Should Anyone Care that Sexual Assault is “Out of Character” for Biden?

SHERRY F. COLB

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb considers what people mean when they say that a sexual assault allegation seems “out of character” for a particular person and explains why that reasoning is logically flawed. Focusing on differences between how people behave publicly and privately, Colb argues that the lack of an observed pattern of sexual misconduct is not evidence that a person did not engage in sexual misconduct on a specific occasion.

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Flyers Rights Education Fund v. Department of Transportation

Docket: 19-1071

Opinion Date: May 5, 2020

Judge: Arthur Raymond Randolph

Areas of Law: Aviation, Government & Administrative Law

FlyersRights claimed that airlines were not giving passengers sufficient notice of their right to compensation for delays in flights and urged the Department to issue regulations requiring the airlines to print written summaries of passengers' rights on all international airline tickets, including information about how passengers suffering from flight delays might be compensated. The DC Circuit held that FlyersRights has at least one member with independent standing to sue the Department and therefore FlyersRights has associational standing to sue on behalf of its members. On the merits, the court denied FlyersRights' petition for review of the Department's denial of its request for rulemaking as arbitrary and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The court held that the Department adequately explained why it denied the request for rulemaking, and the Department's finding that there was insufficient evidence of consumer confusion to warrant a rulemaking was also supported.