WASHINGTON AND LEE LAW REVIEW
Volume 76, Issue 2
ARTICLES
The Future of Physicians’ First Amendment Freedom: Professional Speech in an Era of Radically Expanded Prenatal Genetic Testing
Wynter K. Miller & Benjamin E. Berkman
Under the First Amendment, state intervention in conversations between physicians and prospective parents about prenatal whole genome sequencing (PWGS) should trigger at least heightened scrutiny.
Categorical Confusion in Personal Jurisdiction Law
Todd David Peterson
This Article posits that two significant problems in the Supreme Court’s personal jurisdiction case law have led to incoherent and irreconcilable results in cases involving individual and corporate defendants.
A Commercial Law for Software Contracting
Michael L. Rustad & Elif Kavusturan
Software licensing and software-as-a-service contracts are innovative in their streamlining of products, as well as in their contracting practices, done in both a legislative and common law void. The dearth of case law and the legislative void leaves both software providers and customers with no guidance on contract law issues on software licensing and cloud computing.
Adopting Civil Damages: Wrongful Family Separation in Adoption
Malinda L. Seymore
The Trump Administration’s new immigration policy of family separation at the U.S./Mexico border rocked the summer of 2018. Yet family separation is the prerequisite to every legal adoption. This Article explores possible tort causes of action available to birth parents, including a proposed new tort of wrongful family separation, with the long-term objective of changing adoption agency behavior, potentially transforming adoption practice.
Masterpiece of Misdirection?
Mark Strasser
In Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the United States Supreme Court overruled a finding that a religious baker had violated a state antidiscrimination law when refusing to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The decision might seem to have been a masterful resolution of an extremely difficult case because the Court issued a narrow opinion that seemed to affirm free exercise rights while at the same time affirming the right of same-sex couples to marry. Yet, the opinion, along with the accompanying concurrences and dissent, may well destabilize various settled areas of constitutional law and, in any event, likely represents shots across the bow with respect to a number of issues that will make their way before the Court.
NOTES
This Land is Your Land, This Land Is Mined Land: Expanding Governmental Ownership Liability Under CERCLA
Kiersten E. Holms
This Note argues that the recent court decisions rejecting the government’s bare legal title defense are consistent with CERCLA. Courts should not treat the federal government any differently than a private entity and, therefore, courts should hold the federal government liable as an owner under CERCLA for its role as legal titleholder to public lands.
Text Messages Are Property: Why You Don’t Own Your Text Messages, but It’d Be a Lot Cooler if You Did
Spence Howden
Courts do not treat text messages as intangible personal property. Authors and recipients of text messages have limited recourse against cell phone manufacturers or service providers when they “accidentally” delete their users’ text messages.
