The Supreme Court decision supporting Orr meant that gender could not be considered in awarding alimony although even in 1990s very few alimony awards are made in favor of men.. Because
Trang 1Unlike the family’s home or station wagon, the husband’s earning power has not yet reached its full value, but it promises to grow
It seems especially unfair for the wife not to receive a share of it since after helping the husband attain his education she agreed to
FORFEIT her earning power to invest time in the family The several years she spent out of the workforce continue to handicap her earnings
Alimony is the only means available to the court
to avoid a potentially unjust division of assets
The judge in this case may award alimony
or may award a token amount—such as $1 a year—so that the wife has the option to request
an increase later on (modifying an award is easier than winning one after the divorce) Or the judge may award no alimony; judges are not required to award alimony
The HUSBAND AND WIFE in this example are unlikely to find a single solution they both consider equitable In trying to reach an order that is fair, judges must balance spouses’ con-tributions and sacrifices during the marriage with their needs after the divorce Although the result may not match both spouses’ ideas of what is fair, one of alimony’s biggest virtues is its flexibility: it can always be changed
Alimony can be modified or eliminated
as the former spouses’ needs change, if those needs are the result of decisions they made as a married unit Awards and increases in alimony are meant to address only needs that are caused
by the divorce itself, not unrelated needs If the wife’s elderly mother becomes ill and dependent
on her after the divorce, for example, the wife’s need increases, but the increase is unrelated to the divorce and will not increase her eligibility for alimony However, a significant change in circumstances—such as a rise in the recipient’s income or a drop in the payer’s income—can cause the court to reduce or end alimony Occa-sionally, courts increase alimony to keep up with inflation
Many courts have indicated that situations such as maltreatment are not VALIDtriggers for alimony Courts have clarified that allegations
of physical or other harm done by one spouse must be brought in a civil lawsuit, to be heard and decided by a jury In successful cases, compensatory and PUNITIVE DAMAGES would be awarded, not alimony
Even in less egregious cases, alimony is not awarded as a punishment, especially in states
that have adopted no-fault divorce laws—that
is, laws providing that neither spouse has to prove wrongdoing on the part of the other Gaps in earning power that tend in general
to favor men over women create another situation that many courts believe they cannot resolve using alimony Such gaps are often the reason married couples decide that if it is ap-propriate for only one spouse to be the wage earner, it should be the husband But courts do not base individual alimony awards on this trend alone, in part because an individual spouse cannot be held responsible for social injustices
In fact, state laws specifying the gender of the paying spouse and of the receiving spouse have been ruled unconstitutional In deciding Orr v Orr 440 U.S 268, 99 S Ct 1102, 59 L Ed 2d 306 (1979), the U.S Supreme Court ruled that Alabama state law, which specified that husbands may be ordered to pay support to wives, but not vice versa, violated the EQUAL PROTECTION Clause of the FOURTEENTH AMEND-MENT The case arose when William Orr, who had been ordered to pay alimony, was taken to court by his ex-wife for failure to pay Orr’s defense included a motion requesting that the Alabama alimony statute be declared unconsti-tutional Although Orr was not seeking alimony from his ex-wife, he argued that the award to her would decrease if his circumstances were considered in addition to hers The Supreme Court decision supporting Orr meant that gender could not be considered in awarding alimony (although even in 1990s very few alimony awards are made in favor of men) Modern underpinnings for alimony have little to do with gender, but this was not always
so The U.S model of alimony is based on ecclesiastical law (guidelines of the Christian
RELIGION), dating from a time in England’s history when divorce did not exist Unhappily married couples could live separately, but the husband was still obliged to support the wife financially This arrangement was known as a divorceA MENSA ET THORO(“from bed and board,”
in Latin), and was not really a TERMINATION of the marriage This limited divorce did not allow the parties to remarry, for example, and did not affectINHERITANCErules The wife remained her husband’s dependent, and alimony was seen as his ongoing marital obligation to her
When full divorce became available, the idea
of alimony continued, but with some important
238 ALIMONY
Trang 2differences In the early 2000s, alimony awards
were being made based not on men’s and
women’s roles, but on relative needs arising from
decisions made during the marriage Alimony is
not an aspect of marriage, as it was in divorce a
MENSA ET THORO, but only becomes necessary—
and available—from the time of divorce Because
the considerations that enter into a divorce
award are sometimes complex, courts usually
clarify the award’s purpose and may place a
time limit on it
No mathematical guidelines exist to tell
courts how to calculate alimony In addition,
each state legislature sets its own policy regarding
whether and when alimony may be awarded The
Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (UMDA),
which many states use as a model, recommends
that courts consider the following factors: the
financial condition of the person requesting
alimony; the time the recipient would need for
