Judging by the frequency with which it makes an appearance in television news shows and late night stand up routines, the frivolous lawsuit has become part and parcel of our national culture. A woman sues McDonald’s because she was scalded when she spilled her coffee. Thousands file lawsuits claiming they were injured by Agent Orange, silicone breast implants, or Bendectin although scientists report these substances do not cause the di ...
The lawyers and legal commentators who contribute to We Dissent unanimously agree that during Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s nineteen-year tenure, the Supreme Court failed to adequately protect civil liberties and civil rights. This is evident in majority opinions written for numerous cases heard by the Rehnquist Court, and eight of those cases are re-examined here, with contributors offering dissents to the Court’s decisions. The Supreme C ...
Thurman Arnold (1891-1969) was a major iconoclast of American law and a great liberal of the 20th century. In this first biography of Arnold, Spencer Weber Waller traces Arnold's life from his birth in Laramie, Wyoming, and explores how his western upbringing influenced his distinctive views about law and power. After studying at Princeton and Harvard Law School, Arnold practiced law in Chicago, served in World War I, and eventually returne ...
In this narrative history and contextual analysis of the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery and freedom take center stage. Alexander Tsesis demonstrates how entrenched slavery was in pre-Civil War America, how central it was to the political events that resulted in the Civil War, and how it was the driving force that led to the adoption of an amendment that ultimately provided a substantive assurance of freedom for all American citizens. The story of ...
The “school-to-prison pipeline” is an emerging trend that pushes large numbers of at-risk youth—particularly children of color—out of classrooms and into the juvenile justice system. The policies and practices that contribute to this trend can be seen as a pipeline with many entry points, from under-resourced K-12 public schools, to the over-use of zero-tolerance suspensions and expulsions and to the explo ...
American communities are facing chronic problems: fiscal stress, urban decline, environmental sprawl, mass incarceration, political isolation, disproportionate foreclosures and severe public health risks. In The Price of Paradise, David Troutt argues that it is a lack of mutuality in our local decision making that has led to this looming crisis facing cities and local governments. Arguing that there are structural flaws in the American dream, ...
From divorce court to popular culture, alimonyis a dirty word. Unpopular and rarely ordered, the awards are frequentlyinconsistent and unpredictable. The institution itself is often viewed as anhistorical relic that harkens back to a gendered past in which women lacked theeconomic independence to free themselves from economic support by their spouses.In short, critics of alimony claim it has no place in contemporary visions ofmarriage as a partn ...
Law and society scholars challenge thecommon belief that law is simply a neutral tool by which society sets standardsand resolves disputes. Decades of research shows how much the nature ofcommunities, organizations, and the people inhabiting them affect how lawworks. Just as much, law shapes beliefs, behaviors, and wider socialstructures, but the connections are much more nuanced—and surprising—than manyexpect. Law and Socie ...
Signed into law in July 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became effective two years later, and court decisions about the law began to multiply in the middle of the decade. In The Disability Pendulum , Ruth Colker presents the first legislative history of the enactment of the ADA in Congress and analyzes the first decade of judicial decisions under the act. She assesses the success and failure of the first ten years of litigation ...
