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Mark C. Weber. This Essay seeks to demonstrate that federal disability discrimination law conflicts with and thus supervenes the Trump Administration’s new regulations changing the standards for excluding immigrants from the United States on the basis of their likelihood of becoming a public charge. The new regulations use an explicit disability-related discriminatory criterion that is not required by the statutory admission standards and will have an unjustified negative impact on immigrants who have disabling conditions. The Essay draws the comparison to Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc., a 2014 case in which the Supreme Court invalidated a federal regulation on the ground that it conflicted not with its enabling legislation but with an unrelated federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Full Article

Alexander Volokh. North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC (N.C. Dental) has worked a potential revolution in antitrust law. A revolution because it makes clear that state regulatory agencies dominated by active market participants are not entitled to immunity from federal antitrust liability unless they are actively supervised by the State. But still only a potential revolution, because much depends on what counts as “active state supervision.” The story of N.C. Dental is, in large part, the story of how federal courts have tried to define “the State” (for purposes of state-action immunity). N.C. Dental has rejected a labeling approach, a balancing approach, and a sovereignty approach in favor of a financial disinterestedness approach. I argue that this approach isn’t obvious from an abstract political-philosophy standpoint but is…

Michael J. Saks, Adela Grando, Chase Millea, & Anita Murcko. Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) are centralized repositories of patients’ health records. The records come from most or all of the providers and health-care organizations within a given region or locale. Used mainly for clinical care, patients’ records can generally be accessed by any of the patients’ health-care providers, care coordinators, or payors, enabling them to see comprehensive and up-to-date health information pertaining to the patient. Patients’ records and HIEs are heavily regulated by federal and state law both to achieve effective flow of information and ensure the privacy and security of the data. That same data could be a remarkable resource for medical researchers to use to improve health and health care. But the data sit unused by researchers. Why?…

Robert H. Lande & Sandeep Vaheesan. The antitrust laws, as they are presently interpreted, are incapable of blocking most of the very largest corporate mergers. They successfully blocked only three of the seventy-eight largest finalized mergers and acquisitions (defined as the acquired firm being valued at more than $10 billion) that occurred between 2015 and 2019. The antitrust laws also would permit the first trillion-dollar corporation, Apple, to merge with the previously third largest corporation, Exxon/Mobil. In fact, today every U.S. corporation could merge until just ten were left—so long as each owned only 10% of every relevant market. Even though the Congresses that enacted the anti-merger laws did so, among other aims, to limit the political power of corporations, today the federal antitrust agencies and courts interpret these laws…

Edward J. Imwinkelried. The use of expert testimony at trials is not only widespread; its use also appears to be increasing. In a Rand Corporation study of California trials in courts of general jurisdiction, the researchers found that experts appeared in 86% of the trials; and on average, there were 3.3 experts per trial. A more recent study reported that the average has risen to 4.31 experts per trial. One commentator has asserted that in the United States, trial by jury is evolving into trial by expert. That assertion is hyperbole, but it is undeniable that the quality of expert testimony is now a major determinant of the quality of the outcomes at American trials. Full Article

John T. Holden,* Thomas A. Baker III,** & Marc Edelman***Full ArticleAbstractCompetitive video gaming or esports has captured the attention of hundreds of millions of people across the globe. With that attention has come billions of dollars’ worth of investment and promotion. But, it has also exposed an underlying toxic environment that features widespread sexual and gender harassment. This pervasive culture of harassment threatens to derail the esports industry and mars the promise of gender equity in one of the few competitive “sports” where physical strength, agility and body size do not dictate success. In this Article, we examine the rise of competitive gaming, and provide an in-depth analysis of the pervasive issue of harassment that permeates esports. We then propose a series of tangible reforms that would hold harassers and…

Amanda Jayne Miller & Sharon Sassler. Do the relationship processes leading to cohabitation and subsequent outcomes contribute to growing social class disparities in family behaviors? Our paper explores the role played by gender and class in relationship progression, from dating, to cohabiting, to talk of marriage and proposing. Data are from in-depth interviews with 122 service-class and middle-class cohabiting individuals (sixty-one couples). We find that men initiate dating and proposals far more often than do women, though gender equality is more evident in who raises the topic of cohabiting, and women are more likely than men to initiate discussions of marriage. Middle-class women express greater agency in forwarding relationships than their service-class counterparts, as they frequently raise the topic of marriage and establish the general pacing and time frame of…

Edward Stein. For much of this nation’s history, the vast majority of people have believed that being married to more than one person at the same time is deeply problematic. Further, polygamous marriage has never been legal in the United States. Despite this, some people have been in plural or group relationships and some of these people have wished to gain legal recognition for these relationships. The arguments for recognizing such relationships are persuasive, but the prospects for legalization of polygamous marriage seem slim in the near future. This Article offers a suggestion of how the law of domestic relations might deal with such relationships, focusing on same-sex “triads.” The proposal is that domestic partnership or civil union laws, which remain on the books in some jurisdictions, but are now…

Ayelet Blecher-Prigat. This Article aims to draw attention to the dynamic interrelationship between nonmarriage and marriage in which the principles, values, and rhetoric used in laws that relate to nonmarital intimate relationships infiltrate the traditional laws governing marriage. The Article argues that the laws governing nonmarriage affect the legal institution of marriage inasmuch as the laws governing marriage affect how nonmarital relationships are treated under the law. To demonstrate this dynamic interrelationship and influence, the Article uses observations drawn from the extensive Israeli legal experience with nonmarital relationships. Nonetheless, it advances a theoretical claim about the interrelationship between the laws of nonmarriage and of marriage that is relevant in general, including in the U.S. context. Full Article