Volume 89.8
December
2022

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Article
Volume 89.8
Against Bankruptcy Exceptionalism
Jonathan M. Seymour
Associate Professor, Duke University School of Law.

I thank Douglas Baird, Stuart Benjamin, Elisabeth DeFontenay, Deborah DeMott, Craig Goldblatt, Melissa Jacoby, Margaret Lemos, Adam Levitin, Joshua Macey, Troy McKenzie, John Pottow, and Steven L. Schwarcz, as well as participants in two early-stage discussion groups at Duke Law School, and at the Global Bankruptcy Scholars Workshop at Brooklyn Law School, for helpful comments and feedback. I am also grateful to Wenxin Lu, Leping Sun, and Andrew O’Shaughnessy for valuable research assistance. I was first immersed in the issues discussed in this article while practicing as a bankruptcy litigator. In the interest of disclosure, I note that I was among counsel in two of the Supreme Court cases I discuss in this article: Harris v. Viegelahn, 575 U.S. 510 (2015) (representing the respondent), and Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 137 S. Ct. 973 (2017) (representing petitioners). I also assisted with my then–law firm’s representation of petitioners in both Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, 139 S. Ct. 1652 (2019), and City of Chicago v. Fulton, 141 S. Ct. 585 (2021). The views expressed in this Article are, of course, my own.

Within the world of bankruptcy, in other words, it is commonly understood that bankruptcy is a special field that requires an exceptional approach—one rooted in the norms, commitments, and assumptions that underlie the values of the bankruptcy community. I examine this disjunction and consider whether there is any principled justification for bankruptcy exceptionalism. I explain the sources of the disjunction and show how the bankruptcy courts’ exceptional approach has driven outcomes in the ongoing Purdue Pharma opioid crisis bankruptcy saga and other hotly contested and socially consequential cases. I conclude that there are many singular aspects of bankruptcy but none that justify treating it specially. Bankruptcy is distinctive, but it is not exceptional.

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Comment
Volume 89.8
Here's Your Number, Now Please Wait in Line: The Asylum Backlog, Federal Court Litigation, and Artificial Intelligence in Agency Adjudication
Youssef Mohamed
B.A. 2019, The Florida State University; J.D. Candidate 2023, The University of Chicago Law School.

لله أولاً الحمد لله و ثانياً الحمد —I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Jennifer Nou for pushing me and this piece to ask bigger questions. I would also like to thank Lauren Dunn, Dylan Salzman, Virginia Robinson, Brian Bornhoft, and the University of Chicago Law Review editors for their patience, hard work, and insights.

At the beginning of 2022, there were 196,714 affirmative asylum claims pending, and many applicants have waited in a state of legal limbo for over five years to receive a decision on their claim. To escape the indefinite queue, some have started bringing claims of unreasonable delay under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to federal courts. Because there are groups of asylum seekers who may be especially harmed by multiyear delays in adjudication, this Comment undertakes two separate but related tasks. First, it assesses whether the avenue for relief available to advocates and asylum seekers—federal court litigation—is actually viable for its purported ends. This Comment concludes that it is not. Second, it proposes a novel agency-side adjudicative mechanism, implemented through artificial intelligence technology, to more adequately provide reliable relief to especially vulnerable asylum seekers.

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Comment
Volume 89.8
“Contrary to Law”: Determining the Scope of Qualifying Predicate Offenses for 18 U.S.C. § 545
Arjun Prakash
B.A. 2019, Yale University; J.D. Candidate 2023, The University of Chicago Law School.

I would like to thank my family for their constant and unwavering support. Also, thank you to Professor Adam Chilton and the editors of the University of Chicago Law Review for their help and advice. 

This Comment seeks to resolve an ongoing dispute among courts regarding the correct interpretation of “contrary to law” in 18 U.S.C. § 545, a statute that criminalizes the unlawful importation of goods. In particular, courts disagree about whether “contrary to law” includes administrative regulatory violations, which would massively expand the applicability of § 545’s severe criminal penalties.

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Comment
Volume 89.8
State Policy in Federal Courts: Stabilizing the Burford Abstention Doctrine
Virginia Robinson
B.S. 2012, Auburn University; B.A. 2012, Auburn University; J.D. Candidate 2023, The University of Chicago Law School.

I would like to thank Professor Bridget Fahey and the editors and staff of the University of Chicago Law Review for their thoughtful advice and insight. 

The federal abstention doctrines govern the narrow circumstances under which a district court can decline to hear a case even though it has proper jurisdiction. One of those doctrines—Burford abstention—has generated a morass of confusion over when it applies and what goals it is meant to achieve. To find a way out of the morass, this Comment looks at contemporaneous developments in doctrines of federal court review—and at the procedural history of Burford itself—to pinpoint the precise problem that Burford abstention was created to solve.

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Comment
Volume 89.8
The Right to Exclude: People, Animals, and Pollution
Ariana Vaisey
B.A. 2017, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; J.D. Candidate 2023, The University of Chicago Law School.

I would like to thank Professor Lior Strahilevitz and the editors and staff of the University of Chicago Law Review for their advice. 

The Supreme Court has deemed the right to exclude one of the most fundamental property rights. Accordingly, the Court has offered the right to exclude heightened protection under the Takings Clause. However, the Court has left significant uncertainty about the scope of the right to exclude that is protected under takings doctrine. For instance, does the Takings Clause require compensation if the government, pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Liability Act (CERCLA), requires a landowner to house another party’s pollutants? This Comment draws from property theory and analytical jurisprudence to offer a new approach to takings analyses concerning the right to exclude.