Treaties—Warsaw Convention—international air transportation—recovery of damages—loss of society—death in air crash—Death on the High Seas Act—maritime and admiralty law: Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines. 116 S.Ct. 629

1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-658
Author(s):  
Daniel F. Wilhelm

Petitioners Marjorie Zicherman and Muriel Mahalek sought damages from respondent Korean Air Lines (KAL) under the Warsaw Convention governing international air transport, for loss of society of a family member killed aboard a commercial airliner downed by a Soviet warplane. In a cross-petition, KAL requested a determination that the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) prescribed damages recoverable under the Convention and did not allow damages to be recovered for loss of society. The Supreme Court (per Scalia, J.) affirmed in part and remanded in part and held unanimously that the Convention did not permit family members to recover loss-of-society damages because (1) Article 17 of the Convention provides for carrier liability in passenger deaths or injuries but leaves the crucial definition of legally cognizable harm to be determined by domestic courts; (2) in the United States, DOHSA prescribes the substantive law covering air crashes on the high seas; and (3) DOHSA permits only pecuniary damages.

Author(s):  
Shira Tarrant

What Is the Definition of Pornography? In 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States faced a controversy over whether Louis Malle’s French film The Lovers violated the First Amendment prohibition against obscene speech. In determining what exactly distinguishes pornography from obscenity,...


Author(s):  
Shira Tarrant

What Is the Definition of Pornography? In 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States faced a controversy over whether Louis Malle’s French film The Lovers violated the First Amendment prohibition against obscene speech. In determining what exactly distinguishes pornography from obscenity,...


1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 809-831
Author(s):  
James Brown Scott

On July 29,1916, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia entered a decree to restore to the British claimants the steamer Appam, formerly an English merchant vessel, captured by the German cruiser Moewe upon the high seas and sent into Newport News to be laid up pending the war between Great Britain and Germany. In a very elaborate opinion, the court held that the Appam had no right under international law or the treaty with Prussia of May 1, 1828, to use an American port as an asylum; that it did not have a right under the circumstances to enter an American port at all; that by so doing it violated the neutrality of the United States, and was therefore, with the proceeds of the cargo, to be restored, according to the American practice, to the British owners at the date of capture. The case is a very interesting one from the standpoint of international law, and by reason of its importance, it is to be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States in order that, as far as the United States is concerned, a definite decision may be reached upon the points of law involved. The facts of the case and the reasoning of the District Court will, however, be set forth at this time and in this place.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariane Lewis ◽  
Katherine Cahn-Fuller ◽  
Arthur Caplan

In 1968, the definition of death in the United States was expanded to include not just death by cardiopulmonary criteria, but also death by neurologic criteria. We explore the way the definition has been modified by the medical and legal communities over the past 50 years and address the medical, legal and ethical controversies associated with the definition at present, with a particular highlight on the Supreme Court of Nevada Case of Aden Hailu.


1972 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67
Author(s):  
Marc Schnall

This article summarizes the activity of the United States Supreme Court in formulating and applying definitions of what constitutes obscenity. For almost ninety years, American courts applied a test of obscenity established by a British court in 1868. In 1957, after lower courts in the United States had expanded the British definition, the Supreme Court, in Roth v. United States, defined as obscene such material which, "to the average person, apply ing contemporary community standards," appealed to prurient interests and lacked redeeming social value. Between 1957 and 1966, the Court added several dimensions to its definition of obscenity. The current test of obscenity was framed in 1966 in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, which reworded the Roth definition and included a third standard—namely, that the material must also be "patently offensive." This article examines not only the Supreme Court's actual definitions of obscenity but also the trends in these definitions and the Court's continual efforts to define and redefine obscenity.


2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Connolly

On 19th July 2003, following the (EU) Race Directive, 1 a new definition of indirect racial discrimination carne into force in the United Kingdom. 2 Its principal effect was to annul the Court of Appeal's restrictive interpretation of the previous definition. 3 However, the new definition may have potential to cover a class of case beyond any contemplated by the draftsman, where there is a racially imbalanced workforce, but with no identifiable cause; or the ‘result-only’ case. If this were so, the fear is that employers would be forced to adopt quotas, rather than face litigation. This issue arose some time ago in the United States, where, provoked by this quota fear, a majority of the Supreme Court rejected such a broad interpretation of the Civil Rights Act 1964. 4 This paper will discuss whether the quota fear in result-only cases has substance, and whether these cases should indeed be recognised and challengeable under US and UK legislation. 5


1939 ◽  
Vol 142 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
Edmund T. Allen

The year 1925 marked the beginning of air transportation as an industry. Since then it has advanced through successive stages of growth and development until to-day, as the author believes, air transport is in the state of transition between the pioneering period and that of mature growth. Airway mileage by scheduled air transports in the United States has increased from a total of 2,000,000 miles flown in 1926 to 90,000,000 in 1939. Air passenger-miles in 1938 aggregated 600,000,000. In this paper the author reviews the technical developments in aircraft and improvements in airway operation which have made possible this phenomenal growth. Every phase of this development which has played a part in the successful and safe operation of the airway systems of the present day is treated comprehensively in order that an understanding may be gained of the future possibilities of air transport and the lines along which it will advance.


Numen ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-212
Author(s):  
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan

AbstractThe meaning and application of the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution are currently a matter of intense and increasingly intractable public debate. The academic study of religion can make a positive contribution to this debate by inviting its participants into a conversation about human religion that is already struggling with problems of definition and of language and that wishes to affirm the existence and importance of human religion without establishing a particular definition of religion, without unconsciously theologizing. A close examination of the legal debate can, in turn, serve the purposes of scholars of religion. The politically charged context of First Amendment jurisprudence provides an interesting laboratory in which to test theories of religion.


1988 ◽  
Vol 43 (12) ◽  
pp. 1019-1028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald N. Bersoff ◽  
Laurel P. Malson ◽  
Donald B. Verrilli

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