Integrated Nonmarital Property Rights

Nonmarital cohabitation has become a mainstream family structure in the United States. Yet despite the increasing prevalence of nonmarital cohabitants, American family property law generally fails to support nonmarital couples. This inequality under the law disproportionately disadvantages persons of color, those with relatively less education, and couples with relatively fewer economic resources. This Article considers the post-Obergefell need for law reform to better support nonmarital families, examines the principles that should ground nonmarital property rights reform, and proposes a novel approach to nonmarital property rights that integrates the law of dissolution with the law of succession, unifies the law governing nonmarital property rights with the law of marital property rights, and better serves not only the relatively privileged but also the relatively disadvantaged. This Article proposes an integrated “accrual adaptor” to structure nonmarital property rights at dissolution and at death. The adaptor would be applied to a jurisdiction’s existing marital property law to translate a marital property right into a nonmarital property right. Thus, the proposal would not require an adopting jurisdiction to create any novel property law structures for the nonmarital context and would be fully compatible with the substantive principles and process norms that ground the adopting jurisdiction’s existing marital property law doctrines. The accrual feature of this Article’s proposal would work to increase nonmarital property rights as the duration of the cohabitation at issue increases. This feature is premised on the notion that unmarried committed partners who have cohabited for a relatively longer period of time are more likely to have made commitments and engaged in caretaking behaviors that nonmarital property law reform should encourage. Thus, the relatively greater nonmarital property award that the proposal would assign to a cohabitation of relatively greater duration reflects the increasing trust that third parties develop in the propensity of the cohabitation to meet the couple’s dependency needs as the relationship endures. The proposed reform would provide nonmarital partners with lesser property rights as contrasted with marital partners in similar circumstances. This differential treatment is likely to make nonmarital property law reform more politically feasible in the short term. Moreover, such differential treatment can be justified in light of the greater commitment to mutual caregiving that marriage signifies in comparison to nonmarital cohabitation

The effects of the plant parasitic nematodes, Xiphinema americanum and Meloidogyne hapla on the endomycorrhizae of sugar maple, Acer saccharum.

Thesis (M.S.

The effects of irradiated anaerobically digested municipal sludge on symbiotic root infections in vegetable crops.

Plant PathologyDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.

Intestate Inheritance Rights for Unmarried Committed Partners: Lessons for U.S. Law Reform from the Scottish Experience

No U.S. state affords intestate inheritance rights to the unmarried and unregistered committed partner of a decedent. This omission has become more and more problematic in recent years as cohabitation rates in the United States have risen and marriage rates have declined. Indeed, the phenomenon of increasing cohabitation rates and declining marriage rates is observed across the developed world. Unlike in the United States, however, a significant number of foreign jurisdictions have reformed their law to afford intestate inheritance rights to a decedent’s surviving unmarried committed partner. This Article looks to Scottish law to inform consideration of how U.S. states might best reform their intestacy statutes so as to provide intestate inheritance rights to a surviving unmarried committed partner. Examination of Scottish law should prove especially fruitful for U.S. law reformers. The relevant Scottish statutory provisions have been in effect since 2006 and have been extensively critiqued by Scottish courts, academics, and practitioners. Indeed, the Scottish Law Commission (SLC), whose recommendations led to adoption of the current scheme, has called for repeal of these intestacy provisions, and has offered a replacement scheme. Moreover, Scottish succession law and U.S. succession law share significant norms valuing certainty and preferring fixed entitlements and limited judicial discretion. The Article evaluates the Scottish statute with respect to three major issues of principle that should be at the center of U.S. reform discussions: fulfillment of purpose, implications for certainty and administrative convenience, and implications for marriage. The Article similarly evaluates the SLC’s proposal to replace the current statute. Finally, the Article reflects upon the Scottish statute and SLC proposal in considering which elements of Scottish law a U.S. state might profitably borrow or should reject in an effort to craft a more inclusive approach to the intestate inheritance rights of U.S. unmarried committed partners consistent with the principles of U.S. succession law. The jumping off point for this discussion is this author’s previously published proposal for a model statute that implements an accrual/multi-factor approach to intestate inheritance rights for unmarried committed partners. After describing the significant features of this proposal, the Article considers how one might evolve the proposed accrual/multi-factor approach to incorporate the lessons learned from the Scottish experience

