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Emory Law Journal
@emorylawjournal.bsky.social
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The flagship law review of Emory Law, the student-edited Emory Law Journal publishes academic, professional, and student-authored pieces on the full range of legal subjects. https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/
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Congratulations to Hannah Behar! Her Comment, “A Haven for Polluters: Examining CERCLA Successor Liability Under State Law,” was recently published in Volume 75 of the Emory Law Journal.

Check it out here: scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol75/is...
November 20, 2025 at 4:52 PM
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As modern speech rapidly shifts to online platforms, what effect do Big Tech intermediaries have on an individual’s right to free speech?
November 17, 2025 at 6:49 PM
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Professor Danielle Jefferis recently published “Our Progressively Brutal Constitution: A Legal Expressivist Account of the Excessive Force Doctrine,” in Volume 75 of the Emory Law Journal.
November 7, 2025 at 6:43 PM
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Issue 1, Volume 75 is now live! It features Articles by Professor Danielle Jefferis and Professor Khaled Beydoun. It also includes three Comments by Hannah Behar, Lauren Weinsier, and Claire Pellegrin. Check out the issue here: scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/
November 1, 2025 at 7:05 PM
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Issue 6 of Volume 74 is live! Issue 6 features two articles: "Rethinking Misdemeanor Incompetence" by Professor Susan McMahon of University of California, Irvine School of Law and "Privileging Genetic Privacy" by Professor Natalie Ram of University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
The blue cover of Emory Law Journal Volume 74, Issue 6. White text lists the articles and comments in the issue. The issue features two articles: "Rethinking Misdemeanor Incompetence" by Susan McMahon and "Privleging Genetic Privacy" by Natalie Ram. It also has two comments: "Defying Goldilocks: Why the FLSA Collective Actiion Notice Standard Set Forth in Lusardi is "Just Right"" by Maguire Tausch and "The Revolution Continues: Revitilizing the Implied Warranty of Habitability with Presumed General Damages" by Thomas Furlong
October 3, 2025 at 8:08 PM
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We are pleased to introduce Volume 75 of the Emory Law Journal! We look forward to the contributions the incoming Staff Editors will make to further ELJ’s tradition of quality legal scholarship.
August 27, 2025 at 11:09 PM
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Issue 5 of Volume 74 is live! Issue 5 features pieces from the 2024 Randolph W. Thrower Symposium. The Symposium was entitled "The Promise and Challenge of Artificial Intelligence in the Information Age." scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol74/is...
A blue cover with white text that reads, "Emory Law Journal, Volume 74, Number 5, 2025." The pieces of Issue 5 are listed in order, as follows: "Technological Readiness Versus Disruption: A Framework for Assessing Distinct Artificial Intelligence Policy Strategies" by Orly Lobel; "Civil Society and the Crisis of Privacy Law" by Ari Ezra Waldman; "A Deep Look at Copyright’s Volitional Conduct Doctrine and Generative Artificial Intelligence" by Aleksander J. Goranin; "The Globalization of Copyright Exceptions for AI Training" by Matthew Sag and Peter K. Yu; "How Theories of Art Can Inform Debates About AI" by Jessica Silbey; "Clinicians in the Loop of Medical AI" by W. Nicholson Price II; and "A Comprehensive Labeling Framework for Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML)-Based Medical Devices: From AI Facts Labels to a Front-of-Package AI Labeling System — Lessons Learned from Food Labeling" by Sara Gerke.
July 20, 2025 at 7:35 PM
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How is online gambling changing the ability of tribes to raise revenue and preserve their sovereignty?

Tribal casinos are a vital source of revenue for many Indigenous communities, but what you might not realize is that outdated federal law threatens their future.
Cover of the Emory Law Journal: dark blue with white text that reads "Access or Sovereignty" by John T. Holden
June 9, 2025 at 7:34 PM
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To bring a claim in federal court, a plaintiff must demonstrate an injury-in-fact. But, this is extremely difficult in health data breach cases. Often, courts focus on economic harms, disregarding the profound noneconomic harms of such a breach.