education or job training; the standard of living
the couple had during the marriage; the length
of the marriage; the age, physical condition, and
emotional state of the person requesting
ali-mony; and the ability of the other person to
support the recipient and still support himself
or herself
Courts have at times awarded alimony when
an unmarried couple separates, if the
relation-ship closely resembled marriage or in other
circumstances, such as in keeping with the couple’s
intentions and verbal agreements Awards of
this type are informally called palimony Private
separation agreements negotiated between
di-vorcing individuals also can contain alimony
provisions For these reasons, it is difficult to
estimate accurately the size and frequency of
awards through the most common method, U.S
census data
If awards are hard to estimate, COMPLIANCE
with awards is nearly impossible to gauge
Alimony enforcement is unlike child support
enforcement, which has the “teeth” of wage
GARNISHMENT, liens, and other mechanisms
Re-turning to court with contempt-of-court charges
is usually the only option a would-be recipient
has to enforce an existing alimony order
If the divorce DECREE does not specify an
ending date, an order to pay alimony usually
remains effective until the court that awarded
it changes or ends it Alimony usually ends
when the recipient remarries; this is known as
terminable alimony In the case of the
recipient’s remarriage, the payer sometimes must return to court to have the court change the alimony order, but often the termination is automatic
The payer’s death is not necessarily enough
to end payments: some orders allow the reci-pient to inherit funds from the payer’s estate or require the payer to maintain a life insurance policy that will continue to support the reci-pient after the payer’s death These provisions, when made, often involve a recipient whose age
or health makes it too difficult for the recipient
to enter or reenter the workforce
On September 1, 1995, Texas became the last state in the country to authorize the award
of alimony payments in divorce proceedings
TX FAMILY § 8.001 Until then, Texas courts had ruled that the state constitution prohibited alimony awards because alimony was not marital property existing at the time of the divorce Ins-tead, Texas courts said that alimony awards necessarily involved calculations based solely on the future, post-divorce earnings of the ex-spouse who would be making the alimony payments
Texas courts also observed that spouses who sacrificed educational or career opportunities during the marriage to raise children so their spouses could pursue educational or career opportunities of their own could be adequately compensated for their sacrifice by receiving a larger share of the marital property than spouses who had not made such a sacrifice In other words, Texas courts believed that since they had the power to give one spouse a larger share of the marital property to compensate for any career or educational sacrifices that spouse made during the marriage, there was no need to award alimony too Courts also questioned why ex-spouses should be under any obligation to support each other after divorce, when the whole purpose of divorce is to end the costs and benefits of marriage
But judges, lawyers, and scholars increas-ingly criticized the Texas statutory scheme as being unrealistic For example, before 1995 Texas courts routinely ordered ex-spouses to pay child support from their so-called post-divorce “future earnings,” and these orders survived scrutiny under the state constitution
Critics of Texas law saw no reason why state courts could not order ex-spouses to also pay alimony out of wages and salary they earned after the marriage terminated
ALIMONY 239
Trang 3Additionally, critics assailed the absence of alimony provisions in TexasFAMILY LAWas being unduly harsh In a large number of divorces where neither spouse had acquired substantial assets during the marriage, Texas courts were powerless to compensate spouses who had sacrificed educational and career opportunities, since in such situations there were essentially no assets to divide in the first place As a result, spouses who successfully pursued educational
or career opportunities at the expense of their partner were allowed to walk away from the marriage“scot-free.”
Despite the late twentieth-century univer-sality of alimony laws in the all 50 states, lawmakers in some jurisdictions continued to propose legislation that would abolish it In 1999 several Iowa legislators proposed a bill to abolish alimony, arguing that alimony laws provide incentive to get divorced The bill never passed
Because alimony is an award for support and maintenance that one spouse may be compelled to pay to another after DISSOLUTION
of the marriage, it would seem to follow that no alimony could be awarded to a spouse follow-ing an ANNULMENT, which treats the marriage relationship as if it had never existed In fact, alimony is not awarded to spouses under any conditions following the annulment of a mar-riage in most jurisdictions However, in some jurisdictions the enforcement of a flatPROHIBITION
of alimony awards to spouses whose marriages have been annulled has sometimes been found
to impose unnecessary hardship on a spouse, usually the wife, especially where the parties have lived together for a considerable period of time Consequently, judicial and legislative exceptions have been created to the basic rule
of treating an annulled marriage as if it had never existed, for the purposes of determining whether an alimony award is appropriate
Under these exceptions, temporary as well as permanent alimony have been awarded
FURTHER READINGS
“Alimony Strategies” 2003 Family Advocate 25, vol 4 (spring).
