Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, and Tort Fundamentals Flashcards

Clean Air Act §202

The statutory provision requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions of air pollutants from new motor vehicles once it determines that such emissions endanger public health or welfare.

Air Pollutant (Clean Air Act)

Broadly interpreted under Massachusetts v. EPA to include any physical or chemical substance entering ambient air, specifically encompassing carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons.

Arbitrary and Capricious Standard (APA)

An administrative review standard under the Administrative Procedure Act prohibiting agency actions that ignore important factors, rely on improper considerations, run counter to the evidence, or lack a reasoned explanation.

Impossibility Preemption

A constitutional doctrine grounded in the Supremacy Clause where state law is displaced because it is physically impossible for a regulated party to comply simultaneously with both federal and state legal requirements.

Stop-Selling Rationale

The rejected defense argument that a manufacturer can satisfy conflicting state and federal legal duties merely by ceasing the sale of its product entirely.

Activity-Versus-Inactivity Distinction

The constitutional principle established in NFIB v. Sebelius that the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to regulate existing commercial activity, but does not empower it to compel inactive individuals into commercial activity.

Individual Mandate (NFIB v. Sebelius)

The Affordable Care Act requirement to purchase minimum essential health insurance, which was rejected under the Commerce Clause but upheld as a valid exercise of Congress's taxing power.

Complete Auto Four-Part Test

The constitutional framework governing state taxes on interstate commerce requiring substantial nexus, fair apportionment, nondiscrimination against interstate commerce, and a fair relation to state-provided services.

Economic Nexus

A substantial connection enabling state taxation established through meaningful economic activity—such as exceeding $100,000$ dollars in sales or $200$ individual transactions—without requiring in-state physical premises.

Physical-Presence Rule

The former doctrine from Quill and Bellas Hess requiring an out-of-state vendor to have an in-state physical presence before a state could mandate sales tax collection, later overruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair.

Unlawful Price Discrimination (Utah Pie)

Charging different prices across geographic markets accompanied by predatory intent and tactics that produce a reasonable possibility of lessening competition.

Corporate Independent Political Expenditures

Political spending independently financed by corporations, unions, or associations that Citizens United v. FEC held cannot be banned under the First Amendment based on the speaker's corporate identity.

Electioneering Communications

Broadcast communications mentioning a candidate within $30\text{ days}$ before a primary election or $60\text{ days}$ before a general election.

Preliminary Injunction (Hornbeck Offshore)

A provisional judicial remedy granted to halt enforcement of an agency's blanket six-month deepwater drilling moratorium when the agency fails to provide an adequate evidentiary link between the incident and the scope of its ban.

Rule of Reason

An antitrust standard under Sherman Act §1 requiring a comprehensive, case-specific inquiry into a restraint's actual market effects and economic justifications before determining illegality.

Per Se Antitrust Rule

A standard of conclusive illegality applied to certain categories of trade restraints—such as horizontal price-fixing—without requiring individualized analysis of actual market injury or business justifications.

Vertical Restraint

An agreement or restriction entered into between commercial entities operating at different levels of the supply or distribution chain, such as a manufacturer and an independent retail dealer.

Horizontal Price-Fixing Agreement

An agreement among direct competitors operating at the same functional market level to fix, control, or stabilize prices, recognized as per se unlawful.

Interbrand Competition

The commercial rivalry among distinct manufacturers or brands that produce competing products.

Intrabrand Competition

Price and service competition among distributors or retail outlets selling identical branded products from the same manufacturer.

Foreseeable Zone of Danger

The legal perimeter defining actionable duty in negligence, established in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, limiting liability to harms that are reasonably foreseeable to a vigilant person prior to the occurrence.

Negligence in the Air

The legal concept holding that abstract carelessness toward one individual cannot sustain a negligence suit by an unforeseeable plaintiff who suffered harm outside the defendant's orbit of duty.

Objective Expectation of Privacy

The Fourth Amendment standard requiring that an individual's subjective privacy interest must be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable under the circumstances.

Special-Needs Exception

A Fourth Amendment doctrine upholding warrantless searches when significant operational or public needs beyond normal criminal law enforcement make standard warrant requirements impracticable.

Independent-Source Doctrine

An exception to the exclusionary rule allowing evidence to be admitted if law enforcement ultimately obtained it through a genuinely untainted and lawful channel independent of an unlawful search.

Third-Party Consent (Shared Premises)

The Fourth Amendment rule permitting an individual who possesses common authority over a shared property to validly authorize a warrantless search, provided no physically present co-occupant objects.

Physically Present Co-Occupant Objection

The constitutional rule from Georgia v. Randolph holding that a physically present co-tenant's express refusal of entry nullifies a fellow co-tenant's consent to a warrantless home search.

Tort

A civil wrong, independent of a breach of contract, for which legal systems provide an action for damages or another judicial remedy.

Negligence (Core Elements)

The five required components of a valid negligence cause of action: duty of care, breach of duty, factual causation, proximate causation, and legally recognized harm or damages.

Reasonable Person Standard

An objective legal benchmark evaluating a defendant's conduct against how an ordinarily prudent individual would behave under identical circumstances.

Factual Causation (But-For Causation)

The inquiry into whether a plaintiff's injury would have occurred in the absence of the defendant's negligent act or omission.

Proximate Cause

A legal limitation that restricts liability to harms and consequences that are sufficiently connected and reasonably foreseeable from the defendant's conduct.

Open-Fields Analogy (Dow Chemical)

The principle that outdoor, exposed industrial spaces visible from lawful navigable airspace lack the intimate privacy of homes and do not receive full Fourth Amendment curtilage protection.

Sense-Enhancing Technology Rule (Kyllo)

The Fourth Amendment rule holding that government surveillance of a home's interior using technology not in general public use constitutes a search if it detects details previously unavailable without physical trespass.

Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS)

An accelerated regulatory standard issued by OSHA that bypasses normal rulemaking upon showing that employees face grave danger from toxic agents or new hazards and the measure is necessary.

Major Questions Doctrine

The administrative law principle requiring clear, explicit congressional authorization when an agency asserts regulatory authority over matters of extraordinary economic and political significance.

Generation Shifting

The regulatory technique under Clean Air Act §111(d) mandating a nationwide transition of power generation from higher-emitting coal sources to lower-emitting natural gas, wind, or solar facilities.

Waive or Modify Authority (HEROES Act)

A statutory provision authorizing the Secretary of Education to make modest emergency adjustments to student financial assistance, which does not permit creating expansive debt-forgiveness programs.

Chevron Deference

The overruled administrative law doctrine requiring courts to defer to an agency's reasonable construction of an ambiguous statute that the agency was tasked with administering.

Independent Judicial Interpretation (Loper Bright)

The constitutional and statutory principle under the Administrative Procedure Act requiring federal courts to exercise independent judgment when resolving questions of statutory interpretation.

Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine

A due process requirement invalidating laws or agency rules that fail to give ordinary persons fair notice of what conduct is forbidden or that authorize arbitrary enforcement.