Why is prediction so difficult? After all, even if we reject the static concept of original intent, constitutional interpretation is “law,” and “law” should have some element of constancy, certainty, and predictability. What, then, is the problem? The problem is time. In fact, law, even constitutional law, is generally quite constant, certain, and predictable-if we look at it in relatively short time-bites. But over decades, to say nothing of centuries,…
Whether state and local governments can be sued for damages is a question that cuts across subject-area boundaries. This question, which has long confounded courts in the areas of both antitrust and civil rights law, now has arisen in a new area: section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 19344 and rule 10b-5.
Part I of this Article revisits the traditional account of unilateral mistake, arguing that a “subjective” theory focused on requirements of contract formation still provides the most convincing explanation of the case law and the best rule of decision. Part II suggests that the original limits to relief for unilateral mistake came to be expanded as an unintended consequence of the Holmes/Williston “objective theory” of contract, though the present-day consequences…
In this Article I argue that, contrary to Justice Blackmun’s concurring opinion and the opinions of several state courts, courts should not expand Young to establish a new due process right for criminal contemnors that would bind state courts.
Scholars-at first historians and political scientists, and more recently legal scholars-who have become more enamored with the civic republican implications of early American thought have overlooked the “whig” basis of that thought. As a result, much recent scholarship about early American constitutionalism has been seriously misguided.