American Law Institute 2002 Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations Newark, NJ:
Bender.
Sheldon, John C., and Nancy Diesel Mills 1993 In Search of
a Theory of Alimony Orono, ME.: Univ of Maine School of Law 45.
Storey, Brenda L 2003 “Surveying the Alimony Landscape:
Origin, Evolution and Extinction ” Family Advocate
25 (spring).
CROSS REFERENCES
A Mensa Et Thoro; Child Support; Damages; Divorce; Family Law; Husband and Wife; Marriage; No Fault Divorce; Sex Discrimination.
vALITO, SAMUEL ANTHONY, JR
SAMUEL ALITOis a conservative justice appointed
to the U.S Supreme Court in 2006 Upon his confirmation, he became the 110th associate justice in the Court’s history and only the second Italian-American He replaced Sandra Day O’Connor on the Court
Alito was born on April 1, 1950, in Trenton, New Jersey His father emigrated from Italy as a boy and became a high school teacher His father later changed careers in the 1950s to work as the research director of a nonpartisan agency that analyzed legislation for state legis-lators Alito’s mother was an elementary school principal Alito excelled as a student, deciding
on a legal career after discovering a special affinity for in-depth research and finely honed argument on the high school debate team He graduated as valedictorian of his class and headed off to Princeton University in 1968 After receiving his undergraduate degree in
1972, Alito pursued a law degree at Yale Law School, where he graduated in 1975 At Yale he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and quickly became known as a traditionalist with a quick intellect It was a reputation that he was to carry with him throughout his working life In
1976 Alito was hired as a law clerk by Third
CIRCUIT COURTof Appeals Judge Leonard I Garth (who eventually became a colleague when Alito was named to the same bench) After clerking for Garth, Alito spent 1977 to 1981 as an assistant U.S attorney in New Jersey He then went to Washington, D.C., to work for the
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, first as an assistant to the
SOLICITOR GENERALfrom 1981 to 1985 and then as
a deputy assistant attorney general from 1985 to
1987 In the former position, he argued several cases before the U.S Supreme Court By 1987 Alito returned to New Jersey as U.S attorney, in which role he handled cases from ORGANIZED CRIMEtoCHILD PORNOGRAPHY
Alito took a seat on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1990 While his time there undisputedly marked him as a solidly conservativeJURIST, it also showed a man unwilling to express his political views openly
He was widely respected by Democrats and
240 ALITO, SAMUEL ANTHONY, JR.
Trang 4Republicans alike, and few saw him as either
rigid or an ideologue Still, one of Alito’s
controversial opinions was his lone DISSENT in
a 1991 case that struck down a Pennsylvania law
requiring married women seeking abortions to
inform their husbands Planned Parenthood of
Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey, 947 F 2d
682) He also concluded in a 1998 opinion that
a holiday display that included secular symbols
along with religious ones did not violate the
FIRST AMENDMENT By contrast, Alito voted with
the majority to find a ban on late-term
abortions unconstitutional where there is no
exception considering the health of the mother
These, and the broad array of other published
opinions stemming from 15 years on the bench,
were to come under intense scrutiny when Alito
was nominated to replace retiring U.S Supreme
Court Justice O’Connor in October 2005
Alito’s nomination came in the wake of
the withdrawal of previous nominee Harriet
E Miers, whom many believed was unqualified
for the position It also came at a time when
PresidentGEORGE W.BUSHwas lagging in the polls
and there was increasing acrimony between
parties in the Senate The situation was further
sharpened by O’Connor’s pivotal role as a
centrist justice on a fairly divided Court, thus
making the stakes particularly high for both
parties in finding a suitable replacement In
short, there was little doubt that Alito’s
confirmation hearings were destined to be
difficult and time-consuming, with conservative
and liberal agendas likely to take precedence
Several groups, including theAMERICAN CIVIL
LIBERTIES UNION, strongly opposed Alito’s
nomi-nation According to the ACLU, Alito had
displayed a“willingness to support government actions that abridge individual freedoms.” In reviewing Alito’s professional qualifications, though, a committee of the AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION concluded that Alito was “well-qualified” to serve on the Court
As expected, the ideological battle between the parties caused great friction and talk of filibustering the Alito nomination Despite Democratic attempts to block a vote on the nomination by filibustering, a Senate closure motion ended debate by a 72-25 vote The closure motion forced a vote on the nomina-tion, and the Senate confirmed Alito by a 58-42 vote, the smallest margin sinceCLARENCE THOMAS
Samuel Alito STEVE PETTEWAY, COLLECTION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
◆
Samuel Anthony Alito Jr 1950–
1950 Born,
Trenton,
N.J.
