Contributions

The Pro­ceed­ings of the NYU Moot Court Board, or just “Pro­ceed­ings,” is the online jour­nal of the NYU Moot Court Board, doc­u­ment­ing new approach­es to unset­tled legal ques­tions pro­ceed­ing from moot court activ­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly law stu­dent competitions.

Pro­ceed­ings aims to real­ize for the wider legal com­mu­ni­ty a ben­e­fit of moot­ing that has hith­er­to accrued only to par­tic­i­pants. As most appel­late lawyers know, one of the best ways to refine a the­o­ry of a case or an area of law is to argue about it, either with col­leagues or before law school pro­fes­sors. But stu­dent Moot Court com­pe­ti­tions, which con­sid­er some of the most inter­est­ing and intractable prob­lems in law, gen­er­ate hun­dreds of hours of for­mal, inquisi­to­r­i­al analy­sis of those prob­lems by pro­fes­sors, prac­ti­tion­ers, and judges (not to men­tion reams of legal writing)–and then, too often, the results are thrown away when the com­pe­ti­tion is over.

No longer. Pro­ceed­ings is the jour­nal where lawyers and law stu­dents can pub­lish their “test results” from the legal lab­o­ra­to­ry of moot­ing that tests both old and new approach­es to unset­tled areas of law. It aims to real­ize moot­ing’s poten­tial not only as a valu­able edu­ca­tion­al exer­cise, but as a pro­duc­tive forum for legal research.

Contributions

The Fifth Amend­ment pro­hibits the tak­ing of pri­vate prop­er­ty “with­out just com­pen­sa­tion,” but the opti­mal method of deter­min­ing the pre­cise amount of mon­ey that will just­ly com­pen­sate the prop­er­ty own­er is not always clear. The gen­er­al rule has been to set com­pen­sa­tion at the fair mar­ket val­ue of the prop­er­ty at the time the gov­ern­ment takes it, with cer­tain excep­tions. In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Tim­o­thy Lyons (’21) argues that when the gov­ern­ment makes a well-pub­li­cized pre-con­dem­na­tion announce­ment, it may be appro­pri­ate to com­pen­sate the own­er based on the property’s val­ue at the time of the announce­ment rather than its val­ue at the time of the taking.

Contributions

This Con­tri­bu­tion exam­ines whether police have effec­tu­at­ed a Fourth Amend­ment seizure by show of author­i­ty when an indi­vid­ual flees from a momen­tary encounter. Dean S. Ache­son (’21) argues that, under Fourth Amend­ment prece­dent, pre-flight com­pli­ance does not con­sti­tute sub­mis­sion to a show of author­i­ty in a police inter­ac­tion that con­sists of answer­ing brief ques­tions and engag­ing in eva­sive behavior.

Contributions

Do state laws that pro­hib­it employ­ers from dis­crim­i­nat­ing against employ­ees on the basis of med­ical mar­i­jua­na card­hold­er sta­tus effec­tive­ly pro­tect card­hold­er employ­ees? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Tian Lei (’21) argues that when courts rec­og­nize and legit­imize employ­ers’ inter­est in main­tain­ing drug-free work-place poli­cies, card­hold­er employ­ees become espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble to adverse employ­ment action. This Con­tri­bu­tion estab­lish­es that drug-free work­place poli­cies often leave card­hold­er employ­ees with a choice between their health and their job and that the scope and legit­i­ma­cy of such poli­cies must be inter­ro­gat­ed if the law is to pro­tect med­ical mar­i­jua­na card­hold­ers from employ­ment discrimination. 

Contributions

The fed­er­al­ist mod­el of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers often sets up pro­tract­ed con­flict over the extent to which the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is able to pre­empt the actions of states. Among the grow­ing are­nas for such pre­emp­tion dis­putes is the field of con­trolled sub­stances, which the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment reg­u­lates under the Con­trolled Sub­stances Act (“CSA”). How­ev­er, sev­er­al state leg­is­la­tures have chal­lenged the fed­er­al government’s pre­emp­tive author­i­ty by cre­at­ing med­ical mar­i­jua­na card­hold­er sys­tems, where indi­vid­u­als can reg­is­ter for a card to obtain and con­sume med­ical mar­i­jua­na. Any such state med­ical mar­i­jua­na laws (“SMML”) that were mod­eled this way would pre­vent card­hold­ers from being dis­crim­i­nat­ed against by their employ­ers, and shield doc­tors who pre­scribe med­ical mar­i­jua­na from crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ty. In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Shri­vats San­gane­r­ia (’21) argues that any such state statute should be pre­empt­ed under a the­o­ry of obsta­cle pre­emp­tion, for the state would have affir­ma­tive­ly autho­rized con­duct that Con­gress pro­hib­it­ed with the CSA, thus frus­trat­ing the pur­pose of the fed­er­al legislation. 

