IN our recent article, Taxing Punitive Damages, we argued (i) that plaintiffs in punitive damages cases should be allowed to introduce to the jury evidence regarding the deductibility of those damages by defendants, and (ii) that this jury tax-awareness approach is better than the Obama Administration’s suggested alternative of disallowing those deductions. To our delight, Professor Larry Zelenak and Paul Mogin have each provided comments to our piece. Professor Zelenak’s thoughtful response focuses on our prescriptive claim that jury tax-awareness is better than nondeductibility while Mr. Mogin disputes our doctrinal claim that the tax evidence is admissible.4 We thank them for their contributions and provide our replies below.
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What Kind of Right is “the Right to Vote”?
The right to vote is a deceptively complex legal and moral right. Perhaps because the right is considered a “fundamental” constitutional right, or the foundational right of democratic self-governance, or the right “preservative of all [other] rights,” it is tempting to assume the right to vote has an essential core concept that is relatively obvious and widely shared. Undoubtedly there will be disagreements about specific applications—is felony conviction a justifiable basis, for example, for concluding that a citizen has lost the right to vote—but all rights generate some range of disagreement in application. Such disagreements do not undermine shared agreement on the core interests the right protects.
From Corn to Norms: How IP Entitlements Affect What Stand-Up Comedians Create
In There’s No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy we explored how, why, and what stand-up comedians have created at different points in the history of stand-up comedy. From this study, we offered insights into how intellectual property (“IP”) law affects human motivation to create, how legal and non-legal motivations interact, and how the emergence of IP entitlements (in comedians’ case, norm-based entitlements) may change creative practices.
We consider ourselves very fortunate to have received four insightful responses to our paper by scholars who each have done great work on IP and social norms. We thank each of them for commenting on our work. Reading their responses made us think again about the boundaries of our project, and about the implications of our findings and arguments. Their critiques are both internal to the paper—taking issue with our findings and logic—and external, suggesting possible extensions and noting questions for future research. We cannot, given the breadth and depth of the response papers and the time and space allotted to us, give each of the critiques the full attention they deserve. We will focus our reply on what we see as the core issues identified in each of the responses.