1972 Received B.A from Princeton
1975 Graduated from Yale Law School
1977–81 Served as assistant U.S attorney in New Jersey
1981–85 Moved to Washington, D.C.;
served as assistant to the solicitor general 1985–87 Served as
deputy assistant attorney general
1987 Named U.S attorney
in New Jersey
1990 Appointed to the U.S Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit
1991 Dissented
in Planned Parenthood
of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey
2006 Appointed to U.S.
Supreme Court with
a 58–42 Senate vote
2007 Voted with the majority
in Gonzales v Carhart, which upheld
the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003
2008 Wrote majority opinion
for
Gomez-Perez v Potter
1950–53
Korean War
1961–73 Vietnam War
2001 September 11 terrorist attacks
❖
Trang 5was confirmed in 1991 Alito was sworn in on January 31, 2006
Since his confirmation, Alito has generally voted with the Court’s conservative block, though
he has voted differently in some cases from other conservative justices, including ANTONIN SCALIA During his second year on the Court, Alito voted with the majority in Gonzales v Carhart (550 U.S
124, 127 S Ct 1610, 167 L Ed 2d 480[2007]), where the Court upheld a challenge to the federal Partial-Birth ABORTION Ban Act of 2003 This marked the first abortion case the Court heard since Alito and Chief JusticeJOHN ROBERTSbecame members of the Court Alito and Roberts joined the majority opinion of JusticeANTHONY KENNEDY, along with Scalia and Thomas
In 2008 Alito wrote the majority opinion in Gomez-Perez v Potter (128 S Ct 29, 168 L Ed 2d 806), where the Court held that a federal employee could assert a claim for retaliation resulting from the employee’s filing of a complaint for AGE DISCRIMINATION Significantly, the more liberal justices on the Court joined Alito’s majority, while Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas dissented
Alito is married to the former Martha-Ann Bomgardner, and they have two children
FURTHER READINGS Babington, Charles 2006 “Alito Is Sworn in on High Court ” Washington Post February 1.
Davis, Elliott M 2007 “The Newer Textualism: Justice Alito ’s Statutory Interpretation.” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 30 (Summer).
ALL FOURS Identical; similar
All fours specifically refers to two cases or decisions that have similar fact patterns and raise identical legal issues Because the circum-stances leading to their individual determina-tions are virtually the same, the decision ren-dered by the court in each case will be similar
Such cases or decisions are said to be on all fours with each other
ALLEGATION The assertion, claim, declaration, or statement of a party to an action, setting out what he or she expects to prove
If the allegations in a plaintiff’s complaint are insufficient to establish that the person’s legal rights have been violated, theDEFENDANTcan make
a motion to the court to dismiss the complaint for failure to state aCAUSE OF ACTION If the allegations
in the defendant’s answer do not contradict the allegations in the complaint, the PLAINTIFF can make a motion forSUMMARY JUDGMENT
ALLEGE
To state, recite, assert, or charge the existence of particular facts in a pleading or an indictment; to make an allegation
ALLEGIANCE
In English law, the duty of loyalty and obedience owed by all persons born within the king's realm that attaches immediately upon their birth and that they cannot be relieved of by their own actions
In U.S law, allegiance is the obligation of fidelity and obedience that is owed by native born and naturalized U.S citizens to the United States that cannot be relinquished without the consent of the government expressed by a statutory enactment The act of swearing allegiance to the country, its laws, and its government is a bedrock requirement of U.S citizenship reflected in both state and federal law Before foreign citizens may lawfully immigrate to the United States, they must take anOATHrenouncing their allegiance to all foreign sovereigns and swearing their alle-giance to the laws and constitution of the U.S government (8 USCA § 1448) The U.S Constitution itself requires state and federal legislators, judicial officers, andEXECUTIVE BRANCH
officials to take an oath or affirmation to support its provisions (Article 6, clause 3)
Swearing allegiance to the government is not always the most important value recognized by U
S law Having won its independence and liberty from England through a bloody revolution, the United States has a long history of respecting
FREEDOM OF SPEECH, freedom of RELIGION, and the right toDISSENTin its participatory democracy In fact, one reason many Americans remain stead-fastly loyal to the United States is that U.S laws protect their right to dissent, PROTEST, demon-strate, and criticize the government
Public school children in many states learn
to recite the Pledge of Allegiance Slightly fewer than half of the states plus the TERRITORY of Guam require public school teachers to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in class The majority of states make recitation discretionary
