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Liberalism Triumphant? Ideology And The En Banc Process In The Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals, Arthur D. Hellman

Articles

There are two things that everyone knows about the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: it is very large, and it is very liberal. But common knowledge is sometimes wrong. Is that the case here?

About the first point – the Ninth Circuit’s size – there can be no dispute. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has 29 authorized judgeships, almost twice as many as the second-largest court. But what about the second point – the liberalism? Knowledgeable commentators, including Professor (now Dean) Erwin Chemerinsky, have disputed the characterization, calling it a “myth.”

Until now, no one has empirically tested whether …

The Federal Circuit As An Institution, Ryan G. Vacca

Law Faculty Scholarship

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is a unique institution. Unlike other circuit courts, the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction is bound by subject area rather than geography, and it was created to address a unique set of problems specific to patent law. These characteristics have affected its institutional development and made the court one of the most frequently studied appellate courts. This chapter examines this development and describes the evolving qualities that have helped the Federal Circuit distinguish itself, for better or worse, as an institution.

This chapter begins with an overview of the concerns existing before creation of …

Newsroom: Margulies Cited On Military Commissions 11-04-2016, Peter S. Margulies

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Acting Like An Administrative Agency: The Federal Circuit En Banc, Ryan G. Vacca

Akron Law Faculty Publications

When Congress created the Federal Circuit in 1982, it thought it was creating a court of appeals. Little did it know that it was also creating a quasi-administrative agency that would engage in substantive rulemaking and set policy in a manner substantially similar to administrative agencies. In this Article, I examine the Federal Circuit's practices when it orders a case to be heard en banc and illustrate how these practices cause the Federal Circuit to look very much like an administrative agency engaging in substantive rulemaking. The number and breadth of questions the Federal Circuit agrees to hear en banc …

Determining Uniformity Within The Federal Circuit By Measuring Dissent And En Banc Review, Christopher A. Cotropia

Law Faculty Publications

This Article adds to the empirical literature examining how the Federal Circuit treats patent-law issues internally by comparing the decision making of the Federal Circuit with that of other courts of appeals. It does so by measuring two statistics from overall written opinions: the percentage of dissents and the percentage of en bane reviews. The data is taken from the Third, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, District of Columbia, and Federal Circuits between 1998 and 2009. The data in the study show that the Federal Circuit has the second-highest percentage of dissents among the circuits studied (behind only the Ninth Circuit) and …

The Dog That Didn't Bark: Stealth Procedures And The Erosion Of Stare Decisis In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Amy E. Sloan

All Faculty Scholarship

Informal en banc review is a procedural expedient that nine of the thirteen federal circuits use to circumvent the requirements of formal en banc review. Panels invoke informal en banc review to take actions normally reserved for the full court sitting en banc. The circuits that use informal en banc review say the procedure is to be used rarely. In practice, however, the frequency of informal en banc review is significant when compared with formal en banc review. Informal en banc review is more efficient than formal en banc review, but the efficiency benefits come at a price. Informal en …

Flores V. Southern Peru Copper Corporation: The Second Circuit Fails To Set A Threshold For Corporate Alien Tort Claim Act Liability, Lori D. Johnson

Scholarly Works

In Flores v. Southern Peru Copper Corporation, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, re-examined its Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) jurisprudence and assumed that a private domestic company acting in its private capacity could be liable to Peruvian nationals under the ATCA for a wide range of torts under international law, including violations of rights to “life and health.” Previous cases and other Circuits held that only a handful of egregious crimes, when committed by a private individual or corporation, can justify private liability under the ATCA. Rather than abiding by these interpretations, however, the court examined in depth …

En Banc Revisited, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Legal commentators have proposed a variety of solutions to the perceived problems of the U.S. courts of appeals, from splitting large circuits to assuring partisan balance in panel decisions. They have always assumed, however, that judges a particular appellate court should have sole responsibility for creating the law of that circuit, except when caseload pressures make it necessary to borrow visiting judges. In this Essay, Professor Abramowicz proposes using visiting judges in a more important role: en banc decision-making. Under this proposal, en banc decisions for one circuit would be made entirely by courts of appeals judges randomly selected from …

En Banc Revisited, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Legal commentators have proposed a variety of solutions to the perceived problems of the U.S. courts of appeals, from splitting large circuits to assuring partisan balance in panel decisions. They have always assumed, however, that judges a particular appellate court should have sole responsibility for creating the law of that circuit, except when caseload pressures make it necessary to borrow visiting judges. In this Essay, Professor Abramowicz proposes using visiting judges in a more important role: en banc decision-making. Under this proposal, en banc decisions for one circuit would be made entirely by courts of appeals judges randomly selected from …