Notes Category
Mixed-Up Origins: The Case for a Gestational Presumption in Embryo Mix-Ups
Oct. 6, 2023—Betsy Anne Sugar | Vand. L. Rev. 1521 Embryo mix-ups—instances in which fertility clinics mistakenly implant one couple with another couple’s embryo—confound courts’ determinations of who, between the two couples, are the legal parents. Lax regulation of the fertility industry permitted this relatively new injury to develop, and it has led to morally and legally...
The Anticommons Intersection of Heirs Property and Gentrification
Oct. 6, 2023—Emma Ruth White | 76 Vand. L. Rev. 1561 Throughout history, internal and external pressures on Black landowners have resulted in the fragmentation of ownership through heirs property. This fragmentation is analogous to the erosion of community ties within minoritized neighborhoods susceptible to gentrification. Both contexts contribute directly to involuntary exit and land loss within...
Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Effectively and Equitably Moderating Vice and Illegal Content Online
May. 31, 2023—Elise Nicole Blegen | 76 Vand. L. Rev. 1265 The modern internet is vast, with more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created every day. Content is created, uploaded, downloaded, and shared across an increasingly large number of platforms. Most of this content is legal; however, some is illegal, including hate speech, child sexual abuse...
Water We Cannot See: Codifying a Progressive Public Trust to Protect Groundwater Resources from Depletion
Apr. 26, 2023—Susan Emily Ness | 76 Vand. L. Rev. 953 Groundwater provides a vital water supply and plays an integral role in hydrological systems by supporting biodiversity and the overall health and functioning of surface waters. Yet, the current legal landscape in the United States premises groundwater management on outdated scientific understandings of hydrology and fails...
Taking Stock of Startup Stock Options: Addressing Disclosure and Liquidity Concerns of Startup Employees
Mar. 28, 2023—John Rand Dorney | 76 Vand. L. Rev. 609 U.S. capital markets are becoming increasingly private. Initial public offerings have steadily declined since the 1990s, and private companies are remaining private over twice as long as they have in the past. Furthermore, private company financing has reached unprecedented levels. Private securities offerings now greatly outpace...
What’s in the Contract?: Rockefeller, the Hague Service Convention, and Serving Process Abroad
Mar. 28, 2023—Thomas G. Vanderbeek | 76 Vand. L. Rev. 643 Today’s global economy relies on transnational commerce. The Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (“Hague Service Convention”), implemented in 1965, encouraged transnational commerce by establishing a streamlined mechanism for serving foreign parties with process. More reliable international...
After Action: The U.S. Drone Program’s Expansion of International Law Justification for Use of Force Against Imminent Threats
Jan. 27, 2023—Elodie O. Currier | 76 Vand. L. Rev. 259 Until the 2000s, the United States’ attempts to shift international legal norms on imminence to allow for greater use of armed force abroad were largely unsuccessful. In the past two decades, however, drone use and careful legal gamesmanship by U.S. officials have opened an unprecedentedly broad...
Call Me, Beep Me, If You Want to Reach Me: Utilizing Telemedicine to Expand Abortion Access
Jan. 27, 2023—Samantha A. Hunt | 76 Vand. L. Rev. 323 In June 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The decision confirmed what the public already knew. An anonymously leaked draft version of what ultimately became Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion had braced the country for Dobbs’s key...
Can’t Really Teach: CRT Bans Impose Upon Teachers’ First Amendment Pedagogical Rights
Nov. 22, 2022—Mary Lindsay Krebs | 75 Vand. L. Rev. 1925 The jurisprudence governing K-12 teachers’ speech protection has been a convoluted hodgepodge of caselaw since the 1960s when the Supreme Court established that teachers retain at least some First Amendment protection as public educators. Now, as new so-called Critical Race Theory bans prohibit an array of...
Conservation Options: Conservation Easements, Flexibility, and the “In Perpetuity” Requirement of IRC § 170(h)
Oct. 20, 2022—Molly Teague | 75 Vand. L. Rev. 1573 Conservation easements have been closely tied to tax incentives since the 1970s, when Congress passed legislation to encourage land preservation. In an attempt to balance the desire to conserve more land with the desire to prevent tax abuses, Congress later passed § 170(h) of the Internal Revenue Code,...
Why Can’t We Be FRANDs?: Anti-Suit Injunctions, International Comity, and International Commercial Arbitration in Standard-Essential Patent Litigation
Oct. 20, 2022—Raghavendra R. Murthy | 75 Vand. L. Rev. 1609 Picking up a smartphone to contact someone across the globe is facilitated by technical standards like 5G. These standards allow for technological compatibility worldwide. For instance, a 5G capable device can connect to 5G networks anywhere in the world because the same 5G standard is used...
Deliberately Indifferent: Institutional Liability for Further Harassment in Student-on-Student Title IX Cases
May. 18, 2022—Jacob R. Goodman | 75 Vand. L. Rev. 1273 (2022) | Sexual harassment is an unfortunate problem far too many have experienced. Universities and other educational institutions owe a duty, both legal and moral, to protect students from sexual harassment, and in turn to allow students to receive the full benefits of their education. But a...
Finding the Boundaries of Equitable Disgorgement
May. 18, 2022—Cameron K. Hood | 75 Vand. L. Rev. 1307 (2022) | The disgorgement of “ill-gotten gains” is a significant mechanism for enforcing the securities laws. By compelling a violator of the securities laws to forfeit their illegal proceeds, disgorgement serves as a strong deterrent for securities fraud and an important method by which investors are compensated...
What’s the Deference? Interpreting the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines After Kisor
Apr. 21, 2022—Liam Murphy | 75 Vand. L. Rev. 957 (2022) | For more than three decades, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines have constrained the punishment doled out by federal judges, limiting discretion that was once nearly unlimited and bringing standardization to the penological decisionmaking process. For twice as long, the Supreme Court has constrained judges in a different...
Policing, Masculinities, and Judicial Acknowledgment
Apr. 21, 2022—Nicholas J. Prendergast | 75 Vand. L. Rev. 997 (2022) | In the 1980s, the Supreme Court held that courts must consider the “totality of the circumstances” when deciding the reasonableness of a police officer’s conduct in an excessive force suit. To this day, the precise meaning of “reasonableness” remains elusive. For years, courts around the...
Should It Stay or Should It Go: The Clash of Canons over Termination of the Automatic Stay for Repeat Filers
Mar. 22, 2022—John H. Gibbons | 75 Vand. L. Rev. 615 (2022) | One of the most important debtor protections provided by bankruptcy law is the automatic stay, which stops creditors from pursuing collection actions against the debtor. Over time, however, debtors began to abuse the stay by repeatedly filing for bankruptcy each time a creditor tried to...