Civil Procedure Commons^™

The Problem With The “Non-Class” Class: An Urgent Call For Improved Gatekeepers In Merger Objection Litigation, Josh Molder

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Until recently, class actions dominated merger objection litigation. However, plaintiff’s lawyers have constructed a “non-class” class where an individual suit can benefit from the leverage of a certified class without ever meeting the stringent class certification requirements of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 23. This new development has initiated a shift in merger objection litigation where plaintiffs are increasingly filing individual suits instead of class actions. However, this shift has left shareholders vulnerable to collusive settlements because plaintiff’s attorneys have significant control over these suits and a strong incentive to settle quickly for a substantial fee. Additionally, corporate defendants are …

Beyond Bristol-Myers : Personal Jurisdiction Over Class Actions, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court's 2017 decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court threatens a sea change in the relationship between personal jurisdiction and aggregate litigation. The most crucial concern has been what the decision means for class actions. Must a court subject the claims of every unnamed class member to separate jurisdictional scrutiny? If so, it could be impossible for a plaintiff who sues in her home state to represent class members outside that state; instead, the Constitution would permit multi-state or nationwide class actions only in states where the defendant is subject to general jurisdiction. For claims against a …

Litigating Welfare Rights: Medicaid, Snap, And The Legacy Of The New Property, Andrew Hammond

Northwestern University Law Review

In 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress was poised to make deep cuts to the nation’s two largest anti-poverty programs: Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as “food stamps.” Yet, despite a unified, GOP-led federal government for the first time in over a decade, those efforts failed. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration and its allies in state government continue to pursue different strategies to roll back entitlements to medical and food assistance. As public interest lawyers challenge these agency actions in federal court, roughly five million Americans’ health insurance and food assistance hang in the balance. This Article asks …

Fmc Corp. V. Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Seth T. Bonilla

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 1998, FMC Corporation agreed to submit to the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ permitting processes, including the payment of fees, for clean-up work required as part of consent decree negotiations with the Environmental Protection Agency. Then, in 2002, FMC refused to pay the Tribes under a permitting agreement entered into by both parties, even though the company continued to store hazardous waste on land within the Shoshone-Bannock Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho. FMC challenged the Tribes’ authority to enforce the $1.5 million permitting fees first in tribal court and later challenged the Tribes’ authority to exercise civil regulatory and adjudicatory jurisdiction over …

Civil Procedure And Economic Inequality, Maureen Carroll

Articles

How well do procedural doctrines attend to present-day economic inequality? This Essay examines that question through the lens of three doctrinal areas: the “irreparable harm” prong of the preliminary injunction standard, the requirement that discovery must be proportional to the needs of the case, and the due process rights of class members in actions for injunctive relief. It concludes that in each of those areas, courts and commentators could do more to take economic inequality into account.

Due Process Supreme Court Rockland County

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Due Process Supreme Court Appellate Division

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Due Process Pringle V. Wolfe (Decided 28, 1996)

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Holding Supporters Of Terrorism Accountable: The Exercise Of General Jurisdiction Over The Pa And Plo In A Post-Daimler Framework, Mark D. Christopher

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Precedent And Preclusion, Alan M. Trammell

Scholarly Articles

Preclusion rules prevent parties from revisiting matters that they have already litigated. A corollary of that principle is that preclusion usually does not apply to nonparties, who have not yet benefited from their own “day in court.” But precedent works the other way around. Binding precedent applies to litigants in a future case, even those who never had an opportunity to participate in the precedent-creating lawsuit. The doctrines once operated in distinct spheres, but today they often govern the same questions and apply under the same circumstances, yet to achieve opposite ends. Why, then, does due process promise someone a …

Judicial Recusation In The Federal Republic Of Germany, Sigmund A. Cohn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Lawrence V. Texas: The Decision And Its Implications For The Future, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Inextricable Merits Problem In Personal Jurisdiction, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

In 1984, Hollywood star Shirley Jones convinced the Supreme Court to adopt an effects-based test for personal jurisdiction when she brought suit in California against a Florida defendant for defaming her reputation. After adopting the test in Calder v. Jones, the Court never returned to the issue, and in fact avoided personal jurisdiction questions entirely for more than two decades. This past spring, however, the Supreme Court not only revisited the personal jurisdiction doctrine but also signaled an intention to return to personal jurisdiction issues in the near future, with two justices calling specifically for development of the doctrine in …

Access-To-Justice Analysis On A Due Process Platform, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

In their article, Forum Non Conveniens and The Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, Christopher Whytock and Cassandra Burke Robertson provide a wonderful ride through the landscape of the law of both forum non convenience and judgments recognition and enforcement. They explain doctrinal development and current case law clearly and efficiently, in a manner that educates, but does not overburden, the reader. Based upon that explanation, they then provide an analysis of both areas of the law and offer suggestions for change. Those suggestions, they tell us, are necessary to close the “transnational access-to-justice gap” that results from apparent differences between rules …

