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• Trump Stokes Chaos in Congress as He Huddles With the G.O.P. - The New York Times
• ICC Judges Sue Trump Administration Over Sanctions - The New York Times
• Jewish Leaders Wrestle With Israel Critics’ Sweep of N.Y. Primaries - The New York Times
• Why Europe Is the Fastest-Warming Continent - The New York Times
• After New York’s Primary Elections, Democrats Face Five Big Questions - The New York Times
• Opinion | Must We Really Come Into the Office? - The New York Times
• Norma Yaeger, Barrier-Breaking Stockbroker, Dies at 96 - The New York Times
• Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash - The New York Times
• Insurgency Over Incumbency: 7 Takeaways From New York’s Primaries - The New York Times
• The Drop-off in Dropouts - The New York Times

Scholarship & White Papers

• Judicial Funding Mandates Related to Education Sharply Decline
  

  Authors: Alfred A. Lindseth and Eric A. Hanushek

Docket Watch

• New York State’s Highest Court Reverses Major Tort Award in World Trade Center Bombing Litigation

  On September 22, 2011, the New York State Court of Appeals issued a decision reversing a major tort award. In In re World Trade Center Bombing Litigation Steering Committee v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,1 the basic underlying facts were not in dispute. The Port Authority was a public entity created in a 1921 compact between New York and New Jersey to oversee critical centers of commerce, trade, and transportation hubs (e.g., airports, bridges, tunnels, etc). It is a financially self-reliant public entity.2 One of the properties it developed, constructed, and operated was the World Trade Center. The Port Authority operated a security force of forty police officers within the confines of the World Trade Center.

• New York’s Highest Court Narrows the Assumption of Risk Defense to Tort Liability

  On April 6, 2010, the New York State Court of Appeals rejected use of the assumption of the risk doctrine to nullify a school district’s duty to supervise the children within its care.1 The ruling would likely have been uncontroversial if the majority had limited its pronouncements to those necessary to resolve the present dispute: a child cannot assume the risk of injuries from “horseplay” enabled by his teachers’ failure to supervise him. This proposition provided the basis for the unanimous judgment in Trupia v. Lake George Central School District disallowing the defense in that case. However, the court split 4-3 in its reasoning, with the minority concurrence decrying the “extended dictum” in which the majority reconceived and narrowed the defense of assumption of the risk in New York State.

• New York’s Highest Court Backtracks on Property Owners’ Rights in Eminent Domain Case

  In In re Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corp., New York State used its power of eminent domain to seize property that would be included in a private developer’s twenty-two-acre mixed-use development project.1 The project was to include a sports arena for a professional basketball team and numerous high rise buildings, the latter of which would serve both commercial and residential purposes.