Litigation Commons^™

Work Made For Hire – Analyzing The Multifactor Balancing Test, Ryan G. Vacca

Ryan G. Vacca

Authorship, and hence, initial ownership of copyrighted works is oftentimes controlled by the 1976 Copyright Act’s work made for hire doctrine. This doctrine states that works created by employees within the scope of their employment result in the employer owning the copyright. One key determination in this analysis is whether the hired party is an employee or independent contractor. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court, in CCNV v. Reid, answered the question of how employees are distinguished from independent contractors by setting forth a list of factors courts should consider. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not give further ...

The Rules Of Engagement, David D. Butler

David D. Butler

First impressions are the eye of the needle through which all subsequent threads are drawn. Zealous advocates take conrol of the Courtroom even before the prosecution is through the door. Get to the Courtroom first.

Secure the table and chairs closer to the jury. Pick up all the chalk by the black board. When the befuddled county attorney is looking for a piece of chalk, hand him or her a nice new piece from the box you have in your attache case. Zealous advocates get to the Courtroom fiirst, with the most.

Often, a zealous advocate can lift his or ...

Breaking The Ice: How Plaintiffs May Establish Premises Liability In "Black Ice" Cases Where The Dangerous Condition Is By Definition Not Visible Or Apparent To The Property Owner, Hon. Mark C. Dillon

Hon. Mark C. Dillon

Plaintiffs that are injured as a result of encounters with "black ice," as distinguished from regular ice, face peculiar difficulties in establishing liability against property owners for the dangerous icy conditions on their premises. Black ice results from a unique process under certain conditions by which air bubbles are expelled from water during the freezing process, rendering the ice virtually invisible to the naked eye. Property owners therefore are not typically on actual or constructive notice of black ice conditions as to become subject to the legal requirement of undertaking measures to remedy the conditions. This article explores the law ...

Screening Out Innovation: The Merits Of Meritless Litigation, Alexander A. Reinert

Indiana Law Journal

Courts and legislatures often conflate meritless and frivolous cases when balancing the desire to keep courthouse doors open to novel or unlikely claims against the concern that entertaining ultimately unsuccessful litigation will prove too costly for courts and defendants. Recently, significant procedural and substantive barriers to civil litigation have been informed by judicial and legislative assumptions about the costs of entertaining meritless and frivolous litigation. The prevailing wisdom is that eliminating meritless and frivolous claims as early in a case’s trajectory as possible will focus scarce resources on the truly meritorious cases, thereby ensuring that available remedies are properly ...

Section 1983 Civil Rights Litigation In The October 2005 Term, Martin Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should Counsel For A Non-Party Deponent Be A “Potted Plant”?, David L. Ferstendig, Oscar G. Chase

New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

It has long been the practice in New York that non-party deponents may be represented at depositions and that their counsel may object to questions counsel believes are improper. In 2010, however, the New York State Appellate Division, Fourth Department ruled in Thompson v. Mather that counsel for a non-party may not make objections during the deposition and, in effect, is a mere “potted plant” at the deposition. Under the Thompson holding counsel may not object even to protect a privilege or to strike a plainly improper question that would cause substantial prejudice if answered. Although only the Fourth Department ...

Are Justices Ginsburg And Scalia Disabling The Enabling Act, Or Is Shady Grove Just Another Bad Opera?, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

After seventy years of trying, the Supreme Court has yet to agree on whether the Rules Enabling Act articulates a one or two part standard for determining the validity of a Federal Rule. Is it enough that a Federal Rule regulates “practice and procedure,” or must it also not “abridge substantive rights”? The Enabling Act seems to require both, but the Court is not so sure, and the costs of its uncertainty are real. Among other things, litigants must guess whether the decision to apply a Federal Rule in a given case will depend upon predictable ritual, judicial power grab ...

Enlightening The Forgotten: Removal Of State Cases Involving Service-Members Into Federal Courts, Michael C. Walsh

Michael C Walsh

No abstract provided.

Appellate Division, Third Department, People V. Smith, Jennifer Belk

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court, New York County, Hughes V. Farrey, Eric Pack

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Complex Litigation In The New Era Of The Ijury, Andrew J. Wilhelm

Pepperdine Law Review

This Comment argues for a comprehensive approach to legitimizing the lay jury—an approach involving education, attorney adaptation, courtroom renovations, and judicial knowledge—and a better understanding of how legal professionals can fairly and most effectively transmit knowledge to the average American. The lay jury can remain a vital, unique part of the American judicial system if the bench and bar take seriously their responsibilities and adapt to today’s new reality. Part II examines the background of three basic components of a successful contemporary trial: technology, litigation, and the jury. Part III explores how these three components have evolved ...

