Note: Immunity for Vaccine Manufacturers: The Vaccine Act and Preemption of Design Defect Claims
By Eva B. Stensvad. Full text here. Vaccines are one of the most important medical advancements in history. Childhood immunization efforts are widely promoted by state and federal governments as well as medical professionals and institutions. While routine pediatric vaccines prevent many lethal and debilitating diseases, they also carry the potential to cause injury. Predictably, the…
Continue ReadingImpeachment and Assassination
By Josh Chafetz. Full text here. In 1998, the conservative provocateur Ann Coulter made waves when she wrote that President Clinton should be either impeached or assassinated. Coulter was roundly—and rightly—condemned for suggesting that the murder of the president might be justified, but her conceptual linking of presidential impeachment and assassination was not entirely unfounded. Indeed,…
Continue ReadingAdaptive Management in the Courts
By J.B. Ruhl & Robert L. Fischman. Full text here. Adaptive management has become the tonic of natural resources policy. With its core idea of “learning while doing,” adaptive management has become infused into the natural resources policy world to the point of ubiquity, surfacing in everything from mundane agency permits to grand presidential proclamations. Indeed,…
Continue ReadingTrading-Off Reproductive Technology and Adoption: Does Subsidizing IVF Decrease Adoption Rates and Should It Matter?
By I. Glenn Cohen & Daniel L. Chen. Full text here. For those facing infertility, using assisted reproductive technology to have genetically related children is a very expensive proposition. In particular, to produce a live birth through in vitro fertilization (IVF) would cost an individual (on average) between $66,667 and $114,286 in the United States. If…
Continue ReadingThe Visible Hand: Coordination Functions of the Regulatory State
By Robert B. Ahdieh. Full text here. From the financial crisis and changing forms of musical creativity to the rise of the Internet and increasing standard-setting conflict, the challenges of modern social and economic life are increasingly defined not by the need to reconcile conflicting interests, but rather to coordinate the choices of dispersed—and diverse—individuals and…
Continue ReadingNote: Defining Unpatented Article: Why Labeling Products with Expired Patent Numbers Should Not Be False Marking
By Laura Arneson. Full text here. The false marking statute was designed to prevent products from being labeled with patents that do not apply to them, but the Federal Circuit recently extended its reach to prevent labeling products with expired patent numbers. This decision has spurred litigation by third parties against the makers of articles covered…
Continue ReadingNote: Relative Futility: Limits to Genetic Privacy Protection Because of the Inability to Prevent Disclosure of Genetic Information by Relatives
By Trevor Woodage. Full text here. The Note considers possible limits to reasonable expectations of genetic privacy given that people share their DNA sequences with their relatives. Most scholars and members of the general public believe that an individual’s DNA sequence is an intensely personal matter and that access to this information should be tightly controlled.…
Continue ReadingRegulation in the Behavioral Era
By Michael P. Vandenbergh, Amanda R. Carrico, & Lisa Schultz Bressman. Full text here. Administrative agencies have long proceeded on the assumption that individuals respond to regulations in ways that are consistent with traditional rational-actor theory, but that is beginning to change. Agencies are now relying on behavioral economics to develop regulations that account for…
Continue ReadingSpecial Incentives to Sue
By Margaret H. Lemos. Full text here. In an effort to strengthen private enforcement of federal law, Congress regularly employs plaintiff-side attorneys’ fee shifts, damage enhancements, and other mechanisms that promote litigation. Standard economic theory predicts that these devices will increase the volume of suits by private actors, which in turn will bolster enforcement and encourage…
Continue ReadingExecutive Compensation in the Courts: Board Capture, Optimal Contracting, and Officers' Fiduciary Duties
By Randall S. Thomas & Harwell Wells. Full text here. Americans seem convinced that corporate executives are paid too much. So far, however, attempts to rein in executive compensation have met with little success. In the Article we propose a new approach to monitoring executive compensation, one that turns to an unlikely institution to oversee pay:…
Continue Reading