Public Law and Legal Theory Commons^™

Towards A Jurisprudence Of Public Law Bankruptcy Judging, Edward J. Janger

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In this essay Professor Janger considers the role of bankruptcy judges in Chapter 9 cases in light of the scholarly literature on public law judging. He explores the extent to which bankruptcy judges engaged in the fiscal restructuring of a municipality use tools, and face constraints, similar to those utilized by federal district court judges in structural reform cases, where constitutional norms are at issue.

Protecting The Public Benefit: Crafting Precedent For Citizen Enforcement Of Conservation Easements, Sean P. Ociepka

Maine Law Review

In fiscal year 2004, Wal-Mart added 139 new discount stores, supercenters, and “neighborhood markets” to its already significant chain of stores across the United States. Wal-Mart developers submit their proposals to governing town bodies all over the country with the promise that the $20 million construction of a 200,000 square foot store will create 500 new jobs for the local economy, will have a payroll of over $12 million, will increase the tax base of the area, and will provide convenient, affordable shopping for consumers. For these reasons, the big box stores are a hard offer for town planners to …

Procedural Due Process Claims, Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky

No abstract provided.

Class Actions And The Counterrevolution Against Federal Litigation, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

All Faculty Scholarship

In this article we situate consideration of class actions in a framework, and fortify it with data, that we have developed as part of a larger project, the goal of which is to assess the counterrevolution against private enforcement of federal law from an institutional perspective. In a series of articles emerging from the project, we have documented how the Executive, Congress and the Supreme Court (wielding both judicial power under Article III of the Constitution and delegated legislative power under the Rules Enabling Act) fared in efforts to reverse or dull the effects of statutory and other incentives for …

The Triangle Of Law And The Role Of Evidence In Class Action Litigation, Jonah B. Gelbach

All Faculty Scholarship

In Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo, a "donning and doffing" case brought under Iowa state law incorporating the Fair Labor Standards Act's overtime pay provisions, the petitioners asked the Supreme Court to reject the use of statistical evidence in Rule 23(b)(3) class certification. To its great credit, the Court refused. In its majority opinion, the Court cited both the Federal Rules of Evidence and federal common law interpreting the FLSA. In this paper, I take a moderately deep dive into the facts of the case, and the three opinions penned by Justice Kennedy (for the Court), Chief Justice Roberts (in …

Choice Of Law And Jurisdictional Policy In The Federal Courts, Tobias Barrington Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

For seventy-five years, Klaxon v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing has provided a one-line answer to choice-of-law questions in federal diversity cases: Erie requires the federal court to employ the same law that a court of the state would select. The simplicity of the proposition likely accounts for the unqualified breadth with which federal courts now apply it. Choice of law doctrine is difficult, consensus in hard cases is elusive, and the anxiety that Erie produces over the demands of federalism tends to stifle any reexamination of core assumptions. The attraction of a simple answer is obvious. But Klaxon cannot bear the …

Just And Speedy: On Civil Discovery Sanctions For Luddite Lawyers, Michael Thomas Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

This article presents a theoretical model by which a judge could impose civil sanctions on an attorney - relying in part on Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure - for that attorney’s failure to utilize time- and expense-saving technology.

Rule 1 now charges all participants in the legal system to ensure the “just, speedy and inexpensive” resolution of disputes. In today’s litigation environment, a lawyer managing a case in discovery needs robust technological competence to meet that charge. However, the legal industry is slow to adopt technology, favoring “tried and true” methods over efficiency. This conflict is …

Empowering Individual Plaintiffs, Alex Stein, Gideon Parchomovsky

All Faculty Scholarship

The individual plaintiff plays a critical—yet, underappreciated—role in our legal system. Only lawsuits that are brought by individual plaintiffs allow the law to achieve the twin goals of efficiency and fairness. The ability of individual plaintiffs to seek justice against those who wronged them deters wrongdoing, ex ante, and in those cases in which a wrong has been committed nevertheless, it guarantees the payment of compensation, ex post. No other form of litigation, including class actions and criminal prosecutions, or even compensation funds, can accomplish the same result. Yet, as we show in this Essay, in many key sectors of …