December 7, 2012

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Friday 12/7, we finished our discussion of Robey, and I also talked about the appeal of that decision to the Kentucky Supreme Court. I then went over three Maine cases dealing with personal jurisdiction: Connelly v. Doucette, Commerce Bank v. Dworman, and Tidwell v. Zawacki. We will continue with federal diversity jurisdiction on Monday with Kopp and Gebbia (previously assigned). The assignment for Monday 12/10 is to read in the text pp 143-150 (Gilmore; we've already covered Land, p. 146) and 153-162 (Dorsey); skip Salmon, p. 155. In short, the only two new cases assigned are Gilmore and Dorsey.

POS 359 FEDERALISM
In class today, Friday 12/7, I distributed one handout, a description of the Maine Milk Commission and an excerpt from the Federal Register regarding Maine's status under federal milk price controls. We finished our discussion of solid waste regulation by looking at how Maine attempted to work around the Philadelphia v. N.J. opinion. We then discussed Tyler Pipe (p. 506), spending most of our time going over Justice Scalia'a dissent. We started West Lynn Creamery (p. 509), getting through Justice Stevens' opinion. We will pick up with the concurrence and the dissent next Monday. The assignment for Monday 12/10 is to read and prepare to discuss pp. 523-537.

POS 359 THE CURRENT SUPREME COURT TERM
IN class today, Friday 12/7, I distributed two handouts: an article about the Maine resident who recruited plaintiffs in the race cases of Fisher and Shelby County, and an article by Tom Goldstein about the strategies involved in deciding whether to bring a particular issue to the Court at a particular time (in this case, gay marriage). We then talked about the significance of Baker v. Nelson for the decision regarding the appropriate level of review for gay marriage recognition. The assignment for Monday 12/10 is to finish work on your Jardines papers, which are due at the beginning of Monday's class.