Imagine a judgment from a California state court in which a plaintiff (“P1”) prevails in a civil suit against the defendant (“D”). A second plaintiff (“P2”) brings a related suit in Alabama against D and seeks to estop D from relitigating issues found adverse to D in California. Given the conflict between the preclusion laws of Alabama and California, may the Alabama court choose which state’s law it will enforce? Or does federal law require Alabama to give the California judgment the same preclusive effect that the judgment would have in California? The answers to questions such as these have considerable practical importance. Cost-conscious litigants determine how much they are willing to spend based on the associated risk of loss or probability of gain in any litigation. Uncertainty surrounding the judgment’s preclusive effect will change that analysis. Unfortunately, there is currently no consistent answer to these questions. This Note will argue for a broad understanding of the implementing statute’s scope. This understanding is a clear rule that courts can easily follow, as opposed to a policy-based standard that is difficult to implement. This Note will present a doctrinal theory that both supports such a reading and provides certainty in the application of the implementing statute.
Note
Finding the Proper Balance: A Look at the Continuing Development of Campus Suicide Policies
This Note will address the difficulties that university officials have faced in recent years when addressing suicidal students and the mixed signals that have been sent by courts and legislatures regarding a university’s duties toward suicidal students—signals that influence the development of university suicide policies, and ultimately push many colleges toward a conservative, hands-off course
of action. This Note will suggest an alternative model for delineating the legal duties of universities with respect to suicidal students—a model that attempts to balance the privacy and civil rights of the suicidal student, the need for suicidal students to receive proper treatment, and the liability concerns of universities. The model emphasizes the importance of using campus suicide policies to push students toward getting the help and treatment they need to cope with their mental health problems. At the same time, the suggested model would allow university officials to maintain control over determining whether a student is permitted to remain on campus.
Better a Catholic Than a Communist
In 1948, the Supreme Court in McCollum v. Board of Education declared a “released time” program for religious instruction in the Champaign, Illinois, public schools unconstitutional. Four years later in Zorach v. Clauson, the Court upheld an almost identical program in the New York City public schools. The Court distinguished the two programs on the grounds that the instruction in Champaign occurred in the school building, while the instruction in New York occurred off school grounds.
It is clear this factual distinction was persuasive to at least one justice, yet Justice Douglas inexplicably included in his opinion for the Court another justification for finding the New York plan constitutional. He wrote that Americans “are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”
This Note offers an explanation for Justice Douglas’s appeal to Americans as a religious people and contends that the argument was persuasive to the majority, save for Justice Burton. It argues that increasing post-war anti-Catholicism and the Court’s decision in Everson created a climate in 1948 where the country was concerned with a growing Catholic influence in the public schools. Following Everson, McCollum provided the Court with an opportunity to draw a line and establish Mr. Jefferson’s high wall, so much discussed in Everson, between the church and state sponsored education.
Following McCollum, however, the country’s concern shifted to Communism. With this shift, the country’s perception of “released time” public education changed. Instead of viewing these programs as opportunities for Catholic influence in the public schools, the country viewed public religious education as an opportunity to oppose the spread of “Godless Communism,” and opposition to “released time” education was characterized as support for totalitarianism.
This Note posits that Justice Douglas’s appeal to the religious character of America reflected the changed historical context from McCollum to Zorach, namely, that by 1952 it was better to be a Catholic than a Communist.