Emory Law Scholarly Commons

This Article argues in favor of standing based on expected value of harm. Standing doctrine has been constructed in a way that is oblivious to the idea of expected value. If people have suffered a loss with a positive ex­pected value, they have suffered an "injury in fact." The incorporation of expected value into standing doctrine casts doubt on many of the Supreme Court's decisions in which it …

Forming a coalition on a multi-judge panel involves an inherent trade-off between coalition maximization and ideological outcome optimization. Much scholarship is premised on assumptions about how judges make that trade-off; these assumptions have consequences for how we view and measure judicial decision-making. Specifying these assumptions, formally modeling their effects, and basing measures o…

The law increasingly treats copyright as if it were any other form of property, and numerous writers decry this trend. In particular, scholars who express solicitude for the public domain fear that the "propertization" of copyright threatens an inevitable accretion of pri­vate rights in information at the expense of the public domain. This Ar­ticle questions this conventional view, arguing that t…

Author ORCID Identifier 0000-0001-9690-0326 Document Type Article Publication Date 2026 Keywords Climate change, Legal duty, Climate adaptation, Takings, Retreat, Relocation, Government duties Abstract In the face of climate-driven disasters, government officials and individuals alike must decide whether to invest in climate-exposed areas or retreat. This Article analyzes emerging legal and polic…

Author ORCID Identifier 0000-0002-4989-7133 Document Type Article Publication Date 2000 Keywords Precedential value, Judicial power, Article III, Originalism Abstract A recent decision by a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit enlivened the controversy over court rules that prevent citation to unpublished opinions when it held that the Circuit's non-citation rule violates Article …

Author ORCID Identifier 0009-0003-4214-9540 Document Type Article Publication Date 2026 Keywords Congress, Income-attribution power, Federal income tax, Supreme Court Abstract Economic inequality stands at record levels, and constitutional law haunts egalitarian reform. In 2024, the Supreme Court decided the latest contest. Moore v. United States rebuffed an attempt to sharply limit the federal t…

Document Type Essay Publication Title Emory Law Journal Online Abstract This Article argues that the appointment of prominent wellness and antivaccine figures to senior federal health positions marks the culmination of a long-running evolution in American health fraud—from nineteenth-century traveling medicine shows to the institutional capture of government health agencies. Drawing a direct line…

Abstract Federal securities law aims to protect investors and the public from fraudulent securities transactions. If an actor violates these laws, the public bears the costs through investor losses, market volatility, reduced economic activity and growth, and general distrust in the market. Entities that face securities enforcement for violations bear sanctions like civil monetary penalties and d…

Abstract Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of man-made, resiliently bonded chemicals, cause harm to both humans and animals. These “forever chemicals” can compromise immunity, increase cancer risks, and cause reproductive harm. Addressing the harms caused by PFAS variants is crucial to protect public health, environmental health, and biological diversity. However, the United Sta…

Abstract Corporations are not human beings, but they have rights, including the constitutional right of due process. The United States Supreme Court recently held in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. that due process is satisfied when a state requires that a corporation consent to personal jurisdiction before it can conduct business in that state. The Court did not analyze, however, whether…

Abstract Lunch shaming is the practice of penalizing students who cannot afford to pay for their meals, resulting in them being denied food, served alternative meals, or publicly identified. The origins of lunch shaming can be traced to the financial pressures faced by school districts that struggle to balance tight budgets with the mandate to provide free or reduced-price meals to eligible stude…

Author ORCID Identifier 0000-0001-5816-6896 Document Type Article Publication Date 2025 Keywords Agency interpretation, Supreme Court, Democratic accountability, Zone of ambiguity, Statutory ambiguity, Agency discretion Abstract In its June 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court jettisoned the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which had directed courts to defer to a…

Author ORCID Identifier Elizabeth Griffiths 0009-0004-8916-1982 Kay Levine 0000-0002-9422-232X Joshua Hinkle 0000-0003-3601-6330 Document Type Article Publication Date 2025 Keywords Search warrants, Drug enforcement, Investigative effort, Drug yield Abstract In this study, we investigated the extent to which law enforcement efforts predicted drug and other kinds of illicit yield in search warrant…

Author ORCID Identifier 0000-0003-1795-7143 Document Type Article Publication Date 2013 Keywords Social benefits, Copyright infringement, Unauthorized use, Creativity, Licensing markets Abstract Copyright infringement is said to be socially costly because it robs owners of due recompense and depresses incentives for creative production. This Article contends that, in order to achieve copyrights g…

Author ORCID Identifier 0000-0003-2381-1028 Document Type Article Publication Date 2009 Keywords Expressive works, Nonexpressive use, Infringement, Transaction costs, Copyright, Technology Abstract Part I of this Article introduces the phenomenon of copy-reliant technology by focusing on four significant case studies. The first case study, Field v. Google Inc., centers on the permissibility of au…

Author ORCID Identifier 0000-0002-5453-6703 Document Type Article Publication Date 2025 Keywords Legal services, Trump Administration, Executive Order, Law firm Abstract In March and April 2025, the Trump Administration issued a series of executive orders directed at various law firms that had represented clients or undertaken actions with which the President disagreed. Those executive orders imp…

Author ORCID Identifier Matthew Lawrence 0000-0003-4748-501X Document Type Article Publication Date 2025 Keywords Addiction, Gambling, Technology, Children, Regulation of social media, Public health Abstract In her important book, Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein illustrates the value of a comparative approach, drawing lessons from fights around the regulation …

Author ORCID Identifier 0000-0002-8319-9080 Document Type Article Publication Date 1995 Keywords Dependency, Family, Poverty, Marriage, Social institutions, Single motherhood Abstract In this Article, I want to explore the schizophrenic nature of the interaction between social ideals and empirical observations concerning dependency. I am particularly interested in the family as a social and polit…

Author ORCID Identifier 0000-0001-7836-4072 Document Type Article Publication Date 2025 Keywords Extramural speech, Expressive activity, First Amendment, Employee speech rights, Academia, Tenure Abstract As battles over academia escalate, an area of intensifying concern is the speech faculty engage in outside their professional functions—what is often called “extramural” speech. Professors have b…

Abstract The labor provisions of the United States’ Free Trade Agreements contain language that allows labor violations to seep through unpenalized. Parties to the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) sought to rectify this by drafting the most comprehensive labor provisions of any free trade agreement to date by crafting the Facility-Specific Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM). This Mechani…