IF SOMEONE HAS
BEEN THE SUBJECT OF
ILLEGAL LAW
EN-FORCEMENT
ACTIVI-TIES,THEY SHOULD
HAVE A DAY IN
COURT AND THAT’S
WHAT THE COURTS
ARE THERE FOR,TO
PROTECT THE RIGHTS
OF INDIVIDUALS
AGAINST THE
GOV-ERNMENT OR ANYONE
ELSE WHO VIOLATES
THEIR RIGHTS
—S AMUEL A LITO
242 ALL FOURS
Trang 6The U.S Supreme Court, in striking down a
state law that compelled public school students
to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, drew upon
this history when it wrote that if“there is any
fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it
is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe
what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism,
religion, or other matters of opinion or force
citizens to confess by word or act their faith
therein” (West Virginia State Board of Education
v Barnette, 319 U.S 624, 63 S Ct 1178, 87
L Ed 1628[U.S 1943])
After the Supreme Court announced its
decision in Barnette, neither the state nor federal
government could lawfully compel public
school children to recite the pledge, though
they could require school teachers and
admin-istrators to lead the pledge, so long as they
allowed students the right to abstain from
reciting it themselves But the Barnette decision
did not end the controversy over the Pledge of
Allegiance In 1954 Congress changed the
official version of the pledge to include a
statement that the United States is“one nation
under God” (4 USCA § 4)
The reference to a deity in the pledge
promp-ted several constitutional challenges Many of
these challenges were raised under the
establish-ment clause of theFIRST AMENDMENT, which
gene-rally forbids the state and federal governments
from “establishing” an official religion within
their jurisdiction
In 2002, one day after a three-judge PANEL
for the NinthCIRCUIT COURTof Appeals released
a decision holding that recitation of the Pledge
of Allegiance in public schools was
unconstitu-tional, the full court voted to stay the decision
pending further consideration However, on
February 28, 2003, the full court reinstated its
holding that a school district’s policy of
requiring teacher-led recitations of the Pledge
of Allegiance violated the establishment clause
of the First Amendment by impermissibly
coercing a religious act (Newdow v U.S
Congress, 328 F.3d 466 [9th Cir 2003]) At the
same time, in its amended opinion, the Ninth
Circuit declined to rule on the constitutionality
of the words“under God” in the federal statute
U.S Solicitor General Theodore Olson filed a
PETITIONforWRITof certiorari on April 30, 2003,
asking the U.S Supreme Court to overturn the
Ninth Circuit decision
Indeed, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit in Elk Grove Unified School District v Newdow (9542 U.S 1 [2004])
However, the Court did not address the constitutional merits of the case Instead, it reversed on a procedural technicality, ruling that Sacramento, California, atheist and di-vorced parent Michael Newdow lacked the legal standing to sue on behalf of his daughter because he did not have legal custody of her, such custody having been granted to the mother (Standing is a legal requirement that the PLAINTIFFmust have been injured or threat-ened with injury by the action complained of and focuses on the question of whether the plaintiff is the proper party to bring the lawsuit.) In 2005 Newdow, to avoid the standing issue, joined with three other anonymous parents/families and again filed legal challenges In these cases, defendants included the Rio Linda Union School District and the United States as a defendant-intervenor, along with John Carey (the captioned
DEFENDANT), who sought to preserve the current wording of the Pledge This time around, the Ninth Circuit consolidated the three defendants’
cases on appeal for oral arguments in December
2007 As of late 2009, it had not issued its
Children in a California elementary school recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
In June 2002, a Ninth Circuit U.S Court of Appeals panel ruled that the phrase
“under God,” as contained in the pledge, violated the Establishment Clause.
AP IMAGES ALLEGIANCE 243
Trang 7opinion (Newdow v Carey, Nos 05-17257, 05-17344, and 06-15093)
Also in 2009, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied rehearing of its
2008 decision to let stand a Florida law that required public school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance unless excused by a note from their parents (Frazier v Alexandre, 535 F.3d 1279[2008]) However, the appellate court struck a provision within the same law that required students and other civilians to stand during recitation In Croft v Perry (N.D Tex., March 26, 2009), a federal district court threw out an establishment challenge to the Texas Pledge of Allegiance, which reads, in relevant part,“Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance
to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.”
FURTHER READINGS Bergman, Jerry 1997 “The Modern Religious Objection to Mandatory Flag Salute in America: A History and Evaluation.” Journal of Church and State 39 (spring):
215–36.
