Law Review Members Make LSU Law History!

Congratulations to newly appointed Volume 78 Articles Editor Sarah Nickel and Volume 78 Senior Associate and newly-elected SBA President Sara Kuebel for winning the Robert Lee Tullis Moot Court Competition and helping make LSU Law history!

Sarah Nickel (right) and Sara Kuebel (left) with their Championship Cups

Winning LSU Law’s internal trial competitions brings an air of prestige and accomplishment to students. But with their victories in the Fall 2016 semester, Robert Lee Tullis Moot Court winners Sara Kuebel and Sarah Nickel and Ira S. Flory Mock Trial winners Caity Cline and Rome Gonsoulin also made history.

The victories marked the first time at LSU Law that all-female teams were victorious in the two competitions.

Teams of two males winning the Flory and Tullis trials were the norm in LSU Law’s past, and in recent school history, mixed male-female teams winners have become commonplace. This year, however, was a clean sweep for female law students.

It’s a milestone that the competitions’ winners are proud of achieving.

Kuebel and Nickel said they’re exploring the idea of doing more trial competitions during their 3L year, adding that these courtroom contests supplement their legal education at LSU.

“There’s no downside to putting yourself out there and doing it because it’s just a great learning experience,” Nickel said. “It builds up your confidence because you learn that it’s not the end of the world if you say, ‘um.’ Everything’s fine.”

And years after all four students have graduated and return to LSU Law for a class reunion, they know they have made history at the more than 110-year-old law school.

“If you look at all of the names on the moot court plaque that’s (outside the LSU Law Robinson Courtroom), it’s all men’s names,” Kuebel said. “So it’s going to be really cool to see the names of these two women, both of us memorialized at the Law Center.”

For the full article, Click Here!

Baton Rouge Business Report features The Legal Ease Podcast!

David Jacobs, of the Baton Rouge Business Report, recently interviewed the members of the Legal Ease. Quotes from the article and a link to the full article are below!

Jack Zeringue, left, and Cam Miller host an episode of “The Legal Ease,” a podcast created and operated by students from the LSU Law Center’s Louisiana Law Review. While podcasts have become wildly popular in other subjects, “The Legal Ease” is one of only a few operated by a law review journal, joining the likes of UCLA, Yale, Northwestern and Fordham. The podcast’s guests and hosts discuss legal issues and how they relate to Louisiana, as well as pertinent public affairs matters. Photography by Don Kadair

On a recent Monday morning at the LSU Law Center, third-year law students Jack Zeringue and Cam Miller are putting together the latest episode of “The Legal Ease,” the Louisiana Law Review podcast. They’re about to have an academic discussion about a technical legal issue, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a little fun.

“The Legal Ease” is in its second season. Zeringue and Miller say they want the show to be informative and entertaining for law students, academics and legal practitioners, while also shedding light upon legal topics in the news that interest the general public.

LSU Law Center graduate Alex Robertson suggested starting a podcast as part of his pitch to be the law review’s online editor for the 2015-2016 school year. Robertson, now an attorney with Irwin, Fritchie, Urquhart & Moore in New Orleans, is a fan of the medium, and he helped create podcasts as part his job with a web design firm before entering law school.

For the entire article, Click Here!

Volume 77, Issue 3

 Complete Index of Volume 77, Issue 3


Articles

Precarious Possession

John A. Lovett

Acquisitive prescription is a time-honored institution in civil law property regimes generally and in Louisiana property law in particular. Precarious possession is an equally important concept. A recent Louisiana Supreme Court decision, Boudreaux v. Cummings, 167 So.2d 3d 599 (La. 2015), has raised important questions about the intersection of acquisitive prescription and precarious possession in Louisiana law. This article reconstructs the law of precarious possession to answer some of those questions. It traces how Louisiana’s two-tier institution of good and bad faith acquisitive prescription emerged from Roman law and pre-codification French and Spanish law, discusses how French commentators interpreted their codified version of that law and approached the problem of precarious possession with caution, and defends the continuing viability of Louisiana’s two-tier institution of acquisitive prescription. The article then reviews a significant body of Louisiana case law addressing precarious possession in the context of possessory actions and acquisitive prescription. It demonstrates that in two categories of cases—those involving true strangers and persons involved in contractual or legal status relationships—Louisiana courts reach defensible and consistent outcomes. But it argues that in a third category of cases—those involving neighbors who know each other well or members of the same close-knit community—courts face acute challenges and produce inconsistent results. The article contends that to resolve this third category of cases with greater sensitivity to the virtue of property sharing and to the specific relational context of these disputes, Louisiana law would benefit from the adoption of a presumption of sharing and concomitant indicia of giving or renunciation.