Kayla O'Brien considers in ELJ.
ndividuals’ health information is increasingly at risk of data breaches as healthcare providers adopt health information technologies and individuals use digital devices and applications to log their health data. The frequency of data breaches involving health information has escalated year after year, and, as a result, more individuals are seeking recourse in federal court. To proceed in federal court, however, these individuals must have Article III standing, and meeting the injury-in-fact requirement to confer standing has been a difficult hurdle for plaintiffs in data breach cases to overcome. Federal courts have narrowly interpreted what constitutes a concrete harm stemming from data breaches, disregarding the noneconomic harms faced by plaintiffs and focusing almost exclusively on economic harms, such as identity theft and credit card fraud, as sufficient to constitute an injury-in-fact. This narrow interpretation fails to acknowledge the sensitive, immutable nature of individuals’ health information and threatens individuals’ ability to enforce privacy rights. This Comment argues that federal courts should broaden their interpretation of injury-in-fact in data breach cases involving protected health information. It proposes that federal courts shift their analytical framework for evaluating injury-in-fact by expanding their recognition of intangible harms that result from both the threat of misuse of compromised data and the mere fact that the data has been compromised. Moreover, Congress should amend HIPAA to include a private right of action, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should broaden the definition of entities that must comply with HIPAA regulations. These measures will empower victims of data breaches to seek redress for harms stemming from their exposed health data, enforcing their right to privacy.
May 29, 2025 at 5:42 PM
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Professors Daryl Lim (of Penn State Dickinson Law) and Peter K. Yu (of Texas A&M University School of Law) have published “The Antitrust-Copyright Interface in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence” in Volume 74 of the Emory Law Journal.
The abstract of "The Antitrust-Copyright Interface" by Daryl Lim and Peter K. Yu: "The U.S. government’s antitrust actions against Big Tech have recently surged in response to the growing dominance of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. In fall 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a controversial submission in response to the U.S. Copyright Office’s request for comments on artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright. The agency’s submission hinted at its eagerness to fully deploy its enforcement powers in the AI sector, including targeting AI developers that have used copyrighted works without authorization to train AI models. This Article examines the changing interface of antitrust and copyright law in the age of generative AI. It argues that this interface faces new complications in two directions: technological and ideological. Technologically, the structural elements antitrust law aims to regulate are key to the success of AI developers. Ideologically, antitrust law, in recent years, has been confronted with a policy shift from the once dominating Chicago School to the Neo-Brandeisian School. The Article then highlights copyright’s oft-overlooked competition policy. It identifies several built-in procompetitive safeguards, such as fair use, the idea-expression dichotomy, the first sale doctrine, compulsory licenses, and the copyright misuse doctrine. The second half of this Article makes the case against antitrust intervention at this nascent stage of AI development. It discusses how such intervention could stifle the growth of the AI sector, change longstanding antitrust principles, upset copyright’s internal balance, and generate unintended global consequences. This Article concludes with a five-pronged strategy for reconfiguring the antitrust-copyright interface and reducing the tensions between antitrust and copyright law."
May 13, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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Congratulations to ELJ's Volume 74 Editorial Board on their graduation from @emorylaw.bsky.social today! It has been an incredible year, with more pieces from Volume 74 still to come. Join us in congratulating this incredible group!
The Editorial Board of Emory Law Journal, Volume 74.
May 11, 2025 at 9:44 PM
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Since 1950, the Feres Doctrine has forbidden injured American soldiers from suing the military for sexual assault, medical malpractice, and other negligence soldiers suffer incident to service. This lack of military accountability has led to soldiers to lack a legal remedy.
In 1950, the Supreme Court held in Feres v. United States that soldiers cannot sue the government for injuries incurred “incident to service.” This holding set a precedent for denying suits by injured soldiers and their families, and the precedent became known as the Feres Doctrine. Over time, the Feres Doctrine has been expanded and abused to universally dismiss lawsuits by soldiers for negligence, medical malpractice, sexual assault, and intentional torts including sexual assault. Because the original decision did not adequately define “incident to service,” the Feres doctrine has been applied differently in different judicial circuits, causing confusion and drawing ire from legislators, judges, and Justices alike. In 2022, the Feres Doctrine was dealt two significant legal blows. First, Congress passed the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (Lejeune Act), allowing soldiers negligently injured by toxic water at Camp Lejeune to sue the government. Second, the Ninth Circuit decided Spletstoser v. Hyten, which both allowed a survivor of military sexual trauma to sue the government and held that sexual assault is not incident to service. This Comment argues that, because soldiers are allowed to sue for negligence under the Lejeune Act and for sexual assault under Spletstoser, neither negligence and subsequent medical problems nor sexual assault are incident to service. Today, the combination of the Lejeune Act and Spletstoser results in a severely curtailed Feres Doctrine. This is because, under both the Lejeune Act and Spletstoser, the only lawsuits still barred by Feres are suits for other intentional torts, which is far narrower than the Doctrine’s original purpose of barring all Federal Tort Claims Act suits by soldiers. Thus, Feres is ripe for reconsideration and abandonment because of the confusion it brings upon courts and because a majority of Feres’s founding legal precedent has been overturned. The combination of the Lejeune Act and Spletstoser provides the ideal op…
April 24, 2025 at 3:21 PM
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The Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980, celebrated initially as protecting Indigenous sovereignty, has hindered self-determination for the Wabanaki Nations. Brandon Dodds, @emorylaw.bsky.social class of 2025, explores the Act and its implications.
Around the time it was passed, the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 was considered by many to be a great victory for the Wabanaki Nations in Maine. But in the decades since, the Act has substantially hindered the Wabanaki Nations’ self-determination efforts. Frequent litigation between the Nations and the state of Maine, narrow interpretation by courts, and the state of Maine’s opposition to remedying the Act’s most harmful provisions have constrained the sovereignty of the Wabanaki Nations. As a result, the Wabanaki Nations have been largely excluded from the significant social, economic, and political gains that tribes throughout the United States have achieved. This Essay examines the circumstances leading up to the enactment of MICSA and the effects of its key provisions. The upshot? MICSA reinforces longstanding evils of settler colonialism and must be replaced with an agreement that appropriately recognizes the sovereignty of the Wabanaki Nations and allows them true self-determination.
April 22, 2025 at 6:21 PM
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As global trade continues to hang in the balance, read up about the Variable Interest Entity (VIE) structure.

