Professor Lewis presented on October 31 at the North East Ohio Faculty Colloquium, a joint one-day symposium organized by C-M Law, as well as by Case Western Reserve University Law School and Akron Law School.  Professor Lewis’ topic was “Due Date: Enforcing Surrogacy Promises in the Best Interest of the Child.”

Professor Heidi Govovitz Robertson was interviewed extensively by an ideastream  reporter regarding the anti-fracking activists’ attempts, in Gates Mills and elsewhere, to use a rights-based approach to banning the technology.  A portion of Professor Robertson’s interview was used in a story on this subject which aired on 90.3 WCPN on October 31.  The news story, quoting Professor Robertson, is available here.

Professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich’s article,  “The Rapid Rise of Delayed Notice Searches, and the Fourth Amendment ‘Rule Requiring Notice,'” published in the Pepperdine Law Review article on “sneak and peek” searches was highlighted and extensively quoted on October 31 by Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy (available here).

Professor Kerr notes a recent report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on the rise in “sneak and peek” searches.  Professor Kerr then quotes from Professor Witmer-Rich’s article to explain that the data the EFF is using is likely misleading.  He concludes:  “It may be that the number of sneak-and-peek warrants is up, and perhaps up a lot. But, unfortunately, we don’t know that either way. As Professor Witmer-Rich says, the reporting requirement appears to be broken.”

Professor Chris Sagers published an op-ed in the October 30 edition of the Plain Dealer entitled “Why fans can’t win when it comes to buying concert, game tickets.” 

In this op-ed, Professor Sagers criticizes ticketing policies for major sports/concert events by big ticketing companies, such as Ticketmaster and Veritix.  These ticketing companies already controlled initial ticket sales, but are now attempting to control ticket re-sales as well.  According to Sagers, “[t]he end result will likely be higher ticket prices all around. ”  Sagers thus argues that policy makers should step in, to prevent further abuses and ensure that healthy competition regarding ticket re-sales continues.

Professor Robinson May has been selected as a playwright for Talespinner Children’s Theatre‘s 2015 season. Her play, “The Silent Princess,” is an adaptation of a Turkish folktale, and will run June 6-28, 2015. The 2015 season was announced at Talespinner’s annual Harlequinade Benefit on October 18.

In an article appearing on the Canadian News Corporations’s website, Associate Dean Mark Sundahl commented on the recent explosion of Orbital Science’s Antares rocket as it lifted off on its way to the International Space Station to deliver cargo.  Sundahl discussed the potential repercussions of the launch failure on the broader commercial space industry.  The full article can be found here.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio presented on a panel entitled “Self-Determination, Secession, and Non-Intervention in the Age of Crimea and Kosovo” on October 24, at the 2014 International Law Weekend, a premier conference in international law organized and sponsored by the American Branch of the International Law Association and the International Law Students’ Association.  The conference, as always, took place at the offices of the New York City Association of the Bar, and at Fordham Law School.

Professor Sterio’s remarks focused on the need to develop a new normative framework in international law on the subject of secession.  International law presently affords specific groups (“peoples”) the right to self-determination and remedial secession only in the decolonization/occupation context, but international law is neutral on the issue of secession for any groups outside these two paradigms.  Professor Sterio argued for the need to advance international law in order to develop specific criteria for secession, which would apply to secessionist struggles.

The other panelists, alongside Professor Sterio, included Professor Valerie Epps from Suffolk Law School, Professor Brad Roth from Wayne State Law School, and Professor John Cerone, a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School and at the Flethcher School for Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Dean Craig Boise commented on October 14 in a news story on WCPN about Steris Corporation’s agreement to acquire U.K.-based Synergy Health Plc, which provides sterilization services.  The $1.9 billion deal would result in Steris’s re-incorporation in the United Kingdom in an inversion transaction aimed at shifting U.S.-taxed income offshore even though the company’s headquarters would remain in Ohio.  Dean Boise’s comments also appeared in an online story about the deal at ideastream.

Thomson-Reuters has just published the 2014 edition of Federal Land Use Law & Legislation, a one-volume treatise authored by C-M Law Professor Alan Weinstein and Brian Blaesser, an attorney in the Boston office of Robinson & Cole.  The 2014 edition covers several important recent developments in this field. These include:

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Brandt Revocable Trust et al v. United States, which involved the general question of whether the federal government retains a reversionary interest in a railroad’s right-of-way granted under the General Railroad Right–of–Way Act of 1875.  The issue had led to a split among the federal circuits.  The Court concluded the right-of-way granted to the railroad under the 1875 Act was an easement.  Thus, when a railroad abandoned the right-of-way, the underlying land became unburdened of the easement.  The Brandt Revocable Trust decision has potential relevance to the Rails-to-Trails Act which authorizes the conversion of abandoned railroad rights-of-way into recreational trails as can be seen from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent which predicted that the decision will lead to lawsuits challenging the conversion of former railbeds to recreational trails.

The Court’s grant of cert in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, involving a church’s challenge to sign regulations in Gilbert, Arizona that the church claims disfavor its temporary directional signs based on their content. We note that the decision in Reed will likely resolve a split in the federal Circuit Courts of Appeal as to the correct view of what comprises content-based, as opposed to content-neutral, sign regulations.

The Court’s decision in Utility Air Regulatory Group v U.S. EPA to strike down EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted from stationary sources.  The Court held that while its 2007 decision in  Massachusetts v. EPA decision affirmed EPA’s ability to regulate GHG emissions as “air pollutants,” the decision did not necessarily apply to the specific category of air pollutants regulated by the “Prevention of Significant Deterioration” (PDS) provisions under the Clean Air Act (CAA).  The Court found that EPA’s 2010 “Tailoring Rule” providing for a phased implementation of GHG permitting requirements based on source emission levels, was an impermissible interpretation of its authority under the CAA, because it would “bring about an enormous and transformative expansion in EPA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization.”