US Appeals Court reminder: threats of litigation made during TTAB settlement discussions may support jurisdiction for declaratory judgment

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that jurisdictionwas proper in a declaratory judgment action brought to establishtrade mark non-infringement, when the plaintiff had a reasonableapprehension of litigation based on threatening statements madeduring the course of discussions to settle disputes pendingbefore the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) that wereotherwise subject to Federal Rule of Evidence 408, which typicallymakes statements made during settlement inadmissible for establishingliability but not for other purposes.     

Jail suicides by hanging. An epidemiological review and recommendations for prevention

This article reviews 17 cases of jail suicide occurring in Oklahoma in calendar years 1981 through 1983. Significant variables are reviewed, and recommendations for prevention are presented.     

Regulating Autonomy: An Assessment of Policy Language for Highly Automated Vehicles

Self‐driving cars (also known as driverless cars, autonomous vehicles, and highly automated vehicles [HAVs]) will change the regulatory, political, and ethical frameworks surrounding motor vehicles. At the highest levels of automation, HAVs are operated by independent machine agents, making decisions without the direct intervention of humans. The current transportation system assumes human intervention though, including legal and moral responsibilities of human operators. Has the development of these artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous system (AS) technologies outpaced the ethical and political conversations? This paper examines discussions of HAVs, driver responsibility, and technology failure to highlight the differences between how the policy‐making institutions in the United States (Congress and the Public Administration) and technology and transportation experts are or are not speaking about responsibility in the context of autonomous systems technologies. We report findings from a big data analysis of corpus‐level documents to find that enthusiasm for HAVs has outpaced other discussions of the technology.     

Competitive Loss,Gendered Backlash and Sexism in Politics

Political Behavior - Politics is often seen as a zero-sum game, so understanding how competition affects political behavior is a fruitful, yet underexplored area of study. Reactions to competition...     

EARLY NEUTRAL EVALUATION IN DIVORCE CASES

Parties in a divorce case are faced with the challenge of dealing with highly charged emotional and financial issues simulataneously. Early Neutral Evaluation is a beneficial weapon in the dispute resolution arsenal that can help decrease the level of conflict between parties. This Note discusses the development of Early Neutral Evaluation as a form of dispute resolution and proposes the establishment of court-organized mandatory Early Neutral Evaluation programs to settle financial matters in a divorce case.