Zhen Tian, Executive Articles Editor of ELJ and @emorylaw.bsky.social class of '25, recently published her comment, exploring VIE.
ELJ Cover reading "La "Vie" Continue: Legal Recognition as a Gateway to Sustainable Cross-Border Investments Between China and the U.S."
April 18, 2025 at 12:06 AM
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How does existing law fail to incentivize whistleblowers, leading to consumer injuries and deaths? And how can a reformed bounty program improve consumer safety?

Prof. Benjamin Cavataro considers in "Safety Whistleblowing," recently published in ELJ: scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol74/is...
The Abstract of "Safety Whistleblowing" by Ben Cavataro. When companies fail to do the right thing, critical safety-law violations often go unchecked. Using previously unstudied records, this Article provides the first critique of a core component of the federal consumer product safety whistleblower regime created by Congress in 2008. This Article reveals why and how the current law—which provides protections only to employee-whistleblowers who are retaliated against—has failed to protect consumers from death and injury. First, documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act provide evidence suggesting that the current program fails on its own terms. Very few workers have filed complaints; the number of successful complaints is minuscule; and agency investigations fixate on the employee’s conduct, virtually never examining underlying safety claims. Moreover, there is no evidence that the program has ever resulted in the removal of a hazardous product from the market or the imposition of a penalty against a corporate violator. Second, and more fundamentally, the current narrow regime fails to provide any financial incentive to blow the whistle. To address these critical gaps, this Article proposes comprehensive reform. First, to deter and detect corporate safety misconduct effectively, Congress should transfer oversight of the product-safety whistleblower program from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency ill-equipped to examine product safety, to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has the expertise, enforcement power, and statutory mission to protect consumers. Second, Congress should incentivize safety whistleblowing via rewards for high-impact tips. Third, antiretaliation protections should be strengthened to expand remedies for workers targeted for revealing crucial safety information. Finally, Congress should amend the statute to account for modern-day economic realities.
April 10, 2025 at 10:53 PM
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Some fun pre-reading: Matthew Wansley's Best Paper of the 2023 Roundtable, "Regulating Driving Automation Safety." Published in ELJ and available here: scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol73/is...
The abstract of "Regulating Driving Automation Safety." It reads: Over forty thousand people die in motor vehicle crashes in the United States each year, and over two million are injured. The careful deployment of driving automation systems could prevent many of these deaths and injuries, but only if it is accompanied by effective regulation. Conventional vehicle safety standards are inadequate because they can only test how technology performs in a controlled environment. To assess the safety of a driving automation system, regulators must observe how it performs in a range of unpredictable, real world edge cases. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is trying to adapt by experimenting with a novel regulatory strategy. Instead of setting standards, the agency is using its statutory powers in unprecedented ways—ordering automation developers to report crashes daily and directing rapid recalls that require changes to defective software. NHTSA is betting that intense monitoring and the credible threat of recalls will push developers to prioritize safety. This Article argues that NHTSA’s experimental strategy could be transformed into effective safety regulation. Regulators should (1) require that all new vehicles be equipped with telematics that can send safety data and receive software updates over the air; (2) mandate universal crash reporting; and (3) use recalls to force developers of driving automation systems that create unreasonable risks to restrict where their systems can operate until they can develop safer code.
April 2, 2025 at 9:37 PM
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Every year, the MacMillan Law Library @emorylaw.bsky.social organizes March Madness with lawyers. This year's Final Four featured Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Rob Bilott, Brian Steel, and Jessica Pearson.

