Transforming Constitutional Doctrine Through Mandatory Appeals From Three-Judge District Courts: The Warren And Burger Courts And Their Contemporary Lessons, 2025 University of Cincinnati College of Law
Transforming Constitutional Doctrine Through Mandatory Appeals From Three-Judge District Courts: The Warren And Burger Courts And Their Contemporary Lessons, Michael E. Solimine
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Judicial interpretations of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment underwent significant change, both expanding and retrenching in various ways, in Supreme Court doctrine during the Warren and Burger Courts. An underappreciated influence on the change is the method by which those cases reached the Court’s docket. A significant number of the cases reached the Court’s docket not by discretionary grants of writs of certiorari, as occurred in most other cases, but by mandatory appeals directly from three-judge district courts. This article makes several contributions regarding the important changes in these doctrines during the Warren Court …
A Slapp In The Face: The Applicability Of Anti-Slapp Laws In Federal Cases, 2024 Liberty University
A Slapp In The Face: The Applicability Of Anti-Slapp Laws In Federal Cases, Jacob Dryer
Senior Honors Theses
This thesis explains Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and examines the applicability of state anti-SLAPP laws in federal cases. Currently, the Federal Circuits are split on this issue, and the United States Supreme Court has not granted certiorari to any cases that have addressed this issue. This thesis reviews the jurisprudence related to the application of state anti-SLAPP laws in federal court. The author further examines what the Circuits have held about the applicability of anti-SLAPP laws and the rationales of each decision. Based on this information, this thesis argues that if the U.S. Supreme Court were to hear …
Preliminary Injunctions Prevail Through The Winter Of Buckhannon, 2024 Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
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 Next Thirty Years: Developments In Mandamus Jurisprudence In The Last Thirty Years And Why The General Rule That Mandamus Is Unavailable To Review The Denial Of Summary Judgment Is Inconsistent With Modern Mandamus Jurisprudence Under The In Re Prudential Balancing Test, Timothy Delabar
St. Mary's Law Journal
No abstract provided.
The "Inherent Powers" Of Multidistrict Litigation Courts, 2024 Pepperdine University
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 …
The Real World: Iqbal/Twombly The Plausibility Pleading Standard’S Effect On Federal Court Civil Practice, 2024 Mercer University School of Law
The Real World: Iqbal/Twombly The Plausibility Pleading Standard’S Effect On Federal Court Civil Practice, Matthew Cook, Kate Cook, Nathan Nicholson, Joshua Bearden
Mercer Law Review
Several publications already exist detailing the evolution of American civil pleading standards, the personalities involved throughout, as well as the differing iterations’ theoretical and philosophical underpinnings. This Article is written not from the viewpoint of a scholar, but a practitioner. It is the practitioner who drafts, files, and defends against these pleadings. It is the practitioner who provides the “boots on the ground” execution of legislative and judicial directives. It is the practitioner who experiences the aspects of litigation that are not ultimately published in a reporter. And it is the practitioner who must explain to his or her clients …
Inadequate Adequacy?: Empirical Studies On Class Member Preferences Of Class Counsel, 2024 University of Miami
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 …
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. V. Superior Court Of California, San Francisco County: An Exploration Of The "Arises Out Of" Prong In Personal Jurisdiction, 2024 Mississippi College School of Law
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. V. Superior Court Of California, San Francisco County: An Exploration Of The "Arises Out Of" Prong In Personal Jurisdiction, Loden Walker
Mississippi College Law Review
The concept of personal jurisdiction in its modern context has existed since the early 1900s. In time, courts have vetted the idea that an individual, company, or legal entity may be brought under the jurisdiction of a state or federal court by reason of its particular contacts with the jurisdiction. In its creation, the Supreme Court of the United States added the requirement that the contact must "arise out of or relate to" the forum state. But dismally, the Court has provided very little on how to apply and operate the "arise out of" prong. As a result, both federal …
Calpers V. Anz Securities: Securities Time Bars, 2024 Mississippi College School of Law
Calpers V. Anz Securities: Securities Time Bars, Whit Kendall
Mississippi College Law Review
Statutes of limitations and statutes of repose are critical mechanisms that help to limit liability in civil actions. In many instances, these two time bars are paired together in order to protect a defendant from an interminable threat of liability. Although these time limits are present in many types of statutes, they are especially important in statutes involving securities offerings because of the need to protect financial security. In the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act"), there are two time bars, a statute of limitations and a statute of repose, which attempt to protect potential defendants from liability regarding the …
Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun: Supreme Court Of Georgia Expands The Possible Remedies For A Confidential Breach Of Fiduciary Relationship And Analyzed Certified Questions Of Law, 2024 Mercer University School of Law
Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun: Supreme Court Of Georgia Expands The Possible Remedies For A Confidential Breach Of Fiduciary Relationship And Analyzed Certified Questions Of Law, Olivia M. Sanders
Mercer Law Review
The crux of the Supreme Court of Georgia’s decision in King v. King revolved around one theme: the consequences for a party that fails to disclose information in a confidential and fiduciary relationship. In King, the plaintiff’s difficult circumstances began over three decades earlier when his father died in a plane crash and a wrongful death suit was filed on his behalf. Though the plaintiff became entitled to settlement funds as a result of the wrongful death suit, the plaintiff never received the funds and filed a suit accordingly, alleging that the defendant breached his fiduciary duties and converted the …
Issues, 2024 William & Mary Law School
Issues, Evan C. Zoldan
William & Mary Law Review
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have issues—148 issues to be exact. Although the Rules use the term “issue” throughout their text, they do not use it in the same way each time. In some circumstances, the meaning of “issue” is made clear by surrounding context, minimizing any interpretive difficulty. But sometimes context does not clarify the term’s meaning, creating interpretive challenges. This Article argues that the ambiguous term “issue” found in Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 50 and 52 is best read to mean a “dispute of fact.” This reading best comports with judicial interpretations of Rules 50 and …
Public Health Consequences Of Appellate Standards For Hostile Work Environment Claims, 2024 Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Public Health Consequences Of Appellate Standards For Hostile Work Environment Claims, Lauren Krumholz
Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice
No abstract provided.