Contributions

Can plain­tiffs bring state law claims of neg­li­gence per se based only on alleged vio­la­tions of the Health Insur­ance Porta­bil­i­ty and Account­abil­i­ty Act (HIPAA)? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Ryan Knox (’19) dis­cuss­es the inter­ac­tion of HIPAA with state neg­li­gence claims and the legal and pol­i­cy rea­sons chal­leng­ing these pri­vate claims. This Con­tri­bu­tion ulti­mate­ly argues that neg­li­gence per se claims under state law should not be per­mit­ted to be brought when based only on alleged HIPAA violations.

Notes

Does the Sec­ond Amend­ment pro­tect an absolute right to car­ry a firearm in pub­lic places for self-defense? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Michael Treves (’19) reviews the text and his­to­ry of the Sec­ond Amend­ment and Supreme Court prece­dent, and assess­es the appli­ca­tion of the Sec­ond Amend­ment out­side of the home. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that the “core” of the Sec­ond Amend­ment does not extend out­side of the home, and thus pub­lic car­ry laws do not reg­u­late con­duct with­in the scope of the Sec­ond Amendment.

Contributions

To what extent can a SEP hold­er can dis­crim­i­nate in how it licens­es to sup­pli­ers with­out vio­lat­ing its FRAND com­mit­ment? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Arielle Kop­pell (’19) con­sid­ers whether and how SEP hold­ers can dis­crim­i­nate in licens­ing. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that a SEP hold­er should be able to arrange dif­fer­en­tial licens­ing terms for ver­ti­cal­ly inte­grat­ed and non-ver­ti­cal­ly inte­grat­ed licensee coun­ter­parts require its licensees to pur­chase tied non-SEP com­po­nents when those non-SEP com­po­nents are func­tion­al­ly related.

Contributions

When does the use of the Exchange Act cross the line into for­bid­den extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty? In this con­tri­bu­tion, Math­ews R. de Car­val­ho (’19) exam­ines recent fed­er­al court deci­sions which try to devel­op a body of law under which Sec­tion 10(b) might be applied to par­ties out­side the Unit­ed States with­out con­tra­ven­ing the pre­sump­tion against extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty. This Con­tri­bu­tion argues that one approach tak­en by cir­cuit courts – the irrev­o­ca­ble lia­bil­i­ty test – rep­re­sents the most faith­ful appli­ca­tion of the Supreme Court’s dic­tates in Mor­ri­son v. Nation­al Aus­tralia Bank Ltd.

Contributions

Are plain­tiffs who raise hybrid claims for unsea­wor­thi­ness under the com­mon law of admi­ral­ty and neg­li­gence under the Jones Act inel­i­gi­ble to obtain pre­judg­ment inter­est? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Nate Blevins (’19) dis­cuss­es the inter­ac­tion of admi­ral­ty com­mon law and the Jones Act—along with the Fed­er­al Employ­ers Lia­bil­i­ty Act incor­po­rat­ed therein—that has led to a cir­cuit split on this issue. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that, con­trary to the rule in most cir­cuits, a plain­tiff who pre­vails on both counts of a hybrid claim should be eli­gi­ble for pre­judg­ment interest.

Contributions

Must inter­preters be avail­able for cross exam­i­na­tion under the Con­fronta­tion Clause? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Caleb Younger (’19) dis­cuss­es the con­duit the­o­ry in light of the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Craw­ford v. Wash­ing­ton and sub­se­quent low­er court find­ings. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that the Craw­ford Court prop­er­ly inter­pret­ed the Sixth Amend­ment and that the lan­guage con­duit the­o­ry fails under both Supreme Court jurispru­dence and the Con­sti­tu­tion­al text.