Asbestos: The Private Management of a Public Problem

Under the existing judicial system in America, asbestos litigation has reached epidemic proportions. It is extravagantly expensive and grotesquely inefficient. Conceivably billions of dollars are at stake in this group effort, and the fair treatment of thousands of very sick people, and thousands more who one day will be ill as a result of asbestos, may turn on the success of this private initiative (the Wellington Group) to design a private agency that will fairly and effectively manage the bulk of asbestos claims and asbestos product liability litigation. Section I provides background information on the asbestos problem: from the material itself, to the health danger it poses, and the litigation and costs that result. Section II covers the purpose and dynamics of the Wellington Group in their search for solutions to the problems encountered in asbestos litigation. Finally, Section III begins by explaining the bargaining process between the various parties involved in asbestos litigation, before moving on to describe the private administrative group they hope to develop to handle asbestos cases

The Importance of Being Elegant

The informed citizen—and he need not be a lawyer—may find it extraordinary that in 1980 two distinguished constitutional scholars have written books on judicial review. It was in 1803, after all, that Marbury v. Madison recognized, established, or usurped—depending on one\u27s viewpoint—that particular corner of the sovereign\u27s prerogative. And that precedent has stood firm these one hundred and seventy-eight years. Not only that, judicial review has been well rehearsed in the literature. Indeed, in the late 1950s and early 1960s the informed citizen was inundated with superb scholarship on the same subject. Why must each generation reinvent the wheel? The answer, I think, is that judicial review is not a wheel. It is a powerful method of governance, and new situations arise from time to time to test the justifications offered earlier in support of the method\u27s legitimacy. To speak only of the recent past: many students rejected Lochner, embraced Brown, and needed supporting scholarship; and many students approved the work of the Warren Court, had trouble with Roe v. Wade, and again needed scholarship to get it all straight. Ely and Choper, in books being celebrated in this Symposium, help serve this need. But paradoxically their writing makes clear that there is room for more; the subject probably can never be closed

Term Limits: History, Democracy and Constitutional Interpretation

The Supreme Court\u27s 1994 October Term produced a number of major constitutional decisions; decisions that were often, but not always, by the narrowest of majorities. The bulk of these five to four cases will require, as Justice Frankfurter once remarked, considerable litigating elucidation before the effect of each on the shape of our higher law can be ascertained with any degree of certainty. This is hardly surprising. Important constitutional issues that sharply divide the Court may require the author of a majority opinion, if he or she is to maintain the majority, to negotiate with other justices about the language and scope of what is published. This can lead to an opinion that is relatively vague or purposely ambiguous. Some of the cases that seem to fit this category and will require litigating elucidation, addressed redistricting and race, affirmative action, the limits on congressional power to regulate activities under the commerce clause, and the nature of permissible governmental support of religious activities