Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Document Type

Essay

Publication Date

2019

Abstract

In this Essay, the authors argue that the Delaware Chancery Court's opinion in Sciabacucchi v. Salzberg, which appeals to territoriality as a decisive “first principle,” is deeply misguided. The notion that each state’s legislative jurisdiction is bounded by its territorial limits is a formalist and arbitrary notion that has been broadly rejected by various jurisdictions, including Delaware. Moreover, an opinion truly grounded in “first principles” would take comity—the basic framework for choice of law in the early Republic—as its lodestar, necessitating a functionally and strategically sensitive approach to determining the validity of the federal forum provisions. In this case, comity would recommend not invalidating the forum provisions, as the Chancery Court did, but rather dismissing the suit for lack of ripeness.

Publisher

Cardozo Law Review de·novo

Volume

2019

First Page

106

Included in

Law Commons

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