{"id":31612,"date":"2026-05-07T09:07:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=31612"},"modified":"2026-05-07T09:07:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:07:03","slug":"judge-sykes-in-the-curriculum-copyrights-and-civil-procedure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2026\/05\/judge-sykes-in-the-curriculum-copyrights-and-civil-procedure\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Sykes in the Curriculum\u2014Copyrights and Civil Procedure"},"content":{"rendered":"

The summer 2026 issue of the\u00a0Marquette Lawyer<\/span>\u00a0magazine<\/a> has a number of entries concerning the Hon. Diane S. Sykes, L\u201984, including a set of one-page essays by seven different faculty on how their Marquette Law School courses draw on her writings as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 2004 or as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court between 1999 and 2004. This is the sixth of the seven essays. The illustration of the faculty member, taken from the magazine and appearing here with the blog post, is by John Jay Cabuay.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/a>We have used opinions by Judge Diane Sykes in two of my classes. In both instances, I looked for an opinion that presented a complicated doctrinal issue in clear terms that students could understand and debate.<\/p>\n

In Copyrights, for many years, I supplemented the casebook with Kelley v. Chicago Park District<\/em>, a Seventh Circuit decision from 2011. Kelley <\/em>deals with a basic yet challenging question: what, exactly, is a copyrightable work? Protected works must meet at least two requirements: they have to be authored, and they have to be written or recorded somehow\u2014in the words of the statute, \u201cfixed in a tangible medium of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not many cases deal with either issue, and what cases there are tend to arise in the context of new technologies, such as computers or remote-controlled cameras. Students struggle, for example, to determine if a temporary copy made in a computer\u2019s volatile memory counts as \u201cfixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kelley <\/em>involves a flower garden. In 1984, Chapman Kelley created a \u201cliving art\u201d installation of flowers and native plants in Grant Park, called \u201cWildflower Works.\u201d Later, when Chicago constructed Millennium Park, Wildflower Works was mostly destroyed. Kelley sued under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), a federal statute, which provides protection against destruction for certain pieces of art, including sculptures.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Park District failed to challenge the conclusion that Wildflower Works was a \u201csculpture\u201d under VARA, an action (or inaction) that Judge Sykes called \u201castonishing.\u201d (A useful teaching moment for students: don\u2019t overlook the statutory text!) This left the court with a conundrum: Is a wildflower garden \u201cfixed\u201d within the meaning of the copyright statute? And if so, by whom?<\/p>\n

Judge Sykes concluded that Wildflower Works failed in both respects. A garden is \u201cnaturally in a state of perpetual change.\u201d And the nature of that change also undermined the human authorship requirement for copyright. \u201c[G]ardens are planted and cultivated, not authored,\u201d Judge Sykes wrote. \u201cMost of what we see and experience in a garden . . . originates in nature, not in the mind of the gardener.\u201d Kelley <\/em>has been an important precedent as courts grapple with the copyrightability of AI generations, which are similarly determined largely by nonhuman forces.<\/p>\n

In Civil Procedure, I supplement the casebook with McCauley v. City of Chicago <\/em>(2011). McCauley <\/em>deals with another vague doctrine: what constitutes a \u201cplausible\u201d claim that will survive a motion to dismiss? The U.S. Supreme Court announced the plausibility requirement in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly <\/em>(2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal <\/em>(2009), but neither of those involved a typical claim, and in both cases the plaintiff lost. This leaves students wondering: what makes a claim \u201cplausible\u201d? The Supreme Court\u2019s unhelpful answer is that it depends on \u201cjudicial experience and common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time Judge Sykes wrote the majority opinion in McCauley<\/em>, the Seventh Circuit had already decided two prior plausibility appeals, Swanson v. Citibank, N.A. <\/em>(2010) and Brooks v. Ross <\/em>(2009). The district court\u2019s dismissal in Swanson <\/em>was reversed, but not in Brooks<\/em>. Judge Sykes used these two prior data points to map out a spectrum of fact patterns, from less complex to more complicated. Where a case falls on that spectrum determines how hard a plaintiff has to work to plead their claim.<\/p>\n

Judge Sykes then explained how Gloria Swanson, who alleged that her house was given a low-ball appraisal by Citibank due to her race, had a straightforward claim, whereas that of Victor Brooks, who alleged a wide-ranging conspiracy among unrelated parties to retaliate against him for a parole board vote, was \u201ccomplex.\u201d The civil rights complaint in McCauley<\/em>, which alleged that various city and state officials intentionally underenforced domestic violence orders on the basis of sex, was also \u201ccomplex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does Judge Sykes mean by \u2018complex\u2019?\u201d I ask students. After all, Swanson\u2019s claim involved math, anathema to many lawyers, whereas Brooks\u2019s claim did not. In our discussion, using the spectrum mapped out by Judge Sykes, the students come to see that a \u201ccomplex,\u201d plausibility-challenged claim is one that has a lot of improbable leaps, as in Brooks\u2019s complaint. On the other hand, Swanson\u2019s racial discrimination claim, sadly, is the sort of thing that happens every day. An opinion such as Judge Sykes\u2019s in McCauley<\/em>, particularizing \u201cjudicial experience and common sense,\u201d helps students understand when a motion to dismiss may succeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The summer 2026 issue of the\u00a0Marquette Lawyer\u00a0magazine has a number of entries concerning the Hon. Diane S. Sykes, L\u201984, including a set of one-page essays by seven different faculty on how their Marquette Law School courses draw on her writings as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 2004 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,23,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marquette-law-school","category-seventh-circuit","category-wisconsin-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31612"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31653,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31612\/revisions\/31653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}