Pursuing The Exemption: The Makah's White Whale, 2024 University of Washington School of Law
Pursuing The Exemption: The Makah's White Whale, Sarah Van Voorhis
Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice
No abstract provided.
Avoiding Rejection: Studying When And Why State Courts Decline Certified Questions, 2024 South Texas College of Law Houston
Avoiding Rejection: Studying When And Why State Courts Decline Certified Questions, Rachel Koehn Breland
Fordham Law Review
In December 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit declared Tennessee’s punitive damages cap statute unconstitutional under the state’s constitution. Nearly five years later, however, Tennessee state courts are still reducing punitive damage awards under the statute—and they must, because the Tennessee Supreme Court has never addressed the statute’s constitutionality. See, the Sixth Circuit’s decision was merely an Erie guess as to how Tennessee courts would resolve the unsettled state law issue, and the Tennessee Supreme Court has since indicated that it would reach the opposite conclusion. But the Tennessee high court had already had an opportunity …
Legislating Courts, 2024 Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Legislating Courts, Michael Pollack
UMKC Law Review
Judges are ordinarily thought of as deciders of a specific sort: people who apply the rule of law to resolve disagreements between the parties appearing before them. But in every state, judges do far more. They are charged by state statutory or constitutional law with a range of quasi-administrative, quasi-legislative, and quasi-executive law enforcement functions. These roles raise a number of theoretical and practical concerns. In many states, though, legislatures have gone even further. They have either wholly delegated significant policymaking power to state court judges or have sat idle while those judges have assumed the mantle of functions that …
Housing Court: A Balancing Act, 2024 University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
Housing Court: A Balancing Act, Todd Wilcher
UMKC Law Review
This article provides a general description of the Kansas City Municipal Court's Housing Court - its origin, jurisdiction, and process-and discusses the broader themes and competing interests at issue in its cases. Because detached single-family home cases take up most of the space on the dockets, the single-family home theme is a major thread in the fabric of this Article. At the same time, however-in the broader context of the municipal environment-every building, structure and open land is subject to building, zoning, and maintenance regulations. These regulations are pervasive in our modern society, and ensuring they are applied in a …
Ptsd As Bodily Injury: Perspectives From Neuroscience And Medical Psychology, 2024 University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
Ptsd As Bodily Injury: Perspectives From Neuroscience And Medical Psychology, Jennifer Sweeton
UMKC Law Review
This Comment proposes that PTSD be reconceptualized, and reclassified, as a bodily injury in personal injury cases. In Part II, this Comment reviews the way courts describe PTSD in personal injury cases. Part III examines psychiatric literature and discusses the symptoms and classification of PTSD as both an emotional and medical condition. It also identifies several structural and functional brain alterations associated with PTSD, in addition to physiological changes that occur as a result of PTSD. Part IV asserts that the brain processes physical and emotional pain almost identically, and that most injuries include both emotional and physical components. In …
Discovering The Future Of Personal Jurisdiction, 2024 University of Connecticut
Discovering The Future Of Personal Jurisdiction, Brad Baranowski
Connecticut Law Review
A deluge is coming. The Supreme Court’s two most recent personal jurisdiction cases—Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District and Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railroad—have thrown this area of law into even more flux than before. Because of these cases’ heavy emphasis on the fact-intensive nature of personal jurisdiction law, plaintiffs facing down motions to dismiss based on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) are going to start asking an obvious question: If the Supreme Court thinks facts are so important to personal jurisdiction, then should I try to get access to more facts? The result will be more …
The Perilous Focus Shift From The Rule Of Law To Appellate Efficiency, 2024 University of Connecticut
The Perilous Focus Shift From The Rule Of Law To Appellate Efficiency, Elizabeth Lee Thompson
Connecticut Law Review
We should be wary of reforms that are attractive in terms of saving time but have unnoticed substantive effects. . . . The great end for which courts are created is not efficiency. It is justice.
Charles Alan Wright (1966)1
Some of the most significant—and by some estimations the most controversial— transformations of the federal appellate system occurred in the late 1960s and 1970s. Many of the effects are still felt today, including the shift from oral argument for all appeals and the view that study and disposition of each appeal were exclusively judicial tasks, to the adoption of …
Can We Really Be The Change We Wish To See? The Inherent Limitations Of Citizen Suits In Remedying Environmental Injustice Under The Clean Air Act, 2024 Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Can We Really Be The Change We Wish To See? The Inherent Limitations Of Citizen Suits In Remedying Environmental Injustice Under The Clean Air Act, Alexandra M. George
Villanova Environmental Law Journal
No abstract provided.