Note: Between the Possible and the Probable: Defining the Plausibility Standard After Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal
By Nicholas Tymoczko. Full text here. After fifty years of clarity and continuity, pleading standards are now the subject of confusion and debate. In 2007, the Supreme Court, in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, replaced Conley v. Gibson’s “no set of facts” standard with the plausibility standard, under which a complaint must contain enough factual allegations…
Continue ReadingNote: The Curious Case of Disparate Impact Under the ADEA: Reversing the Theory's Development into Obsolescence
By R. Henry Pfutzenreuter IV. Full text here. The present state of the economy places the nation’s older worker in a perilous situation. Employers, motivated by either the appearance of economic incentives or age-related stereotypes, are apt to seek savings in cost via large-scale reductions-in-force. The factors relied upon in executing these internal restructurings often serve…
Continue ReadingNote: From the Inside Out: Reforming State and Local Prostitution Enforcement to Combat Sex Trafficking in the United States and Abroad
By Moira Heiges. Full text here. Over the past eight years, federal and state governments have passed anti-trafficking laws and spent millions of dollars to combat sex trafficking. However, as evidenced by the minimal rate of convictions and the continually expanding sex trafficking market, these policies have not achieved proportionate results. This Note argues that without…
Continue ReadingClawbacks: Prospective Contract Measures in an Era of Excessive Executive Compensation and Ponzi Schemes
By Miriam A. Cherry & Jarrod Wong. Full text here. In the spring of 2009, public outcry erupted over the multi-million dollar bonuses paid to AIG executives even as the company was receiving TARP funds. Various measures were proposed in response, including a ninety percent retroactive tax on the bonuses, which the media described as a “clawback.”…
Continue ReadingUnited States Competition Policy in Crisis: 1890-1955
By Herbert Hovenkamp. Full text here. The development of marginalist, or neoclassical, economics led to a fifty-year long crisis in competition theory. Given an industrial structure with sufficient fixed costs, competition always became “ruinous,” forcing firms to cut prices to marginal cost without sufficient revenue remaining to pay off investment. Early neoclassicists such as Alfred Marshall…
Continue ReadingAggregating Probabilities Across Cases: Criminal Responsibility for Unspecified Offenses
By Alon Harel & Ariel Porat. Full text here. Should a court convict a defendant for unspecified offenses if there is no reasonable doubt that he committed an offense, even though no particular offense has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt? Suppose a defendant is charged with two unrelated offenses allegedly committed at different times and…
Continue ReadingCounsel and Confrontation
By Todd E. Pettys. Full text here. In a well-known series of decisions handed down over the past five years, the Supreme Court has firmly yoked its interpretation of the Confrontation Clause to Anglo-American common-law principles that were in place at the time of the Sixth Amendment’s ratification in 1791. Based on its understanding of those…
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