Reputation Systems Bias in the Platform Workplace

Online reputation systems enable the providers and consumers of a product or service to rate one another and allow others to rely upon those reputation scores in deciding whether to engage with a particular provider or consumer. Reputation systems are an intrinsic feature of the platform workplace, in which a platform operator, such as Uber or TaskRabbit, intermediates between the provider of a service and the consumer of that service. Operators typically rely upon consumer ratings of providers in rewarding and penalizing providers. Thus, these reputation systems allow an operator to achieve enormous scale while maintaining quality control and user trust without employing supervisors to manage the vast number of providers who engage consumers on the operator’s platform. At the same time, an increasing number of commentators have expressed concerns that the invidious biases of raters impact these reputation systems. This Article considers how best to mitigate reputation systems bias in the platform workplace. After reviewing and rejecting both a hands-off approach and the anti-exceptionalism approach to regulation of the platform economy, this Article argues in favor of applying what the author labels a “structural–purposive” analysis to regulation of reputation systems discrimination in the platform workplace. A structural-purposive analysis seeks to ensure that regulation is informed by the goals and structure of the existing workplace regulation scheme but also is consistent with the inherent characteristics of the platform economy. Thus, this approach facilitates the screening out of proposed regulation that would be inimical to the inherent characteristics of the platform economy and aids in the framing of regulatory proposals that would leverage those characteristics. This Article then demonstrates the merits of a structural–purposive approach in the context of a regulatory framework addressing reputation systems discrimination in the platform workplace. Applying this approach, the Article derives several principles that should guide regulatory efforts to ameliorate the prevalence and effects of reputation systems bias in the platform workplace and outlines a proposed regulatory framework grounded in those principles

The Expressive Function of Succession Law and the Merits of Non-Marital Inclusion

Intestacy statutes seek to further donative freedom by effectuating the attributed intent of those who fail to execute a valid estate plan during life. One might reasonably hypothesize that gay men and lesbians, on the whole, differ from the non-gay majority with respect to their donative intent. The fundamental difference in romantic and affectional preferences between gay people and non-gay people is likely to produce such a disparate donative intent. Much anecdotal evidence and recent empirical evidence strongly support this hypothesis. Article II of the Uniform Probate Code presently ignores the existence of gay men and lesbians, despite the drafters\u27 expressed effort to recognize the changing nature of the American family. Article II would better implement its principal goal of promoting donative freedom, however, if its intestacy provisions were redrafted to implement the attributed intent of gay men and lesbians. Such inclusion could be implemented consistent with the 1990 Code\u27s desire for simplicity and certainty in succession law by utilizing a registration system for qualification of committed partners, a multi-factor approach that limits judicial discretion through objective requirements and clearly delineated factors for qualification or a combination of these two systems. Succession reform to include same-sex committed partners also would remove the badge of inferiority that Article II presently places on gay men and lesbians and their relationships. By failing to recognize the fundamental difference between gay people and non-gay people with respect to donative preferences, Article II implies that gay and lesbian relationships are insignificant or unsuitable for recognition. This implicit expression is made all the more pronounced in light of the lack of any justification for same-sex exclusion deriving from the principles of succession law on which the drafters grounded the 1990 Code

