Note: The Protective Scope of the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act: Providing Mortgagors the Protection They Deserve from Abusive Foreclosure Practices
By Eric M. Marshall. Full text here. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) is intended to provide consumers broad protection from abusive and harassing practices of debt collectors. However, courts disagree over whether mortgage foreclosure constitutes debt collection under the Act. Several circuit courts hold that mortgage foreclosure is debt collection under the FDCPA, but…
Continue ReadingNote: Deterring Fraud to Increase Public Confidence: Why Congress Should Allow Government Employees to File Qui Tam Lawsuits
By Barry M. Landy. Full text here. Contractor fraud against the government is rampant as contractors regularly inflate the cost of their services and overcharge the government for their work. The federal False Claims Act (FCA) is the government’s most successful litigation tool for combating fraud, resulting in recoveries of approximately $22 billion since 1986. Traditionally,…
Continue ReadingNote: Reconciling the Public Employee Speech Doctrine and Academic Speech After Garcetti v. Ceballos
By Darryn Cathryn Beckstrom. Full text here. In 2006, the Supreme Court held in Garcetti v. Ceballos that public employees are not entitled to First Amendment protection for speech arising from their official duties. The Court declined to address whether Garcetti’s holding applied to academic speech, and consequently, lower courts are unclear about whether academics employed…
Continue ReadingConcepts, Categories, and Compliance in the Regulatory State
By Kristin E. Hickman & Claire A. Hill. Full text here. Law is, of course, always a product of its history. But for some regimes, history matters both more and differently than for others. In some instances, the requirements and scope of a regulatory regime’s coverage are sufficiently attenuated from statutory text and purpose that…
Continue ReadingFrom Exclusivity to Concurrence
By Mark D. Rosen. Full text here. In arguing that President Washington could not interpret a mutual defense treaty that potentially required America to join battle with France—but that only Congress could interpret the treaty on account of its power to declare war—James Madison reasoned that “the same specific function or act, cannot possibly belong to…
Continue ReadingLegislative Prayer and the Secret Costs of Religious Endorsements
By Christopher C. Lund. Full text here. For fifty years, the Establishment Clause has generally required the government to be neutral on religious questions. That principle of neutrality, however, has become more controversial with time. Now even quite moderate judges and commentators reject it as a conceptual model for the Establishment Clause. Part of it is…
Continue ReadingIdentity Scripts & Democratic Deliberation
By Holning Lau. Full text here. This Article contributes to the literature on negotiation of identity scripts. For an example of such negotiation, consider the prominent case of Barack Obama. Commentators have noted that Americans typically perceive President Obama as a black man and ascribe him corresponding scripts—that is to say, socially constructed expectations—for “acting black.”…
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