Justice Jackson and Jessica Pearson face off in the championship this week...
The bracket from MacMillan March Madness featuring Justice Brown Jackson and Jessica Pearson in the final.
April 2, 2025 at 8:58 PM
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Spring has sprung at @emorylaw.bsky.social !
The front of Emory University School of Law, framed by a tree in bloom.
April 1, 2025 at 5:49 PM
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How should the law respond to emergencies?

Current law allows emergency departures from a wide range of legal rules. Professors John F. Duffy and Richard M. Hynes (of @uvalaw.bsky.social) consider how the law should shape prices in emergencies in "Crisis Pricing."
The cover of Emory Law Journal Volume 74, Issue 3, piece 1: "Crisis Pricing" by John F. Duffy and Richard M. Hynes.
March 31, 2025 at 2:29 PM
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𝖳𝗐𝖾𝗅𝗏𝖾 𝗌𝗍𝗎𝖽𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝖢𝗈𝗆𝗆𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗌 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝖻𝖾𝖾𝗇 𝗌𝖾𝗅𝖾𝖼𝗍𝖾𝖽 for 𝗉𝗎𝖻𝗅𝗂cation 𝗂𝗇 𝖵𝗈𝗅𝗎𝗆𝖾 𝟩𝟧 𝗈𝖿 𝖤𝗆𝗈𝗋𝗒 𝖫𝖺𝗐 𝖩𝗈𝗎𝗋𝗇𝖺𝗅. 𝖯𝗅𝖾𝖺𝗌𝖾 𝗃𝗈𝗂𝗇 𝗎𝗌 𝗂𝗇 𝖼𝗈𝗇𝗀𝗋𝖺𝗍𝗎𝗅𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖼𝗈𝗅𝗅𝖾𝖺𝗀𝗎𝖾𝗌!
"Coming soon to Emory Law Journal" over the Emory Crest.
March 28, 2025 at 5:02 PM
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Volume 74, Issue 3 is live: scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol74/is...

The issue features two articles: "Crisis Pricing" by John F. Duffy and Richard M. Hynes (of @uvalaw.bsky.social) and "Safety Whistleblowing" by Ben Cavataro.
The cover of Volume 74, Issue 3 of Emory Law Journal. Featuring two articles: "Crisis Pricing" by John F. Duffy and Richard M. Hynes and "Safety Whistleblowing" by Benjamin L. Cavataro. Featuring three comments: "La Vie Continue: Legal Recognition as a Gateway to Sustainable Cross-Border Investments Between China and the U.S." by Zhen Tian, "The New Constitutional Qui Tam" by Emily Mitchell, and "Farewell Feres: Does the Camp Lejeune Justice Act Overturn the Feres Doctrine?" by Megan E. Rohn.
March 26, 2025 at 2:18 PM
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March 6, 2025 at 7:23 PM
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An under-discussed Medicaid requirement: Estate Recovery Programs. Federal law requires states recoup the costs of Medicaid care from recipients' estates. Often, families must sell their homes to do so.

Isabella M. Ryan considers the impact and constitutionality of ERPs.
February 26, 2025 at 6:47 PM
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Congratulations to the Executive Board of Emory Law Journal, Volume 75!
February 12, 2025 at 6:01 PM
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Twas the afternoon before the Thrower Symposium and all through the law school many creatures were scurrying to finalize preparations...

As we settled in for a short winter nap (it'll be 70F in Atlanta today), we excitedly thought of "The Regulation of Digital Platforms and Addictive Technologies"
The poster for the Emory Law Journal Thrower Symposium, entitled "The Regulation of Digital Platforms and Addictive Technologies."
February 5, 2025 at 6:31 PM