2002 MASON LADD LECTURE
Charles W. Ehrhardt
The Mason Ladd Lecture, the premier lecture series presented at the Florida State University College of Law,1 honors the memory of Mason Ladd, the founding Dean of the law school. After guiding the law school at the University of Iowa for over 25 years as Dean, Ladd accepted the position of Dean at Florida State and began to plan the establishment of our new law school. When he accepted this challenge, there was no building or faculty, and were no students. However, in the fall of 1966, the law school at Florida State opened with over 100 students enrolled. Under his leadership and constant prodding, the College of Law began its steady growth. Prior to his retirement at Florida State in 1969, he obtained funding for a new College of Law building and completed the preliminary planning for its construction. For three years thereafter Mason returned each winter to Tallahassee to teach evidence and renew old acquaintances.
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CITIZEN WARRANTIES AND MAJORITIES
Saul Levmore
What can citizens do when their governments are nonresponsive or ineffective, and what can a good government or politician do to increase the chances that it will serve all its citizens well? The conventional answers to these questions are reflected in constitutions and in increasingly complex statutory and judge-made schemes. Lawyers might focus on opportunities for litigating against governments, large and small, while political scientists and public-choice-minded academic lawyers are drawn to thoughts of the political checks that keep governments in line. Political leaders impress us when they set our sights on the moon and then get us there on schedule. They frustrate us when we look closer to our ghettos, and see mortality, crime, and literacy rates that appall us even in the face of enormous public expenditures. My aim here is not to explain the combinations of success and failure that we find but rather to explore the idea of improving performance with modest incentives. I explore the possibility that a government decisionmaker, or the majority coalition that is behind it, might be motivated by the requirement that it pay for failure.
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PLANNING MORATORIA AND REGULATORY TAKINGS: THE SUPREME COURT’S FAIRNESS MANDATE BENEFITS LANDOWNERS
Steven J. Eagle
Planning moratoria are freezes on land development imposed for land-use planning purposes. Recently, in Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the United States Supreme Court considered whether landowners subjected to such moratoria would be entitled to compensation under the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Court concluded that sometimes they might and sometimes they might not.
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KOSHER WITHOUT LAW: THE ROLE OF NONLEGAL SANCTIONS IN OVERCOMING FRAUD WITHIN THE KOSHER FOOD INDUSTRY
Shayna M. Sigman
What is the appropriate legal response to “Order Without Law”? That is, should laws change when private actors—for example, organizations, trade industries, and institutions—develop their own law through extralegal, or to be more accurate, nonlegal customs and practices? At first glance, this question might seem analogous to a tree falling in the forest. When private actors opt out of legal enforcement mechanisms, such as court enforcement of tort or contract, there is no invitation for law to act; therefore, the content of the legal rule not chosen appears moot. Recent empirical scholarship exploring nonlegal systems, whether it is focused on cattle ranchers in Shasta County or diamond merchants in New York City, often relies on a premise that “[l]aw simply [does] not matter in a community with well-developed norms.”
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GAMES AND STORIES: GAME THEORY AND THE CIVIL FALSE CLAIMS ACT
Pamela H. Bucy
Gripping tales of intrigue, smuggling, deceit, courage, dogged persistence, extortion, and waste pour forth when one studies the Civil False Claims Act (FCA). The FCA creates a cause of action on the part of “any person” who believes that another has submitted false claims to the federal government. It has been heralded as one of the most effective crime-fighting tools ever devised, and cursed as irresponsible and disruptive to a healthy economy. What is clear is that the False Claims Act, with its unique partnering of private individuals and governmental investigators, fundamentally alters public regulatory theory and practice. It does so by changing the world of regulation from a two-party dynamic between regulator (R) and targeted business (T) to a three-party dynamic between R, T, and a private party (P) who files suit under the False Claims Act and thereby becomes a player in the regulatory game.
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AUTHORITY OF THE LAW? THE CONTRIBUTION OF SECULARIZED LEGAL EDUCATION TO THE MORAL CRISIS OF THE PROFESSION
Jessica J. Sage
“So why did you go to law school?” This question is typically asked of every first-year law student countless times. The answers to this question fall across a spectrum as diverse as any law student body. Some law students pursue law because they want to protect the defenseless and oppressed, others to serve justice, others for financial aspirations, and others for reasons too vast to mention. Despite these varied motivations, there simply is an essence about the law that intrigues, inspires, and draws many people to its study.
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PUBLICATION PLANS IN THE UNITED STATES COURTS OF APPEALS: THE UNATTAINABLE PARADIGM
Dean A. Morande
Looking at the seemingly endless volumes of the Federal Reporter, most people would be shocked to learn that approximately eighty percent of all cases brought before the federal appellate courts are decided in unpublished form. Aside from the obvious implication that the text of the case is not published in the Federal Reporter, to be unpublished also means that the disposition is either relegated to persuasive status or, in those federal appellate circuits with a no-citation rule, the case can never again be brought to the court’s attention. Either way, the result is a vast body of case law that plays no active part in the legal system and does little to contribute to legal jurisprudence as a whole.
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