Canipe, Lee 2003 “Under God and Anti-communist: How the Pledge of Allegiance Got Religion in Cold-War America ” Journal of Church and State 45 (spring): 305–23.
Ellis, Richard J 2007 To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance Lawrence, Kansas: Univ Press of Kansas.
Sanford, Bill W., Jr 2003 “Separation v Patriotism:
Expelling the Pledge from School ” St Mary’s Law Journal 34 (winter): 461–502.
CROSS REFERENCES Citizens; Dissent; Establishment Clause; First Amendment;
Freedom of Speech; Immigration and Naturalization.
ALLOCATION The apportionment or designation of an item for a specific purpose or to a particular place
In the law of trusts, the allocation of cash dividends earned by a stock that makes up the principal of a trust for a BENEFICIARY usually means that the dividends will be treated as income to be paid to the beneficiary The allocation of stock dividends generally means that such dividends will be added to the shares of stock held as principal, thereby increasing its size
ALLOCUTION The formal inquiry by a judge of an accused person, convicted of a crime, as to whether the person has any legal cause to show why judgment should not be pronounced against him or her or as
to whether the person has anything to say to the court before being sentenced
ALLODIAL Free; not subject to the rights of any lord or superior; owned without obligation of vassalage or fealty; the opposite of feudal
A description given to the outright ownership
of land that did not impose upon its owner the performance of feudal duties
CROSS REFERENCE Feudalism.
ALLOGRAPH
A writing or signature made by one person for another
When a principal gives his or her agent the power to pay creditors, the checks written by the agent are allographs for the principal
An autograph is the opposite of an allograph
ALLONGE Additional paper firmly attached to commercial paper, such as a promissory note, to provide room
to write endorsements
An allonge is necessary when there is insufficient space on the document itself for the endorsements It is considered part of the commercial paper as long as the allonge remains affixed thereto
ALLOTMENT
A portion, share, or division The proportionate distribution of shares of stock in a corporation The partition and distribution of land
vALLRED, GLORIA Gloria Allred, born July 3, 1941, in Philadelphia,
is a flamboyant, widely recognized lawyer, feminist, activist, and radio talk show host Though her critics dismiss her as a publicity monger and a dilettante, Allred has received praise from others who believe that she is a master at using the power of the news media to draw attention to the day-to-day struggles of ordinary people
Born Gloria Rachel Bloom, Allred grew up
in Philadelphia with her parents, Morris Bloom,
a door-to-door salesman, and Stella Davidson Bloom, a homemaker Her conventional middle-class childhood gave no hint of the outspoken activist to come Allred graduated with honors
244 ALLOCATION
Trang 8from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963
with a bachelor’s degree in English She moved
to New York to pursue a master’s degree in
teaching at New York University While there, she
became interested in theCIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT,
which was beginning to gain momentum After
earning her master’s degree in 1966, she returned
to Philadelphia to teach at a high school with a
predominantly black enrollment
Allred says that her interest in the struggle
for equal rights arose from personal
experi-ences While she was in college, she married,
gave birth to a daughter, and divorced Unable
to collect CHILD SUPPORT from her former
husband, she was forced to return to her
parents’ home She also recalls being paid less
than a man for what she considered equal work
The reason given was that the man had a family
to support, but at the time, Allred as the single
mother also had a dependent to support
Perhaps the experience that most galvanized
her commitment to equal rights was being
raped and then having to undergo anABORTION
at a time when the operation could not legally
be performed by a doctor She nearly died after
the operation According to Allred, the
experi-ence made her realize the need for safe and legal
abortions and precipitated her lifelong
commit-ment to the fight for reproductive freedom
Allred moved to Los Angeles and married
again in 1968, this time to Raymond Allred;
they were divorced in 1987 Allred taught in the
turbulent Watts section of Los Angeles and
became the first full-time female staff member
in United Teachers of Los Angeles, the
union representing Los Angeles’s teachers The
experience stirred her interest in CIVIL RIGHTS
andCOLLECTIVE BARGAININGand prompted her to
go to law school She received her law degree, with honors, from Loyola Marymount Univer-sity, Los Angeles, Law School in 1974 Soon after, she entered a law firm partnership with her classmates Nathan Goldberg and Michael Maroko Allred, Maroko, Goldberg, and Ribak-off grew during the 1970s and 1980s into a firm with annual revenues exceeding $2.5 million
The firm’s caseload has ranged from family and
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW to business LITIGATION and
PERSONAL INJURYsuits The firm has won national
Gloria Allred.
AP PHOTOS.
