Professor Deborah Geier

C|M|LAW Professor Deborah Geier participated in a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate on Corporate Tax Reform at the ABA Section of Taxation meeting held in Washington, D.C., on May 9-10. Professor Joshua Blank from NYU organized the panel and served in the role of Speaker of the House. In addition to Professor Geier, the three debaters were Professor Adam Rosenzweig (Washington University at St. Louis), Professor Omri Marian (University of Florida), and David Miller (partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft of New York and adjunct Professor at Columbia). Three resolutions were debated: (1) “Be it resolved that the United States should impose a corporate income tax,” (2) Be it resolved that, assuming integration is desirable, the best way to achieve it is by exempting dividends from taxation in the shareholders’ hands,” and (3) “Be it resolved that, assuming the United States imposes a corporate income tax, it should lower the statutory rate below 35% in a revenue-neutral way.” The debate was lively, and the audience participated during cross-examination periods.

Professor Browne Lewis

C|M|LAW’s Leon and Gloria Plevin Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Health Law and Policy, Browne Lewis, was quoted in the Plain Dealer in an article, MetroHealth joins Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals with policy to not hire tobacco users, by Ellen Jan Kleinerman, on April 29, 2013.  The article described the MetroHealth system’s decision not to hire smokers after June 1, 2013.  According to a MetroHealth representative, refusing to hire smokers is a move that follows a national trend to “to encourage healthier life styles, increase worker productivity and lower health-care costs.”  In this decision, MetroHealth follows the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, which have both adopted this policy, along with a growing number of employers across the country.  Professor Lewis acknowledges that smokers are not a protected class in terms of employment discrimination, but argues that “[e]ven if it’s legal, it’s bad public policy. Where do you draw the line? Is the next step not hiring obese people or people who drink alcohol?  It makes more sense to use other incentives to get people to stop smoking instead of just closing the gates.” 

To read the article, see:

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2013/04/metrohealth_joins_cleveland_cl.html

C|M|LAW Professor and Associate Dean Heidi Gorovitz Robertson published a blog post in Crain’s Cleveland Business on May 3, 2013, titled Ohio laws allow drillers access to land, at times over landowner objections.  The post concerns conflicting values in property rights that arise through the application of Ohio’s oil and gas laws in Ohio’s quickly developing shale oil and gas industry.  The basic point is that while some property owners think they get to decide whether drilling will occur beneath their land, under Ohio’s mandatory pooling and unitization laws, that is not the case.  Ohio oil and gas laws place the correlative rights of neighbors — the neighbors’ right to development the natural resource– above the individual property owner’s right to prevent drilling.

To read Robertson’s post, click here:

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20130503/SHALEBLOGS/305039995

C|M|LAW Associate Professor and Associate Dean Mark Sundahl participated on a panel regarding the arbitration of space-related disputes at the Spring Meeting of the ABA International Law Section on April 25th in Washington, D.C.  As commercial and governmental activity in space increases, the need to resolve disputes arising from space activity has also grown.  The adoption of a new treaty regarding the finance of space assets and the advent of private human spaceflight will likely add to the number of arbitrations.  In 2011, the ICC Permanent Court of Arbitration adopted new Optional Rules for the Arbitration of Disputes Relating to Outer Space Activities in order to provide a new rule set tailored to the idiosyncratic features of space law and transactions involving satellites and launch services. The panel explained the nature of these new rules and the benefits of choosing this rule set when arbitrating space-related disputes.

Congratulations to C|M|LAW Professor Michael Borden.  He was selected, by a vote of the C|M|LAW student body, as “Faculty Member of the Year!”

Congratulations, also, to Ms. Holli Goodman, Administrative Assistant to the Dean.  The students chose her as “Staff Member of the Year.”

Professor Alan Weinstein

C|M|LAW Professor Alan Weinstein’s article, co-authored with Brian Blaesser, The Court’s 2012 Takings Cases, was published in 41 Real Estate L.J. 512 (2013). In this article, they discuss the three takings cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term and predict that in St. Johns River Water Management Dist. v. Koontz, 77 So. 3d 1220 (Fla. 2011), cert. granted, 133 S. Ct. 420 (2012), arguably the most important of the cases, the Court will reject the claim that the Nollan/Dolan exactions test should be extended to apply to proposed conditions on development in addition to conditions that have actually been imposed.

In addition, Professor Weinstein’s article, The Ohio Supreme Court’s Perverse Stance on Development Impact Fees and What To Do About It, was published in 60 CLEV. ST. L. REV. 655 (2012).  In that article, he argues that the Ohio Court’s rulings that development impact fees are lawful when enacted by municipalities but unlawful when enacted by townships is indefensible both legally and from a policy perspective and that the Ohio legislature should act to remedy the situation by enacting enabling legislation authorizing both municipalities and townships to impose development impact fees and specifying the parameters and standards for such fees.

C|M|LAW Legal Writing Professor Karin Mika has published Privacy in the Workplace: Are Collective Bargaining Agreements a Place to Start Formulating More Uniform Standards? in the Willamette Law Review.   The article suggests that current laws regarding privacy in the workplace are inadequate in dealing with technological advances that blur lines between online communication behavior that is work related and non work related.  The article further suggests that most employers have the advantage as far as scrutinizing what their employees do online because there are few prohibitions on what an employer may scrutinize.  Employers, furthermore, do not really have the incentive to change anything regarding their scrutiny because vagueness gives employers more of an advantage in determining what behaviors are inappropriate and subject to discipline.  The article argues, however, that this might not continue to be so advantageous for employers because more and more employees are suing employers for violations of privacy or for wrongful discharge stemming from violations of online privacy.  The article then suggests that it would be beneficial if employers had clearer rules for online behavior, but that it may only be through collective bargaining that some of these rules could be established.  The article asserts that if unionized personnel took the initiative to protect their own online privacy rights through a collective bargaining process, this trend might carry over into the private employer realm as private employers (and employees) would begin to see the benefit if having clear rules regarding what are prohibited work related online communications.

On March 18, 2013, C|M|LAW Professor Alan Weinstien was one of three speakers in a National Teleconference on Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses presented by the International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA). The other speakers were Eric Kelly and Connie Cooper, who have written extensively on the topic. The teleconference was moderated by Professor Dan Mandelker of Washington University in St. Louis.