Notes

In recent years, there has been significant public debate concerning policing in the United States. Current events and recurring instances of police brutality have drawn attention to police misconduct and reinvigorated calls for systemic reforms to policing and police discipline. While there is a growing consensus in the United States among citizens, politicians, and even officers, that policing—and, in particular, police discipline procedure—requires reform, there is far less agreement as to what changes are necessary and feasible. In the U.S. military context, Congress enacted the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which created a separate military law system that imposes punishment for various administrative and criminal offenses. Some police reform advocates have proposed enacting a UCMJ equivalent—a Uniform Code of Police Justice (UCPJ)—for the nation’s police forces. This Note argues in favor of adopting a UCPJ and proposes a recommended Code structure, while acknowledging that a UCPJ would not be a cure-all for our nation’s policing troubles; further systemic reforms would still be required.

In its 2014 decision in Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., the Supreme Court began the process of “bringing discipline” to the various elements of prudential standing and suggested that the doctrine as a whole is inconsistent with the Court’s place in the federal separation of powers. Last year, the litany of opinions delivered by a divided Court in June Medical Services L.L.C. v. Russo manifested ongoing confusion about the fate of prohibitions on third-party standing and generalized grievances—two of the traditional prongs of prudential standing. This Note documents the heterogeneous approaches to prudential standing taken in the lower federal courts since Lexmark, and argues that this confusion is partly attributable to the Court’s misleading analysis of the role of judge-made gatekeeping doctrines in our federal system. Judge-made gatekeeping rules are ubiquitous in the federal judiciary, and courts have adopted a wide-range of approaches in the wake of Lexmark’s failure to identify a principle that could cabin its disfavor to only prudential standing rules. This Note argues that courts should instead acknowledge that judge-made gatekeeping rules like prudential standing’s third-party standing rule do a better job than alternatives in upholding the separation of powers values that are at the heart of the Supreme Court’s jurisdictional jurisprudence.

Federal trademark registration helps protect the hundreds of billions of dollars of brand value that trademarks can represent. Recently, interest in the failure-to-function doctrine, which prevents registration of proposed trademarks that consumers do not perceive as marks, has surged at the appellate body of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). This Note is the first in-depth, focused critique of the TTAB’s recent failure-to-function jurisprudence. It argues that, as the TTAB currently uses it, the failure-to-function doctrine is incoherent and lacks clarity. On a more granular level, the doctrine rests on inconsistent multifactor tests whose factors the TTAB adds, subtracts, modifies, reconceptualizes, and weighs differently across cases, giving the USPTO little meaningful criteria by which to decide what marks merit registration. This inconsistency risks increasing costs for the USPTO, brands, and consumers by creating uncertainty as to what proposed trademarks the USPTO will approve. In response, this Note proposes combining failure to function with a different trademark doctrine: the doctrine of aesthetic functionality. Replacing failure to function’s unwieldy multifactor inquiries with aesthetic functionality’s narrow focus on competition promises to increase clarity and, in so doing, mitigate or avoid costs to the USPTO, brands, and consumers.

Over one third of all pending cases in the federal court system are part of a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) proceeding. Previous and ongoing MDLs include claims stemming from the opioid epidemic, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the National Football League concussion cases, and a myriad of pharmaceutical and medical products liability suits. Both the percentage and sheer number of cases utilizing this form of aggregate litigation have dramatically increased in recent years. Bellwether trials, designed to test the facts and legal theories underpinning many of the consolidated cases, are a key feature of MDLs in facilitating resolution. This Note examines the role of MDL bellwether trials and the potential impact of proposed reforms. Part I surveys the functions of bellwether trials as well as current judicial limitations imposed on the practice. Part II examines proposals that would further restrict the use of MDL bellwether trials: first, a bill from the 115th Congress and second, proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. These proposals would require the consent of all parties for an MDL bellwether to ensue. Finally, Part III explores the potential effects of these proposed reforms as well as the discrepancies between their purported aims and the likely impact of their enactment. These proposals would exacerbate the MDL “black hole,” result in less informed settlements, and create more opacity in the MDL process. Principally, they are an attempt to wrest power over procedure to cement defendants’ structural advantage over the MDL.

Although many scholars have recognized the need for increased procedural protections for immigrants in removal proceedings, very little attention has been paid to the process afforded to immigrants applying affirmatively to acquire lawful status. However, due to the collection of important interests implicated by affirmative immigration proceedings, procedure still matters even if deportation is not immediately at stake. This Note helps to fill the scholarly gap by discussing a relatively recent phenomenon in affirmative immigration practice: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ requests for and reliance on police reports, arrest records, and other documents underlying any contact an applicant has had with the criminal justice system, even when the charges were ultimately dropped or the applicant was acquitted. This practice is particularly problematic in light of the unreliability of these documents, the role they play in the adjudication of applications, and the difficulty applicants face in appealing unfavorable decisions. Thus, this Note argues that not only is USCIS’s policy unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act, but it also violates the guarantee of Due Process provided by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

