Law Commons^™

Is The Supreme Court Disabling The Enabling Act, Or Is Shady Grove Just Another Bad Opera?, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

After seventy years of trying, the Supreme Court has yet to agree on whether the Rules Enabling Act articulates a one or two part standard for determining the validity of a Federal Rule. Is it enough that a Federal Rule regulates “practice and procedure,” or must it also not “abridge substantive rights”? The Enabling Act seems to require both, but the Court is not so sure, and the costs of its uncertainty are real. Among other things, litigants must guess whether the decision to apply a Federal Rule in a given case will depend upon predictable ritual, judicial power grab, …

Stopped At The Starting Gate: The Overuse Of Summary Judgment In Equal Pay Cases, Deborah Thompson Eisenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Prepared for a symposium about the overuse of summary judgment in employment discrimination cases, this Article provides a grassroots empirical analysis of what is happening in equal pay cases on the front lines of the district courts. Analyzing a database of 500 federal district court decisions—both published and unpublished—that considered whether to grant summary judgment on an equal pay claim from 2000 to 2011, the review shows that dismissing equal pay claims at the summary judgment stage has become the modus operandi for most federal courts. Courts granted 68% of summary judgment motions in equal pay cases—meaning that only about …

Future Conduct And The Limits Of Class-Action Settlements, James Grimmelmann

Faculty Scholarship

This Article identifies a new and previously unrecognized trend in class-action settlements: releases for the defendant’s future conduct. Such releases, which hold the defendant harmless for wrongs it will commit in the future, are unusually dangerous to class members and to the public. Even more than the “future claims” familiar to class-action scholars, future-conduct releases pose severe informational problems for class members and for courts. Worse, they create moral hazard for the defendant, give it concentrated power, and thrust courts into a prospective planning role they are ill-equipped to handle.

Courts should guard against the dangers of future-conduct releases with …

A Formstone Of Our Federalism: The Erie/Hanna Doctrine & Casebook Law Reform, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

The one I feel sorry for is John Ely. More than thirty years ago, in his classic article The Irrepressible Myth of Erie, he explained painstakingly, if not clearly, how thinking of the Erie/Hanna doctrine as a constitutional cornerstone of our federalism was just a mistake. Such a view, he pointed out, makes a major mystery out of what are really three distinct and rather ordinary problems of statutory and constitutional interpretation. He described the analytical and practical costs of the mistake, showed how the analysis ought to go, explained why academics and judges had failed to get it …

"Defendant Veto" Or "Totality Of The Circumstances?": It's Time For The Supreme Court To Straighten Out The Personal Jurisdiction Standard Once Again, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

Commentators frequently claim that there is no single, coherent doctrine of extra-territorial personal jurisdiction, and, unfortunately, they are correct. The International Shoe case, commonly (but inaccurately) thought of as the wellspring of the modern form of the doctrine, announced a relatively straightforward, two-factor, four-permutation test that worked well for resolving most cases. In the nearly sixty-year period following Shoe, however, as the Supreme Court expanded and refined the standard, what was once straightforward and uncomplicated became serendipitous and convoluted. Two general, and generally incompatible, versions of the doctrine competed for dominance. The first, what might best be described as …

Federal Common Law In An Age Of Treaties, Michael P. Van Alstine

Faculty Scholarship

In this article Professor Van Alstine explores the interaction between the limitations on the doctrine of federal common law and the power of federal courts to interpret the law within the scope of treaties. The article first reviews the constitutional foundation for the operation of treaties as directly applicable ("self-executing") federal law. It then explains that, notwithstanding the Erie doctrine, federal courts may obtain lawmaking powers from either a delegation by Congress or in certain areas of "uniquely federal interest."

Professor Van Alstine then argues that the judicial relationship with self-executing treaty law in principle proceeds from the same source …

Robert Leflar, Judicial Process, And Choice Of Law, William L. Reynolds, William M. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Process And Choice Of Law, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Happens When Parties Fail To Prove Foreign Law?, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Studying Deck Chairs On The Titanic, William L. Reynolds, William M. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Process And The Past Of Antitrust, William L. Reynolds, Spencer Weber Waller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Iron Law Of Full Faith And Credit, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Straight-Line Method Of Determining Personal Jurisdiction, John M. Brumbaugh, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Discovery In Agency Adjudication, Edward A. Tomlinson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Shea Act, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.