Litigation Commons^™

Trying Out The Electronic Case Management System In The Uae And Its Compliance With Fundamental Judicial Guarantees, Abdulla A. Alkhatib

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

This study considers the Electronic Case Management System (ECMS) and the challenges it faces in achieving basic litigation guarantees, according to the legislation of the UAE, and comparing them with the practices followed by the judicial authorities. The importance of the study lies in the fact that electronic justice has replaced the traditional justice system, where all procedures from registering the case, submitting memoranda, conducting trials, issuing judgments, appealing, and implementing them are carried out through it remotely. This raised the question about the extent to which ECMS provides basic litigation guarantees, specifically the principles of equality, confrontation, defense, and …

A Toothless Tcpa: An Analysis Of Article Iii Standing, Personal Jurisdiction, And The Disjuncture Problem’S Impact On The Efficacy Of The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, Sebastian W. Johnson

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unintended Consequences: The New Test For Interlocutory Mandatory Injunctions, Jeff Berryman

Brooklyn Law Review

Interlocutory mandatory injunctions can be an important remedy during the pendency of a trial. With its decision in R. v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp, the Supreme Court of Canada revised its test for an interlocutory mandatory injunction, holding that it should require a higher threshold and be therefore harder to obtain than an interlocutory prohibitive injunction. This higher threshold requires that the applicant demonstrate a strong prima facie case that it will succeed at trial based on law and evidence. This change adds uncertainty to the process, ultimately complicating and adding costs to litigation.

Nationwide Injunctions And The Administrative State, Russell L. Weaver

Brooklyn Law Review

Where an administrative regulation is deemed by a court to be illegal, unconstitutional, or otherwise invalid, courts sometimes issue nationwide injunctions. In other words, instead of holding that the regulation cannot be applied to the individuals before the court, the court prohibits the agency from applying the regulation anywhere in the country, including to others not before the court. This article explores the debate surrounding the appropriateness of nationwide injunctions. While at first glance such injunctions may seem to make sense, they can have serious consequences, including risk of abuse and forum shopping, amplification of erroneous decisions, and the negative …

Summary Eviction Proceedings As A Debt Collection Tool: How Landlords Use Serial Eviction Filings To Collect Rent, Grace Vetromile

Brooklyn Law Review

This note explores how landlords use housing court as a debt collection tool, impacting the rights of tenants and their ability to fairly adjudicate claims in summary eviction proceedings. Disparities in the number of evictions that are filed, as compared to evictions that are ultimately executed, indicate that landlords do not always use eviction proceedings to kick out a tenant, but rather as a method of debt collection. Using these proceedings in this manner affects a tenant’s ability to defend against eviction, even when the tenant has meritorious claims that their landlord did not provide a habitable apartment. This note …

Nonparty Litigation Holds: Clear To Implement. Complex To Lift., Alexis Bianco-Burrill

Brooklyn Law Review

Legal holds have long been used by parties, and nonparties alike, as a fundamental tool to preserve information that could be needed in litigation. There are a breadth of statutes, case law, and scholarly work clarifying when a party has the duty to preserve documents and therefore issues legal holds under federal law, as well as when nonparties share this same duty. Although the question of when to issue a legal hold has a clear answer, the problem of when a nonparty can lift a litigation hold is much more complex. Often, nonparties who have been requested to preserve documents …

Class Actions, Thomas M. Byrne, Stacey Mcgavin Mohr

Mercer Law Review

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s 2023 class-action decisions continued to grapple with Article III standing requirements while also demonstrating, in two decisions, the court’s longstanding generally permissive posture toward approval of class-action settlements. A significant deviation from the latter tendency is the court’s increasingly isolated position on payment of incentive awards to class representatives. Alone among the circuits, the court prohibits such payments, creating an inter-circuit conflict that seems inevitably headed to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, within the circuit, class counsel face a unique hurdle in crafting settlements and dealing with class representatives.

Trial Practice And Procedure, John O'Shea Sullivan, Leesa M. Guarnotta

Mercer Law Review

The 2023 Survey period yielded important trial practice decisions in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ranging from overruling long‑standing precedent relating to arbitration and issuing opinions of first impression relating to attempts to limit arbitration, attempts to limit copyright infringement remedies, what makes a statutory provision “jurisdictional,” and contracting around statutory interest rates. This Article analyzes some of this Survey period’s notable and first impression opinions in the Eleventh Circuit but is not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of the Eleventh Circuit’s important decisions during the Survey period.

No Sword, No Shield, No Problem: Ai In Pro Se Section 1983 Suits, Michaela Calhoun

University of Colorado Law Review Forum

Originating during the Reconstruction era, 42 U.S.C. 1983 emerged as a legislative tool to safeguard individuals’ constitutional rights and liberties. Initially designed to combat state-sanctioned violence, its efficacy has been eroded over time by subsequent judicial and legislative action. Unfortunately, the current state of Section 1983 falls short of this envisioned role, particularly for incarcerated individuals who find themselves navigating the complexities of the federal court system as pro se litigants.

