n engl j med 371;16 nejm.org october 16, 2014 1474 the administration’s rationale, I was told that although developing the early portion of the health-professions pipeline is valuable, “with limited funding we are investing in activities that more directly and immediately impact the supply and distribution of providers.” The AAMC took strong exception to the proposed action, saying that the two...

When (if ever) a judicial action can be an unconstitutional taking of private property has long been an open question in American constitutional law. Nested within this larger question are a host of detailed issues concerning both substance and procedure. Despite passing references in some cases, and a more direct discussion in one concurring opinion, the Supreme Court of the United States—unti...

[This article examines the justifications which support the capacity of individual justices to voice their disagreement from a majority through the writing of dissenting opinions. In doing so, it employs extensive comparison with the practice of dissent in other jurisdictions, particularly that of the United States Supreme Court. The author contends that there are political, procedural and deve...

We propose an empirically informed measure of the voting power that relaxes the assumptions of equally probable and independent votes. The behavioral power index measures the voter’s ability to swing a decision based on the probability distributions of the others’ behavior. We apply it to the Supreme Court of the United States using roll-call data to estimate voting probability distributions, w...

This paper analyzes court priority queuing behavior by examining the time lapse between when a case enters a court’s docket and when it is ultimately disposed of. Using data from the Supreme courts of the United States, Massachusetts, and Canada we show that each court’s docket features a slow decay with a decreasing tail. This demonstrates that, in each of the courts examined, the vast majorit...

The federal/state legal system of the United States means that a forensic economist faces different legal rules and parameters in each state of his or her practice. It is the purpose of this article to provide an experienced forensic economist, entering a West Virginia case, with necessary information and guidance for appropriate testimony in personal injury and wrongful death cases. This is ac...

This commentary on Salem et al. provides background for their study by reviewing Washington v. Harper and outlining some areas that were not addressed by that decision. It contrasts Harper holdings with those in other U. S. Supreme Court decisions in parallel cases and in United States v. Loughner. It provides cautions about extensions of some holdings in Loughner regarding the use of Harper-ty...

One hundred fifty years ago, Joel Palmer, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Oregon Territory, and Isaac I. Stevens, as Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs of the Washington Territory, negotiated a series of treaties with tribes of the Pacific Northwest. These 10 instruments have affected the gathering rights of tribes and of others in this area and throughout the United Stat...

In eBay, Inc. v. MercExchange, LLC, ___ S.Ct. ___ (May 15, 2006), a unanimous United States Supreme Court abrogated the Federal Circuit’s “general rule” that a permanent injunction will issue once a patent is adjudged valid and infringed. In a concurring opinion for four of the eight Justices that considered eBay, Justice Kennedy singled out cases involving patent trolls and business method pat...