiguous, and provide an empirical basis for determining the ancestry of individuals whose remains will be discovered in the future. To date, the claim-driven process at the NMNH has resulted in the affiliation and repatriation of more Native American remains than any other institution in the country. Repatriation experiences at the NMNH demonstrate the changing relationships between museums and Native peoples, the continuing important contributions that physical anthropology makes to the repatriation process, and the importance of physical anthropology in understanding the recent and ancient history of North America. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 48:2,32, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Confirmation Politics and The Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court: Institutional Loyalty, Positivity Bias, and the Alito NominationAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2009James L. Gibson Gibson, Caldeira, and Spence (2003a, 2003b, 2005) expound the theory of positivity bias in their analysis of the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court in the aftermath of Bush v. Gore. This theory asserts that preexisting institutional loyalty shapes perceptions of and judgments about court decisions and events. In this article, we use the theory of positivity bias to investigate the preferences of Americans regarding the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. More specifically, from the theory of positivity bias, we derive the hypothesis that preferences on the Alito confirmation are shaped by anterior commitments to the Supreme Court. Based on an analysis of a national panel survey, we find that those who have a high level of loyalty toward the Supreme Court rely much more heavily on what we term judiciousness,in contrast to ideology, policy, and partisanship,in forming their opinions on whether to confirm Alito. Thus, institutional loyalty provides a decisive frame through which Americans view the activity of their Supreme Court. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||