Gloria Allred 1941–
2003 Served as president of Women’s Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund
1994 Wrote
“Prosecution or Persecution” for
L.A Times,
advocating legalization of prostitution
1988 Sued Friars Club
NY for sex discrimination
1980 Sued L.A
County to stop shackling of pregnant inmates during labor and delivery
◆
1974 Received J.D from Loyola Law School; formed law partnership with Nathan Goldberg and Michael Maroko
1973 U.S Supreme Court upheld
Roe v Wade, legalizing abortion
1961–73 Vietnam War
1965 Watts riots
in Los Angeles 1955–68 Martin Luther King active in civil rights movement
1950–53 Korean War
1966 Received master’s
in teaching from NYU
1941 Born, Philadelphia, Pa.
1939–45 World War II
◆
2000 1975
1950 1930
1968 Moved
to Los Angeles
to teach in Watts
2008 Elected as delegate to Democratic National Convention
2006 Fight Back
and Win published
ALLRED, GLORIA 245
Trang 9prominence through many precedent-setting cases over the course of more than 30 years, working on such high profile cases including those involving O.J Simpson, Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, and Robert Blake, as well as one
of the earliest SEXUAL ABUSE suits against the Catholic Church
Allred has been perhaps the most flamboy-ant and well known member of her firm She has achieved notoriety and name recognition through staged press conferences and demon-strations publicizing and dramatizing the causes she has championed at various times She has also accepted controversial cases that naturally attract media attention During her years in practice, she has successfully sued Los Angeles County to stop the practice of shackling and chaining pregnant inmates during labor and delivery; put a halt on the practice by the city of
El Segundo of quizzing job applicants about their sexual histories (Thorne v City of El Segundo, 802 F.2d 1131 [9th Cir 1986]);
represented a client who was turned down for
a job as a police officer after a six-hour lie detector exam that included questions about her sex life; and sued a dry cleaning establishment for discrimination because it charged more to launder women’s shirts than men’s Allred also successfully sued on behalf of two lesbians who had been denied entrance to the “romance booth” at a Los Angeles restaurant (Rolon v
Kulwitsky, 153 Cal App 3d 289, 200 Cal Rptr
217[Cal App 2 Dist 1984]) TheOWNERof the restaurant vowed to close the booth if Allred’s clients won They did, and he made good on his promise
Allred relishes confrontation, and her showy tactics have earned her both praise and criti-cism Defending what many have called self-promoting publicity stunts, Allred says she is aware of the impression she makes and contends that it is exactly the effect she wants
She tries to use the few moments she is in the spotlight to make her point as forcefully as possible Her detractors say that she wastes her time and energy on trivial issues that do not advance any worthwhile cause and deflect attention away from serious issues Yet, she points out, she is often stopped on the street by people who recognize her and want to thank her for taking on the small fights that no one else wants Allred contends that what she is really doing is tackling issues that are symbolic of the day-to-day struggles people face It is her way of
educating the public and the legal establishment
to move beyond stereotypes
Asked whether she is an activist or a lawyer, Allred replied that she is an “activist lawyer.” She added that she believes in seeking change and winning rights through the legal process but that she does not shrink from utilizing the political process when legal remedies prove inadequate She once held a press conference in the office of California governor Jerry Brown to cast media attention on his threat toVETOa bill authorizing payroll deductions for child support payments When the news media arrived, Allred and a group of women and children had hung diapers across the governor’s office Brown reversed his position and signed the bill In another case that drew media attention, Allred held a press conference at the door of the all-male Friars Club of New York to dramatize her lawsuit challenging the club’s policy of not allowing women members and not allowing women to enter, even as guests, before 4:00 p.m She won her suit on the grounds that the club did not meet the“substantially private” require-ment under New York law that would have allowed it to legally exclude women Possibly her most famous politically motivated demon-stration was presenting California state senator John Schmitz (R-Corona del Mar) with a chastity belt at a hearing on a bill to limit abortion and BIRTH CONTROL Schmitz retaliated
in a press release in which he called Allred
“a slick butch lawyeress.” Allred sued for libel and won a damage award and an apology Allred has earned a reputation as a champion
of those who have been sexually victimized She represented a woman who won a $5 million civil suit against an accused rapist theDISTRICT ATTORNEY declined to PROSECUTE; represented a boy who claimed to have been sexually abused by
a famous rock singer (although she abruptly and without explanation withdrew from the case before it was settled); and tackled the thorny issue
