Law Commons^™

Four Decades Of Federal Civil Rights Litigation, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Civil rights cases constitute a substantial fraction of the federal civil docket but that fraction has substantially declined from historic peaks. Trial outcomes, as in other areas of law, constitute a small fraction of case terminations and have changed over time. The number of employment discrimination trials before judges has been in decline for about 30 years, a trend also evident in contract and tort cases. The number of employment trials before juries increased substantially after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 but has been in decline since 1997. In constitutional tort cases, the number of judge …

Undocumented Workers: Crossing The Borders Of Immigration And Workplace Law, Kati L. Griffith

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Place Aux Dames: The Ideological Divide Between U.S. And European Gender Discrimination Laws, Jens Dammann

Cornell International Law Journal

The United States and the European Union are both firmly committed to eliminating gender discrimination. However, as I show in this Article, they have adopted fundamentally different strategies in pursuing this objective: Whereas the United States offers plaintiffs much more generous procedural rules and far more powerful remedies, the European Union relies on more comprehensive substantive prohibitions against discrimination. What lies behind these different approaches? Contrary to existing scholarship, which emphasizes path dependence arguments, I argue that differences between gender discrimination laws in the United States and Europe can best be understood as the result of a fundamental ideological divide. …

The Gross Beast Of Burden Of Proof: Experimental Evidence On How The Burden Of Proof Influences Employment Discrimination Case Outcomes, David Sherwyn, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Scholarly and public attention to the burden of proof and jury instructions has increased dramatically since the Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. Gross holds that the so-called mixed-motive jury instruction, which we call the motivating factor instruction, is not available in age, and possibly disability and retaliation cases. The decision prompted an outcry from the plaintiffs' bar and Congress has proposed legislation to overturn Gross. Despite the outcry, a simple question persists: Does the motivating factor jury instruction influence case outcomes? Results from our experimental mock jury study suggest that such jury instructions …

Mandatory Labor Arbitration Of Statutory Claims, And The Future Of Fair Employment: 14 Penn Plaza V. Pyett, David L. Gregory, Edward Mcnamara

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Employment Discrimination Plaintiffs In Federal Court: From Bad To Worse?, Kevin M. Clermont, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article utilizes the Administrative Office's data to convey the realities of federal employment discrimination litigation. Litigants in these "jobs" cases appeal more often than other litigants, with the defendants doing far better on those appeals than the plaintiffs. These troublesome facts help explain why today fewer plaintiffs are undertaking the frustrating route into federal district court, where plaintiffs must pursue their claims relatively often all the way through trial and where at both pretrial and trial these plaintiffs lose unusually often.

Summary Judgment Rates Over Time, Across Case Categories, And Across Districts: An Empirical Study Of Three Large Federal Districts, Theodore Eisenberg, Charlotte Lanvers

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Prior research on summary judgment hypothesizes a substantial increase in summary judgment rates after a trilogy of Supreme Court cases in 1986 and a disproportionate adverse effect of summary judgment on civil rights cases. This article analyzes summary judgment rates in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (EDPA) and the Northern District of Georgia (NDGA), for two time periods, 1980-81 and 2001-02. It also analyzes summary judgment rates for the Central District of California (CDCA) for 1980-81 and for other civil rights cases in the CDCA in 1975-76. The combined sample consists of over 5,000 cases. The three-district sample for 1980-81 …

Taming The Paper Tiger: A Comparative Approach To Reforming Japanese Gender Equality Laws, Kristina T. Geraghty

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Different Federal District Court, Different Disposition: An Empirical Comparison Of Ada, Title Vii Race And Sex, And Adea Employment Discrimination Dispositions In The Eastern District Of Pennsylvania And The Northern District Of Georgia, Charlotte L. Lanvers

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Studying Labor Law And Human Resources In Rhode Island, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Our task today is to celebrate, inaugurate, and educate. Lawyers demanded the education part of the talk because they love double counting whenever possible. The lawyers in our audience get Continuing Legal Education credits for attending. That's just one illustration of how to think like a lawyer--kill as many birds with as few stones as possible.

Lawyers are often accused of talking in an arcane language that no one else can understand. Labor-relations people are sometimes thought to be either pie-in-the-sky optimists or Marxist-inspired anarchists. Human-relations professionals are sometimes said to be hypocrites giving a fake smile to employees while …

Employment Law In A Changing Workplace, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The New Psychological Contract: Implications Of The Changing Workplace For Labor And Employment Law, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In this article, Professor Stone describes the profound changes that are occurring in the employment relationship in the United States. Firms are dismantling their internal labor markets and abandoning their implicit promises of orderly promotion and long-term job security. No longer is employment centered on a single, primary employer. Instead, employees operate in a boundaryless workplace in which they expect to move frequently between firms, and between divisions within firms, throughout their working lives. At the same time, employers and employees have a new understanding of their mutual obligations, a new psychological contract, in which expectations of job security and …

Employment Discrimination, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article first parses the multiple overlapping definitions of discrimination, including distinctions between group and individual discrimination and between segregation and discrimination in pay. The article then summarizes the major economic models of discrimination, particularly Becker’s taste-for-discrimination model and statistical-discrimination models, as well as sorting the status-production models. The discussion focuses on the conditions under which markets will tend to eliminate discrimination, noting that this occurs in a more limited range of situations than commonly recognized. The article next surveys the economic role of anti-discrimination laws, evaluating arguments that the law speeds the journey to a non-discriminatory equilibrium and that …

Viva La Evolucion: Recognizing Unconscious Motive In Title Vii, Ann C. Mcginley

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Equality As The Primary Constitutional Value: The Case For Applying Employment Discrimination Laws To Religion , Jane Rutherford

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Choosing A Standard For Constructive Discharge In Title Vii Litigation, Martin W. O'Toole

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

False Alarm Of Firefighters Local Union No. 1784 V. Stotts, David Keith Fram

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bottom Line Defense In Title Vii Actions: Supreme Court Rejection In Connecticut V. Teal And A Modified Approach, David N. Yellen

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.