Faced with a landscape devoid of resources, incarcerated individuals struggle to realize their constitutional rights, further perpetuating their collective status as a second-class citizenry—a status imposed by their own …

The Unconstitutionality Of Underfunded Public Defender Systems, Braden Daniels

Senior Honors Theses

When a defendant is ineffectively represented by a public defender due to an underfunded public defender system, a defendant whose public defender provides him only cursory representation is entitled to a new trial only if blatantly innocent. The U.S. Supreme Court should follow its precedent and declare systemically underfunded public defender systems unconstitutional, with cases meriting reversal when the underfunding is to blame for unreasonable attorney errors, regardless of prejudice. This stems logically from the Court’s holdings in Gideon v. Wainwright, Strickland v. Washington, and United States v. Cronic. Many have argued for the reversal or modification …

Toward Accessing Hiv-Preventative Medication In Prisons, Scott Shimizu

Northwestern University Law Review

The Eighth Amendment is meant to protect incarcerated individuals against harm from the state, including state inaction in the face of a known risk of harm. While the Eighth Amendment’s protection prohibits certain prison disciplinary measures and conditions of confinement, the constitutional ambit should arguably encompass protection from the serious risk of harm of sexual assault, as well as a corollary to sexual violence: the likelihood of contracting a deadly sexually transmitted infection like HIV. Yet Eighth Amendment scholars frequently question the degree to which the constitutional provision actually protects incarcerated individuals.

This Note draws on previous scholarship on cruel …

Preliminary Injunctions Prevail Through The Winter Of Buckhannon, Kaitlan Donahue

Northwestern University Law Review

The Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976 allows courts to award attorneys’ fees to the “prevailing party” in any “action or proceeding” enforcing several civil rights-related statutes. Yet, this statute fails to define the term “prevailing party,” leaving the courts to define it over time. The Supreme Court’s piecemeal, vague definitions of “prevailing party” have only complicated the legal landscape and caused more uncertainty for potential plaintiffs and their prospective attorneys. Without the relief offered by recovery of attorneys’ fees, private litigants may be dissuaded from pursuing meritorious litigation due to overwhelming costs of representation, and attorneys may …

The State Of 2nd Amendment Litigation: A Conversation With Everytown Law On U.S. V. Rahimi, Cardozo Public Interest Law Student Association, Cardozo American Constitution Society (Acs)

Flyers 2023-2024

No abstract provided.

The "Inherent Powers" Of Multidistrict Litigation Courts, Lynn A. Baker

Pepperdine Law Review

Mass tort multidistrict litigations (MDLs) involving thousands of claims present the judge with unique management issues. The MDL statute, in its scant two pages enacted in 1968, offers no guidance for the proper handling of these issues, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure speak to these issues only very generally through Rules 16 and 42. Thus, MDL judges have often invoked their “inherent powers” as authority when they take certain actions with significant implications for the parties and their attorneys. Not surprisingly, several of these actions and their underlying justifications have been controversial: (a) appointing lead attorneys; (b) ordering …

Mass Tort Bankruptcy Goes Public, William Organek -- Assistant Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Law Review

Large companies like 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Purdue Pharma, and others have increasingly, and controversially, turned from multidistrict litigation to bankruptcy to resolve their mass tort liability. While corporate attraction to bankruptcy’s unique features partially explains this evolution, this Article reveals an underexamined driver of this trend and its startling results: government intervention. Governments increasingly intervene in high-profile bankruptcies, forcing firms into insolvency and dictating the outcomes in their bankruptcy cases. Using several case studies, this Article demonstrates why bankruptcy law should subject such governmental actions to greater scrutiny and procedural protections. Governments often assume multiple incompatible roles in these …

The Antidote Of Free Speech: Censorship During The Pandemic, Christopher Keleher

Catholic University Law Review

Free speech in America stands at a precipice. The nation must decide if the First Amendment protects controversial, unconventional, and unpopular speech, or only that which is mainstream, fashionable, and government-approved. This debate is one of many legal battles brought to the fore during Covid-19. But the fallout of the free speech question will transcend Covid-19.

During the pandemic, the federal government took unprecedented steps to pressure private entities to push messages it approved and squelch those it did not. The Supreme Court will soon grapple with the issue of censorship during the pandemic. This article examines this litigation, along …

Emerging School Finance Litigation In Mississippi, Lajuana Davis

Mississippi College Law Review

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the implementation of Mississippi's education funding statute, the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), which requires the state to fully fund public elementary and secondary education. In those two decades, Mississippi has largely avoided the education finance lawsuits faced by other states, despite the state legislature having only fully funded MAEP twice since its enactment. Although courts have been reluctant to push state legislatures to increase funding to achieve greater equity and adequacy of public school education, some plaintiffs have been successful in reforming education finance laws in other states. Recently, and for the …

Inadequate Adequacy?: Empirical Studies On Class Member Preferences Of Class Counsel, Alissa Del Riego, Joseph Avery

Utah Law Review

Class members to date have been completely sidelined in class litigation. Representational notice is one way to provide them with a voice and a seat at the table (albeit a distant one). However, we note that expressing unmandated preferences does not solve the agency problem that exists in these actions, nor does it guarantee that class counsel is necessarily operating in class members’ best interests during the course of the litigation or in any settlement, even armed with useful ex ante information. Much is left to be explored as to whether class members are satisfied with the representation they received …

U'Wa Indigenous People Vs. Columbia: Potential Applications Of The Escazu Agreement, Ariana Lippi

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Though the case is ongoing, and results are still to be seen, it in many ways sets a precedent for indigenous communities in Latin America seeking redress for environmental and cultural injustices. With Colombia’s recent ratification of The Escazú Regional Agreement (the Agreement herein) in 2022, this case presents a unique opportunity for implementation of the Agreement and greater accountability within existing domestic legislation.

Natural Resources In The Arctic: The Equal Distribution Of Uneven Resrouces, Ganeswar Matcha, Sudarsanan Sivakumar

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

This paper analyses the governance machine in place at the Arctic and examines the application of the principles of “common heritage of mankind” at the Arctic. This paper also offers some tentative propositions aimed at protecting Out Bound investment rights and how the World Trade Organization or other countries, like the U.S., can intercede in the Arctic investment sphere and attempt to regulate along with the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea.