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Recent Print Edition:

Articles

Articles

Volume 109, Issue 2

The Major Questions Doctrine at the Boundaries of Interpretive Law

Daniel E. Walters

The Supreme Court’s apparent transformation of the major questions doctrine into a clear statement rule demanding clear congressional authorization for “major” agency actions has already had, and will continue to have, wide-ranging impacts on American public law. Not the least of these is the impact it will have on the enterprise of statutory interpretation. . . . 

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An Information-Production Theory of Contract Law

Assaf Jacob, Yotam Kaplan & Roy Shapira

Contract law affects behavior not just directly, by ordering damages, but also indirectly, by providing information on how the parties to the dispute behaved. Information from litigation can then help third parties decide whether to do business with the disputants going forward. Contract law thus affects behavior by shaping reputations and facilitating market discipline. . . . 

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When Is Legal Methodology Binding?

Jonathan Remy Nash

Common-law interpretive methodologies are mostly nonbinding, but some interpretive methodologies are seen as binding precedent. This Article offers an explanation for this state of affairs. Whereas the extant scholarship on common-law interpretive methodologies offers descriptive accounts (often assuming that common-law methodologies are per se nonbinding) and normative analysis, this Article fills a gap in the literature by providing a realist explanation for the legal landscape of binding interpretive methodologies. . . .

Valuing Corporate Compliance

Todd HaughSuneal Bedi

Depending on who you ask, corporate compliance is either the most valuable initiative a company can invest in, or simply a type of insurance policy purchased to avoid legal liability. This divergence is problematic because it leaves the compliance community—companies, regulators, compliance scholars—guessing as to whether and how much should be invested in compliance programs. There are two reasons for this ideological disagreement. . . .

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Pyrrhic Victories: The Mirage of Winning at the Supreme Court

Tonja Jacobi & Clare Gaynor Willis

We conduct in-depth archival research of landmark constitutional criminal procedure cases and find two ways in which the declarations of the vindication of rights they contain are misleading. First, most defendants who successfully establish police violations of their constitutional rights before the highest court in the land nonetheless remain in prison for years or decades subsequently. . . . 

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Certifying Questions in Patent Cases

Joshua L. Sohn & Paul R. Gugliuzza

The Federal Circuit is unique among the courts of appeals in that it routinely applies the precedent of other circuits as binding law. Specifically, the Federal Circuit applies its own prior decisions to issues that are “unique to” or “pertain to” patent law. But, for nonpatent issues, the Federal Circuit applies the precedent of the numbered, regional circuit in which the district court is located. . . .

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Notes

Student Notes

Volume 109, Issue 1

Immobile Homes: The Lack of Permanence in Mobile Home Parks and the Risk for Owner-Tenants

Liam C. Conrad

Mobile home owner-tenants own their homes but rent the land where their homes sit. Mobile homes are not as mobile as their name suggests, and owner-tenants face a significant risk of eviction. Eviction for mobile home owner-tenants carries an added risk that traditional renters do not face—the loss of investment in their homes. This Note argues that Iowa should expand its Mobile Home Parks Residential Landlord and Tenant Act to require a one-year minimum lease term. . . .

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Do You Have a Moment to Discuss My Residency?: State Residency Requirements and Ballot Integrity Considerations in Petition Circ

Michael N. O’Rear

Direct democracy processes facilitate the use of citizen initiatives to affect a change in governing law without the intervention of elected representatives. Since initiative measures became popular in the early twentieth century, regulations designed to insulate the political mechanisms from fraud and undue influences have become commonplace. Many regulations impose a requirement that petition circulators be residents of the state wherein they circulate materials, but several circuit courts have found such regulations to be an unconstitutional burden on political speech. . . .

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Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner in the Patent Office: A Call for Resolving Selective Breeding as Invention

Zachary M. Mass

It has long been assumed that animals cannot be patented by man unless they have been genetically engineered to make them different than what is found in nature. This rule excludes animals that are selectively bred through traditional means from patent eligibility. This assumption is now being challenged, as what many thought was an obscure theory is being tested in the patent office by cattle breeding companies. . . .

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Recent Online Edition:

Recent Online Edition:

A Response to Professor Choi’s Beyond Purposivism in Tax Law

Reuven Avi-Yonah
108 Iowa L. Rev. Online 69 (2023)

This Response to Professor Choi’s excellent Article questions whether the proposals made by the Article can solve the tax shelter problem and argues that a better response is to bolster purposivism with a statutory general anti-abuse rule (“GAAR”). . . .

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Legacy and Accountability

Ian Ayres
108 Iowa L. Rev. Online 1 (2022)

This Essay considers the ways that the law can help or hinder the accountability of actors and institutions. It draws two implications from the failure of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire at a time that would have better secured the constitutional right to abortion. . . .

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A Response to Rules of Medical Necessity

Brendan S. Maher
108 Iowa L. Rev. Online 36 (2023)

Professors Monahan and Schwarcz’s recent Article in the Iowa Law ReviewRules of Medical Necessity, is a must-read for multiple audiences. In this short Response, I informally describe health insurance, and—using that perspective—describe and comment on why Rules of Medical Necessity is a piece of work that not only deserves attention from experts in the field, but is also one that casual readers should choose first when attempting to understand how health insurance works in theory and practice.

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Thompson v. Trump: Lost in the Funhouse of Brandenburg

Jay Sterling Silver
107 Iowa L. Rev. Online 151 (2022)

D.C. Circuit Court Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in Thompson v. Trump denying immunity to ex-President Donald Trump in actions brought against him by a variety of plaintiffs for inciting the January 6th insurrection offered a moment of relief to the left side of the Great Partisan Divide in these dark times. Mr. Trump could finally be held responsible for a bit of the havoc he wreaked. . . .

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