Navigating The Law Of Defense Counsel Ex Parte Interviews Of Treating Physicians, Joe Regalia, Drew Cass

Joe Regalia

The rising costs of litigation have hit those involved in healthcare-related cases — including patients, doctors, the courts and lawyers — perhaps hardest of all. Litigation costs have triggered rising malpractice insurance rates for doctors, extensive risk for malpractice attorneys on both sides of the aisle, clogged dockets for courts, and rising fees for clients. Not surprisingly, there is a constant debate about ways that litigation costs in these cases might be reduced. One practice that may alleviate at least some of this waste would cost nothing to implement and has the potential to create large savings: allowing ex parte interviews of ...

Judicial Influence And The United States Federal District Courts: A Case Study, Justin R. Hickerson

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

A Mother Goose Guide To Legal Writing, Jessica Ronay

Jessica Ronay

An original substantive poem with footnotes and explanatory paragraphs that provides examples and explanations of legal writing rules, illustrates the nuances of legal writing, and untangles the challenging legal writing concepts for students, professors, scholars, and practitioners.

Jurisdiction, Choice Of Law And Property, Daniel M. Klerman

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

Jurisdiction and choice of law in property disputes has been remarkably stable. The situs rule, which requires adjudication where the property is located and application of that state’s law, remains the norm in most of the world. This article is the first to apply modern economic analysis to choice of law and jurisdiction in property disputes. It largely confirms the wisdom of the situs rule, but suggests some situations where other rules may be superior. For example, in disputes about stolen art, the state where the work was last undisputedly owned may be both the most efficient forum and ...

Mass Litigation Governance In The Post-Class Action Era: The Problems And Promise Of Non-Removable State Actions In Multi-District Litigation, J. Maria Glover

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Given a string of decisions restricting the use and availability of the class action device, the world of mass litigation may well be moving into a post-class action era. In this era, newer devices of aggregation—perhaps principally among them multi-district litigation (“MDL”)—increasingly will be called upon to meet the age-old mass litigation goal of achieving global peace of numerous claims arising out of a related, widespread harm. Indeed, coordination of pretrial proceedings in the MDL frequently facilitates the achievement of this peace, given the reality that cases, once consolidated in the MDL, often settle en masse.

However, one ...

The Practical Challenges Of Litigating And Trying A Claim For Attorney Fees To A Jury In Minnesota: Providing Minnesota’S District Court Judges, Lawyers, And Litigants The Guidance And Predictability They Need, S. Jamal Faleel

Hamline Law Review

abstract

Rethinking Personal Jurisdiction, Daniel M. Klerman

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

This article sets out a pragmatic justification for the main features of current personal jurisdiction doctrine. According to that justification, personal jurisdiction rules minimize litigation costs and bias. This approach to personal jurisdiction helps resolve difficult and open jurisdictional issues, such as the scope of general jurisdiction and the validity of jurisdiction based on the stream-of-commerce theory. This article then explores the empirical assumptions underlying this pragmatic explanation for current doctrine and shows how doctrine should change if those empirical assumptions were incorrect. For example, the Supreme Court’s “purposeful availment” requirement is justified only if the danger of bias ...

Inferences From Litigated Cases, Daniel M. Klerman, Yoon-Ho Alex Lee

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

Priest and Klein (1984) argued that, because of selection effects, the percentage of litigated cases won by plaintiffs will not vary with the legal standard. Many researchers thereafter concluded that one could not make valid inferences about the character of the law from the percentage of cases plaintiffs won, nor could one measure legal change by observing changes in that percentage. This article argues that, even taking selection effects into account, one may be able to make valid inferences from the percentage of plaintiff trial victories. First, it analyzes selection effects under asymmetric information models. It shows that, under a ...

Proactive Gatekeepers: The Jurisprudence Of The Icc’S Pre-Trial Chambers, Christodoulos Kaoutzanis, Jocelyn Joan Courtney

Christodoulos Kaoutzanis

Due to the fairly recent inception of the International Criminal Court (“ICC), its

Pre-Trial Chambers has been the only judicial body at the ICC thus far to be exposed to

a wide variety of cases. In the seven years since Pre-Trial Chamber I held the

proceedings against the confirmation of charges against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the

ICC’s two Pre-Trial Chambers have conducted hearings and determined the charges

against 14 individuals for crimes allegedly committed in four Situations. This article

systematically classifies the jurisprudence of the Pre-Trial Chambers in an attempt to

identify the trends that cut across the Pre-Trial ...