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Full-Text Articles in Law
Iqbal, Twombly, And The Lessons Of The Celotex Trilogy, Hillel Y. Levin
Iqbal, Twombly, And The Lessons Of The Celotex Trilogy, Hillel Y. Levin
Scholarly Works
This Essay compares the Twombly/Iqbal line of cases to the Celotex trilogy and suggests that developments since the latter offer lessons for the former. Some of the comparisons are obvious: decreased access and increased judicial discretion. However, one important similarity has not been well understood: that the driving force in both contexts has been the lower courts rather than the Supreme Court. Further, while we can expect additional access barriers to be erected in the future, our focus should be on lower courts, rather than other institutional players, as the likely source of those barriers.
Did The Madisonian Compromise Survive Detention At Guantanamo?, Lumen N. Mulligan
Did The Madisonian Compromise Survive Detention At Guantanamo?, Lumen N. Mulligan
Faculty Works
In this essay, I take up the Court’s less heralded second holding in Boumediene v. Bush - that a federal habeas court must have the institutional capacity to find facts, which in Boumediene itself meant that a federal district court must be available to the petitioners. Although this has gone largely unnoticed, I contend that this holding is inconsistent with the Madisonian Compromise - the standard view that the Constitution does not require jurisdiction in any federal court, except the Supreme Court. In fact, it appears that the Court adopted Justice Story’s position that the Constitution requires vesting of jurisdiction …
The Restrictive Ethos In Civil Procedure, A. Benjamin Spencer
The Restrictive Ethos In Civil Procedure, A. Benjamin Spencer
Faculty Publications
Those of us who study civil procedure are familiar with the notion that federal civil procedure under the 1938 Rules was generally characterized by a "liberal ethos," meaning that it was originally designed to promote open access to the courts and to facilitate a resolution of disputes on the merits. Most of us are also aware of the fact that the reality of procedure is not always access-promoting or fixated on merits- based resolutions as a priority. Indeed, I would say that a "restrictive ethos" prevails in procedure today, with many rules being developed, interpreted, and applied in a manner …
Hearings, Mark Spottswood
Hearings, Mark Spottswood
Faculty Working Papers
This article explores a constantly recurring procedural question: When is fact-finding improved by a live hearing, and when would it be better to rely on a written record? Unfortunately, when judges, lawyers, and rulemakers consider this issue, they are led astray by the widely shared—but false—assumption that a judge can best determine issues of credibility by viewing the demeanor of witnesses while they are testifying. In fact, a large body of scientific evidence indicates that judges are more likely to be deceived by lying or mistaken witnesses when observing their testimony in person than if the judges were to review …
Law, Facts, And Power, Elizabeth G. Thornburg
Law, Facts, And Power, Elizabeth G. Thornburg
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Ashcroft v. Iqbal is wrong in many ways. This essay is about only one of them: the Court’s single-handed return to a pleading system that requires lawyers and judges to distinguish between pleading facts and pleading law. This move not only resuscitates a distinction purposely abandoned by the generation that drafted the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but also serves as an example of the very difficulties created by the distinction. The chinks in the law-fact divide are evident in Iqbal itself - both in the already notorious pleading section of the opinion, and in …
Resolving Cases On The Merits, Jay Tidmarsh
Resolving Cases On The Merits, Jay Tidmarsh
Journal Articles
Prepared for a Symposium on Civil Justice Reform, this essay examines the role of the “on the merits” principle in modern American procedure. After surveying the possible meanings of the phrase, the essay critiques its most common understanding due to its economic inefficiency and its lack of strong philosophical support. Relying on the recent work of Amartya Sen, the essay proposes that the principle be replaced with a “fair outcome” principle that melds both “procedural” and “substantive” concerns.
Process, People, Power And Policy: Empirical Studies Of Civil Procedure And Courts, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Bryant Garth
Process, People, Power And Policy: Empirical Studies Of Civil Procedure And Courts, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Bryant Garth
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This review essay, by Professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow and Dean Bryant Garth, reports on the history and deployment of empirical studies of civil procedure rules, court policies, and legal developments for reforms of court procedures and practices in both the United States and England and Wales. It traces the influence of particular individuals (e.g., Charles Clark in the United States, and Harry Woolf in England) in the use of empirical studies of litigation patterns and court rules to effectuate legal reforms. The essay reviews some particularly contentious issues over time, such as whether there is/was too much or too little litigation, …