of clergy sexual abuse She says she wants people
to know that, even if the criminal justice system fails them, they are entitled to file a civil suit Allred is an ardent feminist who believes that all attorneys and all judges should be feminists, because she feels anyone who is not a feminist is a bigot Some critics say she is all show and no substance She has been compared to legal showmen such as Melvin M Belli (“the King of Torts”) and Marvin Mitchelson, who gained
THERE ARE ENOUGH
HIGH HURDLES TO
CLIMB,AS ONE
TRA-VELS THROUGH LIFE,
WITHOUT HAVING TO
SCALE ARTIFICIAL
BARRIERS CREATED
BY LAW OR SILLY
REGULATIONS
—G LORIA A LLRED
246 ALLRED, GLORIA
Trang 10notoriety through a series of celebrity palimony
suits However, even Mitchelson, not one to
shrink from publicity himself, describes her style
as rough But Allred has many supporters as well
Among them is Justice Joan Dempsey Klein of the
California COURT OF APPEAL who credits Allred
with moving women’s issues forward Klein also
points out that Allred saves her dramatics for
outside the courtroom and always observes
proper decorum while before the bench
Accord-ing to Klein, Allred is always well-prepared and,
for that reason, is quite successful
In 1994 Allred wrote an editorial for the
December 6 issue of the Los Angeles Times, titled
“Prosecution or Persecution,” in which she
asserted that laws prohibiting PROSTITUTION are
sexist and victimize women She advocated
legalization and regulation of the sex trade in
order to reduce sexually transmitted diseases and
drug abuse According to Allred,“Unprotected,
uninsured sex workers are the real victims who
deserve legal status and an end to
government-funded harassment.”
In the 1990s Allred, whose law firm partners
were both the children of Holocaust survivors,
sued an organization that had promised a
monetary award to an Auschwitz survivor for
proving the existence of the Holocaust and then
reneged on the award Allred won a six-figure
judgment that ultimately bankrupted the
organi-zation In 1995 Allred sued the Boy Scouts of
America (BSA) over the organization’s refusal to
let a girl join the troop to which her twin brother
belonged The trial judge’s decision that the BSA
was not a business organization and was not
subject to the state Civil Rights Act was upheld by
the Court of Appeals The case was appealed to
California’s Supreme Court, but, when that court
upheld two similar cases, thePLAINTIFFwithdrew
her appeal
In early 2003 Allred served as president of
the Women’s Equal Rights Legal Defense and
Education Fund, an organization she founded
She hosted her own radio talk show on a Los
Angeles radio station and was selected as one of
the 25 most important talk show hosts by USA
Today She has also been a columnist for the
National Law Journal and has been nominated
three times for television’s Emmy award for her
commentaries on KABC-TV
During the early twenty-first century, Allred’s
career achievements include being elected as a
delegate to the 2008 Democratic National
Convention and receiving the Distinguished Alumna Achievement Award from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Educa-tion, and Human Development in May 2009
Allred’s most recent case garnering media atten-tion involved Nadya Suleman, the so-called
“Octo-mom,” who gave birth to eight babies in
2009 Allred asked for an investigation into what she alleged were violations of labor laws and regulations in the filming of the babies California State Labor officials issued numerous citations for violations of the law as a result of the investigation
Dressed in her trademark reds and electric blues, Allred is a combination of scholarship and theatrics Her intelligence and shrewd understanding of the power of the media have made her a contemporary success story in the world of law and politics Gloria Allred has her own Web site: www.gloriaallred.com
FURTHER READINGS Allred, Gloria (with Deborah Caulfield Rybak) 2006 Fight Back and Win: My Thirty-Year Fight against Injustice and How You Can Win Your Own Battles New York:
Harper Collins.
Berry, Dawn Bradley 1996 The 50 Most Influential Women
in American Law Los Angeles: Contemporary Books.
Drachman, Virginia G 1998 Sisters in Law: Women Lawyers
in Modern American History Cambridge: Harvard Univ.
Press.
Gloria Allred Available online at <www.gloriaallred.com>
(accessed August 12, 2009).
ALLUVION See TERRITORY
ALTER EGO
A doctrine used by the courts to ignore the corporate status of a group of stockholders, officers, and directors of a corporation in reference to their limited liability so that they may be held personally liable for their actions when they have acted fraudulently or unjustly or when to refuse to
do so would deprive an innocent victim of redress for an injury caused by them
A corporation is considered the alter ego of its stockholders, directors, or officers when it is used merely for the transaction of their personal business for which they want IMMUNITY from individual LIABILITY A parent corporation is the alter ego of aSUBSIDIARYcorporation if it controls and directs its activities so that it will have limited liability for its wrongful acts
The alter ego doctrine is also known as the
INSTRUMENTALITY RULE because the corporation
ALTER EGO 247