Probate and Domestic Relations Proceedings

2021 ◽  
pp. 61-72
Author(s):  
James E. Pfander
Keyword(s):  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Law ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Domestic Relations

This chapter examines the role of uncontested adjudication in probate and domestic relations proceedings. While state courts commonly issued constitutive decrees to recognize or create new legal relationships in these settings (to admit wills to probate or to confirm adoption of children), federal courts declined to hear uncontested proceedings to register or claim a right or title in these contexts. The federal courts lacked power to entertain uncontested applications for the issuance of constitutive decrees as to matters of state law. Such a finding lays the foundation for distinguishing between cases under federal law and controversies over state law, and helps explain the federal judicial reluctance to assert jurisdiction over matters of probate and domestic relations.

scholarly journals Degrees of Deference: Applying vs. Adopting Another Sovereign's Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Clermont
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Law ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Local Rule ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Status ◽  
Local Courts ◽  
Voluntary Adoption

103 Cornell L. Rev. 243 (2018)Familiar to all Federal Courts enthusiasts is the Erie distinction between federal actors’ obligatory application of state law and their voluntary adoption of state law as federal law. This Article’s thesis is that this significant distinction holds in all other situations where a sovereign employs another’s law: not only in the analogous reverse-Erie resolution of federal law’s constraint on state actors, but also in the horizontal choice-of-law setting and even in connection with the status of international law. Application and adoption are different avenues by which to approach a pluralist world. Application involves the recognition of the other sovereign’s law properly governing by its own force, while adoption follows from voluntary consultation of the other’s law while formulating the local rule of decision in pursuit of fairness, convenience, or other local policies. The applying/adopting distinction can be difficult to draw, but draw it we must because many binary practical consequences turn on it. Those consequences range beyond the federalist implications for federal and state courts to the modifiability of the sovereign’s law and the availability of original and appellate jurisdiction in the local courts.

Unresolved Business: Federal Corporate Governance Enhancements

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc I. Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Insider Trading ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Professional Conduct ◽  
State Law ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Tender Offers ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Federal Statute

This chapter analyzes and recommends federal corporate governance enhancements that should be implemented. These enhancements, which should be adopted in a measured and directed manner, are necessary to remediate certain deficiencies that currently exist. Consistent therewith, this chapter focuses on several important matters that merit attention, including the undue deference by federal courts to state law, the appropriate application of federal law to tactics undertaken in tender offers, the need for a federal statute encompassing insider trading, and the propriety of more vigorous oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission (such as with respect to the “current” disclosure regime, the SEC’s Standards of Professional Conduct for Attorneys, and the Commission’s neglecting at times to invoke its statutory resources). Thus, the analysis set forth in this chapter identifies significant deficiencies that currently exist and recommends measures that should be implemented on the federal level to enhance corporate governance standards.

Suing Media for Libel: A Litigation Study

1981 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 797-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Franklin
Keyword(s):  
State Law ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Federal Constitutional ◽  
Constitutional Protections ◽  
Recent Attention

This article summarizes the results of a study of 291 reported cases brought against media for libel during a four-year period. The results confirmed the finding in an earlier study that only 5 percent of plaintiffs emerged from the appellate process with judgments compared with more than 60 percent of defendants. Most of the defense successes occurred without trial. In cases that did reach trial, plaintiffs were successful far more often before juries than before judges but lost more than half these judgments on appeal. Cases were analyzed in terms of the identity of the parties, the content of the charges, and the role of state and federal law in shaping the outcome. Despite the recent attention to federal constitutional protections, it is clear that media defendants still do, and must, rely heavily on state law defenses. Finally, the Hutchinson and Wolston rulings of 1979 produced little change in appellate decisions.

The Nineteenth-Century Perspective on Federal Judicial Power

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
James E. Pfander
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Judicial Power ◽  
State Law ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the way nineteenth-century jurists defined the words “cases” and “controversies” in Article III of the U.S. Constitution. It shows that federal courts agreed to hear uncontested applications to claim rights under federal law as “cases” under Article III. But the same courts refused to hear matters governed by state law unless they arose between opposing parties as “controversies” within Article III. This distinction between cases and controversies meant that a claim of right by a petitioner, such as that in a naturalization petition, would qualify as a case, even though the plaintiff did not join an adverse party from whom the plaintiff sought redress.

scholarly journals Role of the clinical toxicologist in court

1996 ◽  
Vol 42 (8) ◽  
pp. 1337-1341 ◽  
Author(s):  
R T Chamberlain
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Environmental Chemicals ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Therapeutic Drug ◽  
Acceptance Test ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court

Abstract The clinical toxicologist may play a role in court when issues arise concerning therapeutic drug monitoring, drug abuse, environmental chemicals, or toxic torts, where the traditional forensic toxicologist may not have expertise. Beyond being credible in court, the toxicologist's testimony must be based on good scientific evidence. The ruler for measuring good scientific evidence had previously been the Frye Test, or the general acceptance test. In 1993, however, the US Supreme Court established four balancing tests that should be used for the admissibility of scientific evidence. Although the ruling is binding only in federal courts, state courts are expected to follow. When testifying, the clinical toxicologist should be aware of other court rules and expectations. As with all testimony, objections from opposing counsel can be raised to disallow the presentation of evidence by a toxicologist. The toxicologist is usually used to establish causation of injury, whether from negligence, prenatal injury, or environmental chemicals. Several examples are presented.

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