A Structural-Purposive Interpretation of “Employment” in the Platform Economy

The considerable growth of the platform economy has focused attention on the issue of whether a provider who is engaged through a transaction platform should be classified as an employee of the platform operator within the purview of workplace protective legislation or, rather, as an independent contractor outside the scope of such legislation’s protections. This Article focuses specifically on whether the operator’s reservation of the right to impose quality control standards on the provider ought to give rise to employment obligations running in favor of the provider and against the operator. This narrow issue is of great importance to the future of the platform economy. Quality control standards promote trust between platform consumer and provider and, thus, enable leveraging of network effects, to the benefit of the platform operator, consumer and provider. Yet, if the law considers the operator’s right to impose quality control standards on the provider as a factor that will weigh in favor of finding that the provider is an employee of the operator, the operator is more likely to forego the right to impose such standards. With respect to much workplace protective legislation, neither the statutory language nor the legislative history is even minimally helpful in defining “employment.” Thus, this Article engages in a structural-purposive inquiry into the definition of employment as applied to the platform economy. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, the Article explores the structure of workplace protective legislation generally and identifies a “control bargain” implicit in that structure pursuant to which the state imposes a scheme of workplace protective regulation on the firm only if the firm retains a certain type and degree of control over its worker. Second, the Article examines the nature of the platform economy and the function of quality control standards within that economy. From this examination, the Article concludes that the nature of the platform economy suggests that the platform operator’s retention of the right to impose quality control standards on providers should be seen as outside the scope of the control bargain and, therefore, should not weigh in favor of finding an employment relationship. Finally, the Article considers case law addressing the meaning of employment in the similar context of the franchisor-franchisee relationship. This case law supports the Article’s principal conclusion by demonstrating that the control bargain allows for exceptions to the rule that the firm’s retention of control over a worker weighs in favor of finding that the firm employs the worker, that the firm’s reservation of the right to impose quality control standards can be such an exception, and that such an exception can be discerned from the nature of the relevant workplace structures

Reputation Systems Bias in the Platform Workplace

Online reputation systems enable the providers and consumers of a product or service to rate one another and allow others to rely upon those reputation scores in deciding whether to engage with a particular provider or consumer. Reputation systems are an intrinsic feature of the platform workplace, in which a platform operator, such as Uber or TaskRabbit, intermediates between the provider of a service and the consumer of that service. Operators typically rely upon consumer ratings of providers in rewarding and penalizing providers. Thus, these reputation systems allow an operator to achieve enormous scale while maintaining quality control and user trust without employing supervisors to manage the vast number of providers who engage consumers on the operator’s platform. At the same time, an increasing number of commentators have expressed concerns that the invidious biases of raters impact these reputation systems. This Article considers how best to mitigate reputation systems bias in the platform workplace. After reviewing and rejecting both a hands-off approach and the anti-exceptionalism approach to regulation of the platform economy, this Article argues in favor of applying what the author labels a “structural–purposive” analysis to regulation of reputation systems discrimination in the platform workplace. A structural-purposive analysis seeks to ensure that regulation is informed by the goals and structure of the existing workplace regulation scheme but also is consistent with the inherent characteristics of the platform economy. Thus, this approach facilitates the screening out of proposed regulation that would be inimical to the inherent characteristics of the platform economy and aids in the framing of regulatory proposals that would leverage those characteristics. This Article then demonstrates the merits of a structural–purposive approach in the context of a regulatory framework addressing reputation systems discrimination in the platform workplace. Applying this approach, the Article derives several principles that should guide regulatory efforts to ameliorate the prevalence and effects of reputation systems bias in the platform workplace and outlines a proposed regulatory framework grounded in those principles

The Constitutional Function of Biological Paternity: Evidence of the Biological Mother\u27s Consent to the Biological Father\u27s Co-Parenting of Her Child

This article argues that a father\u27s biological connection to a child is constitutionally significant principally because it evidences the consent of the biological mother to the father\u27s parental relationship with the child. The biological mother\u27s consent is critical because she is the initial constitutional parent. Her constitutional parental rights arise from her role nourishing the child in her womb and enduring the pain and danger of childbirth. This labor gives her a constitutionally protected voice in the child\u27s upbringing including a right to decide generally who else shall be allowed to develop a parental relationship with the child. Only if the father himself sufficiently labors in developing a functional parental relationship with the child prior to the mother\u27s withdrawal of her consent to his co-parenting, will the Constitution protect his relationship with the child. This labor-with-consent theory of constitutional parental rights also should be applied to the claims for constitutional protection of parental rights by functional parents, egg donors, gestational surrogate mothers, and intended parents