Prof. Jamar asks an important question. Is it relevant, though, that the US has not adopted the "cab rank" rule. I wonder--a genuine question--how often elites are forced into the genuine dilemmas posed by being a common carrier. The cabbies have far fewer career options than any reader of this list. (To be sure, we are common cariers vis-a-vis our students: we can't refuse to teach lawyering skills to would-be tobacco lawyers or others likely to engage in what we regard as immoral, but, alas, legal behaviors.). I don't know exactly where to go with this. I agree, for example, that postal workers and pharmacists should be treated as common carriers. As I've already written, I just don't think there is a neat principle that will resolve close cases.
Sandy ________________________________ From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu <religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Sent: Tue Mar 06 19:49:13 2012 Subject: Re: Cabbies vs. lawyers Are we to do away with the common carrier rules that have prevailed for centuries? Various businesses are different from one another and have long been treated so according the law. No one has a right to be a cab driver if they cannot comply with the common carrier rules any more than people have the right to be lawyers if they cannot comply with the requirements of our profession. This is not an argument about whether those who control the cabs and make the rules should or should not try to accommodate the demand to not carry someone who has an obvious wine bottle in their possession but will carry someone who has hidden it. But it is not a right to be recognized as a constitutional one. We should not constitutionalize every demand for accommodation. We can do a lot (as indeed we do) through statutes and regulations even in the absence of a recognized constitutional right. -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 Associate Director, Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice http://iipsj.org Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8567 http://iipsj.com/SDJ/ "There is no cosmic law forbidding the triumph of extremism in America." Thomas McIntyre
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