Commenting on Christina B. Whitman's "Elevation of Private Rights to the Constitutional Level"

Commenting on Christina B. Whitman's "Elevation of Private Rights to the Constitutional Level" Accepting Professor Whitman's characterization of the problems raised by plaintiffs asking for constitutional remedies where adequate tale remedies also exist, Professor Brilmayer analyzed possible motives for the court's denial of such redundant federal remedies in recent procedural due process cases. Such denials, Brilmayer suggested, may be seen as analogous to the Supreme Court's classical techniques for avoiding constitutional issues when personal rights of the litigant are not at stake. Like the doctrines of standing, ripeness, and mootness, denial of federal remedy on the grounds of redundancy allows the court to avoid "adjudication of new constitutional rights when there is an adequate alternative source of relief and the motive for seeking a constitutional ruling is only the establishment of far-reaching precedent."