A First Amendment Deference Approach to Reforming Anti-Bullying Laws

Emily Suski

This Article explores the problems associated with school exclusion as a response to bullying in light of the complicated nature of the problem and the attendant First Amendment concerns. It argues in favor of drawing on First Amendment jurisprudence, particularly by deconstructing rationales for the deference afforded schools to suppress student speech, to develop better, more comprehensive legal approaches to combatting bullying that also address those First Amendment concerns. In doing so, it also seeks to fill a gap in the literature on bullying. Although scholars have explored the limits that the Constitution, including the First Amendment, places on antibullying laws, they have not done so in light of the complicated nature of the problem, the interventions called for in response, or by examining the rationales for public school deference to suppress student speech.


Seeking a Definition of Medical Futility with Reference to the Louisiana Natural Death Act

Frederick R. Parker Jr.

This Article addresses the specific issue of how the Louisiana Act might inform the question of whether, or in what circumstances, treatment can be so futile that a patient has no positive right to receive it. As this issue most commonly arises in the context of permanently incapacitated patients whose surrogates speak on their behalf, it would be appropriate to first consider the relevance of a patient’s decisional capacity to the question. As a preliminary matter, this Article begins by discussing the concept of personhood and the relevance of capacity to the right of a severely incapacitated patient to accept or refuse treatment.


Domestic Drone Surveillance: The Court’s Epistemic Challenge and Wittgenstein’s Actional Certainty

Robert Greenleaf Brice & Katrina L. Sifferd

This Article examines the domestic use of drones by law enforcement to gather information. First, Part I considers the Fourth Amendment and the different legal standards of proof that might apply to law enforcement drone use. Part II then explores philosopher Wittgenstein’s notion of actional certainty. Part III discusses how the theory of actional certainty can apply to the Supreme Court and its epistemic challenge of determining what is a “reasonable” expectation of privacy. This Part also investigates the Mosaic Theory as a possible reading of the Fourth Amendment.



Comments

Mind the Gap: Bridging Gender Wage Inequality in Louisiana

Katilyn Hollowell

Currently, a woman in Louisiana has several methods to claim wage discrimination, including filing a claim under federal or state law. However, these laws are insufficient and do not offer adequate protections to employees, specifically because Louisiana operates under two equal pay regimes, thus affording better protections to one group of working women over others. Louisiana employees need a new statutory regime that is efficient, clear, and gives all employees equal rights and protections regardless of gender or employer. This regime should provide protection to both public and private employees in Louisiana. Therefore, the Louisiana Legislature should modify and pass Senate Bill 219, which failed during the 2015 Regular Legislative Session.

Unveiling Management’s Crystal Ball

Eric R. Harper

Have you ever wanted to look into a crystal ball and predict the future Although not always accurate, most companies have the ability to look into their “crystal ball” and make predictions for the future of the business. Companies may disclose this forward-looking information to shareholders or potential investors, but may also choose not to unveil the crystal ball, considering that the predictions could have a negative impact on their current stock prices. If a company’s investors suspect a company’s statements were materially false or misleading, the investors may bring a securities fraud class action lawsuit, claiming the company omitted certain material forward-looking information that likely would have had a negative impact on revenues and profits.

Hey Employer, Did You “Notice” My Text Message?

Melissa J. Shaffer

Part I of this Comment provides an overview of the FMLA and corresponding federal regulations, focusing on the purpose of the 2009 revisions and the policy concerns underlying the FMLA. Part II examines the ambiguous language of the FMLA notice provisions and the conflicting jurisprudence in cases of unforeseeable leave, examining each element of notice—timing, content, and form. Part III analyzes the implications of the current state of the law on employers and employees. Part IV argues that Congress should amend the Code of Federal Regulations to include a two-step notice process in cases of unforeseeable leave to clarify the law and provide employers and employees with more consistency and security.

Inconsistency with the Internal Consistency Test

Mackenzie Catherine Schot

Part I of this Comment provides an overview of the erratic history of state taxation under the dormant Commerce Clause. Part II explains the divided Supreme Court’s most recent analysis in Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne. Finally, Part III argues that the Court correctly chose the internal consistency test as the leading standard but should have presented its final decision more clearly.

Volume 78 Board Announced!

We are proud to announce and congratulate the Junior Associates who were selected to the Volume 78 Board of Editors. The Volume 77 Board received excellent candidates, and we thank everyone for applying. Serving on the Board of Editors of the Louisiana Law Review is a singular honor, and we wish the best of luck to the new Board! 

 

Editor-in-Chief

Carson Garand 

Managing Editor

Katie Herbert

Articles Editors

Colton Acosta

Sarah Nickel

 

Production Editor

Caroline Donze

Derby Willis

 

Executive Senior Editor

Kristin Oglesby

 

Senior Editors

Malerie Bulot

Molly Gunnels

Michael Seibert

Savannah Walker

Ben Wallace

 Online Editor

William Walsh