In response to increasing rights for LGBTQ individuals in the United States, particularly the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the right to same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, eleven states have imposed laws or policies permitting child welfare organizations to deny services in accordance with their religious beliefs. These measures generally prohibit the state from “discriminating against” religious child welfare organizations by denying them funding or program participation when they refuse to provide services based on their religious beliefs. This Note provides an overview of these religious exemption laws and ultimately argues that, by requiring government funding of discriminatory child welfare organizations, the laws are unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause. The Note begins by considering relevant details about adoption and foster care systems in the United States. It then turns to the laws and policies in question, discussing their provisions, motivations, and impact. Then, taking two specific laws as examples, it analyzes these laws’ constitutionality, arguing for their invalidity under several approaches to understanding the Establishment Clause. By favoring certain religious viewpoints over others, permitting religion to dictate who receives government benefits and services, and imposing burdens on third parties (particularly LGBTQ prospective parents and youth), religious exemption laws ignore the line between church and state in violation of the Establishment Clause.

One of President Biden’s campaign promises, passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, would remove the “secondary boycott” prohibition from the National Labor Relations Act, a provision which prevents unions from pressuring employers’ customers and associates in order to bargain with those employers effectively. This long-standing prohibition prevents unions and their workers from engaging in what is otherwise considered protected speech under the First Amendment, including picketing in public places. Some labor historians and commentators view the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments, which codified the secondary boycott prohibition, as a reversal of liberal, New Deal policies. This Note shows, in fact, that both state and federal courts were deeply suspicious of the secondary boycott throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Even as state legislatures seemingly liberalized the law of labor protest in the early 1930s, state courts soon nullified these anti-injunction statutes through the application of common law tort principles. Likewise, the First Amendment right to picket declared by the Supreme Court in 1940’s Thornhill v. Alabama was quickly rolled back in the following terms when cases involving secondary picketing arrived at the Court. The history of the secondary boycott is not simply a cyclical one of repression, liberalization, and repression’s return. Labor advocates should approach reforms with a careful eye to prevent merely defederalizing the law of secondary boycotts by repealing the NLRA prohibition and leaving its regulation to the states, for even the most progressive jurisdictions in the New Deal era were hesitant to recognize secondary activity as a legitimate form of protest, and the Supreme Court’s First Amendment cases on labor protest leave little recourse for a legal challenge.

For nearly a century, the American Bar Association (ABA) has overseen the standards governing accredited law schools, which in turn constitute the primary pathway to the practice of law in the United States. ABA Standard 503 requires that all such schools use a “valid and reliable” examination to assess candidates for admission. Currently, the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is the only examination that the ABA has officially recognized as satisfying the standard. However, the LSAT—now approaching its eightieth year—has strayed far from the purposes it was originally designed to serve. Once a simple tool to aid in the assessment of diverse applicants, it has in recent decades become a significant barrier to entry with disparate negative impacts on women, racial minorities, individuals of low socioeconomic status, and, perhaps most egregiously, those with disabilities. This Note argues that Standard 503 should be rescinded. Such a step is necessary both to stimulate innovation in law school admissions and to fulfill the ABA’s mandate of promoting diversity in the legal profession and serving the larger public good.

In the area of regulatory takings, federal courts often confront issues of state law. This is because property is largely a regime of positive state law, while the Takings Clause is a federal constitutional guarantee. This Note deals with the standard of review to be applied by federal courts as to questions of state property law in the takings context. This Note explores two regulatory takings decisions by the Supreme Court—Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council and Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection—in which the Court conducted independent assessments of state property law. This Note argues that a more deferential standard of review, known as the fair support rule, is more appropriate for state-law issues arising in takings disputes. To arrive at this conclusion, this Note draws on principles of federalism and positivism expressed in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and by scholars in the legal process school.

Courts are reluctant to decide cases alleging abuses by federal law enforcement. This judicial reluctance is largely attributed to the principle of sovereign immunity, which holds that the United States—and therefore the federal government—cannot be sued. However, the sovereign can of its own accord consent to be sued: The federal government provided that consent in 1946 by enacting the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows tort suits against the United States. Specifically, a provision of the FTCA—the law enforcement proviso—explicitly states that law enforcement officers are amenable to suit for certain intentional torts. Nevertheless, courts have restricted the proviso’s efficacy through narrow interpretations and undue deference to competing FTCA provisions such as the discretionary function exception.

This Note argues that the law enforcement proviso must be interpreted more broadly to properly hold government officers accountable. It takes on the project of sifting through the FTCA’s complexity and history to articulate why the correct doctrinal approach is to apply the proviso exclusively, superseding any competing provision within the FTCA. It delineates the current spectrum of approaches among the circuit courts, finding that only the Eleventh Circuit has adopted the advocated approach. The Note then justifies this approach under statutory interpretation principles and tort law theory while also considering the practical consequences of a disappearing Bivens remedy. Properly understood, the complexity of the FTCA and the barrier of sovereign immunity fade away: For government activity as intrusive and forceful as law enforcement, a court of law simply must have the ability to hold officers accountable.