Note

TAXING POLICE BRUTALITY BONDS

Likhitha Butchireddygari*

In view of decades of devastating police violence and efforts to reform policing, this Note points to two concurrent phenomena that result in the federal tax code granting benefits to the wealthiest taxpayers who lend to municipalities for police brutality settlements. The first phenomenon is cities electing to issue bonds to satisfy these costly payouts. These bonds have been coined “police brutality bonds.” The second phenomenon is the tax...

Most American workers labor at will, meaning that employers may fire employees for any nondiscriminatory reason or no reason at all. Employers can even dismiss workers for seemingly unfair or arbitrary reasons. This fraught employment relationship has long resulted in a power imbalance for workers. That imbalance is particularly pronounced for pregnant and postpartum workers, who face disproportionate rates of discrimination at work. Even though...

The federal government relies on private parties to deter and enforce fraud with the False Claims Act (FCA). Unlike practically every other federal law on the books today, the FCA not only empowers the Department of Justice to go after fraudsters, but it also enlists everyone else by promising a financial reward to individuals who bring claims on behalf of the government. This qui tam enforcement regime is based on the rationale that encouraging...

The effects of the pandemic have shed light on the evolution of technology in the legal space, including the use of technology in videoconferencing proceedings and facilitating court procedures. Despite the benefits associated with technology, the rapid adoption of videoconferencing proceedings in courts may have unprecedented impacts on the relevance and practicality of the forum non conveniens doctrine. Additionally, the drastically different...

Two recent scandals spotlighted corporate fraud: the recent Wirecard scandal, which revealed €1.9 billion of missing corporate cash, and FTX’s bankruptcy scandal. Those incidents raised questions about the blameworthiness of professional third parties—lawyers, auditors, and banks, among others—who repeatedly fail to protect large public corporations from corporate fraud and misconduct. Professional third parties often are not held accountable...

When litigation outside the United States needs discovery inside the United States, U.S. judges provide assistance to their foreign counterparts. 28 U.S.C. § 1782 was designed to provide the statutory mechanism for this form of judicial assistance. But a recent empirical study has shown that, nowadays, a majority of requests for discovery assistance under 28 U.S.C. § 1782 come from private parties rather than from tribunals. And the proportion...

In 2021, the Supreme Court decided Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, a landmark case that established a new categorical rule in takings law: When the government enacts a regulation authorizing a temporary invasion of a property owner’s land, it effects a per se taking under the Fifth Amendment for which it must pay just compensation. By examining the interaction between this holding and legal challenges to New York’s Housing Stability...

This Note examines how increasing complexity fueled by financial innovations can impair mandatory disclosure as an investor-protection mechanism. It focuses on structured notes, a type of debt security that has transformed significantly since the global financial crisis. This Note highlights several financial innovations that have fueled an unprecedented increase in structured note issuance volume by expanding access and catering to more idiosyncratic...

Wolff v. McDonnell is the seminal case outlining the due process rights due to incarcerated people in disciplinary hearings. The Court held that incarcerated people are entitled to the minimum procedures appropriate under the circumstances and required by the Due Process Clause but stopped short of adopting the full panoply of procedural safeguards. Namely, the Court found that incarcerated people have no due process right to confront...

The electric grid is the bedrock of modern society, but recent climate events have highlighted that it may be vulnerable to extreme weather. One possible explanation for the grid’s climate sensitivity is that its vast, interconnected hardware is exposed to the elements and has been built to withstand historical environmental conditions. Due to climate change, however, historical data regarding temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather is...