Justicia Militar Y Derechos Humanos, Claudio Fuentes Maureira

Claudio Fuentes Maureira

En diciembre de 2010 se publicó una reforma a la justicia militar que excluyó a los civiles de su jurisdicción, lo que fue celebrado por el Gobierno como un significativo paso hacia la democratización de esta jurisdicción, la misma que le valió a Chile una condena internacional en 2005. No obstante, mantuvo la competencia de tribunales militares para conocer delitos cometidos por miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas y de Orden, lo cual sigue estando por debajo de los estándares que obligan a Chile. A ello se suma que aún está pendiente la reforma orgánica y procedimental de la justicia militar, …

Giving Notice: An Argument For Notification Of Putative Plaintiffs In Complex Litigation, Marjorie A. Silver

Marjorie A. Silver

Professor Silver advocates recognition of an inherent judicial power to send or authorize notice of pending litigation to potentially interested persons with unfiled claims. Recognizing such a judicial power is consistent with recent legal developments establishing a role for judges in expediting and managing federal litigation. Although the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure only explicitly provide for notice to potential parties in Rule 23 class action litigation, Professor Silver demonstrates that a more general judicial power to notify putative plaintiffs is consistent with the federal rules and the Constitution. She also shows that the first amendment values support a judicial …

Optimal Lead Plaintiffs, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Adequate representation in securities class actions is, at best, an afterthought and, at worst, usurped and subsumed by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act’s lead-plaintiff appointment process. Once appointed, the lead plaintiff bears a crushing burden: Congress expects her to monitor the attorney, thwart strike suits, and deter fraud, while judges expect her appointment as the “most adequate plaintiff” to resolve intra-class conflicts and adequate-representation problems. But even if she could be all things to all people, the lead plaintiff has little authority to do much aside from appointing lead counsel. Plus, class members in securities-fraud cases have diverse preferences …

Back To The Future: Discovery Cost Allocation And Modern Procedural Theory, Martin H. Redish, Colleen Mcnamara

Martin H Redish

It has long been established that as a general rule, discovery costs are to remain with the party from whom discovery has been sought. While courts have authority to "shift" costs in an individual instance, the presumption against such an alteration in traditional practice is quite strong. Yet at no point did the drafters of the original Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ever make an explicit decision to allocate discovery costs in this manner. Nor, apparently, did they (or anyone since) ever explain why such an allocation choice is to be made in the first place. As a result, our …

Designer Trials, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article considers the intersection of freedom of contract and the trials that have not vanished. Could contracting parties effectively agree in advance of a dispute that any litigation of the case will comply with certain rules? Would such an agreement be enforced even in a contract of adhesion? If so, parties with sufficient bargaining leverage could design away many of the characteristics of litigation that they find unappealing, without the need to resort to private processes. The result: a designer trial with the procedural deck stacked in favor of the party with the greatest pre-dispute bargaining power.

Such a …

Enforcement Of Foreign Money-Judgments In The United States: In Search Of Uniformity And International Acceptance, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

When international trade and investment increase, so does the need for satisfactory means of dispute resolution. Dispute resolution in national courts requires that litigants consider not only the likelihood of a favorable judgment but also the ability to collect on that judgment. In cases where the defendant’s assets lie in another jurisdiction, collection is possible only if the second jurisdiction will recognize the first jurisdiction’s judgment.

In the international arena, enforcement of United State judgments overseas is often possible only if the United States court rendering the judgment would enforce a similar decision of the foreign enforcing court. This reciprocity …

Giving Notice: An Argument For Notification Of Putative Plaintiffs In Complex Litigation, Marjorie A. Silver

Scholarly Works

Professor Silver advocates recognition of an inherent judicial power to send or authorize notice of pending litigation to potentially interested persons with unfiled claims. Recognizing such a judicial power is consistent with recent legal developments establishing a role for judges in expediting and managing federal litigation. Although the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure only explicitly provide for notice to potential parties in Rule 23 class action litigation, Professor Silver demonstrates that a more general judicial power to notify putative plaintiffs is consistent with the federal rules and the Constitution. She also shows that the first amendment values support a judicial …

Preclusion And Procedural Due Process In Rule 23(B)(2) Class Actions, Mark C. Weber

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines whether Rule 23(b)(2) violates the procedural due process rights of absent class members by binding them to the judgment in a class case without notice of the suit. It concludes that the Rule almost certainly violates due process and proposes a reform that would permit nonbinding class actions similar to the old "spurious" class suits.

Parties - Whether Action For Money Judgment By Holder Of Unsecured Bonds Constitutes "Class" Suit Binding On All Owners Of That Series Who Did Not Appear, William Houston

Michigan Law Review

The Chicago Board of Education had issued a certain series of refunding bonds, and later defaulted on interest coupons, numbered 16, attached to the bonds. Prior to the present suit a suit in equity had been instituted against the board by some of the owners of these bonds, on behalf of themselves and all other owners of bonds in this series, in which they prayed for judgment for the amount of interest due to each owner, together with costs, and attorney's fees. Defendant made a motion, to dismiss that suit on the ground that such action could not be maintained …