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Full-Text Articles in Law
Perceptions Of Justice In Multidistrict Litigation: Voices From The Crowd, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Margaret S. Williams
Perceptions Of Justice In Multidistrict Litigation: Voices From The Crowd, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Margaret S. Williams
Scholarly Works
With all eyes on criminal justice reform, multidistrict litigation (MDL) has quietly reshaped civil justice, undermining fundamental tenets of due process, procedural justice, attorney ethics, and tort law along the way. In 2020, the MDL caseload tripled that of the federal criminal caseload, one out of every two cases filed in federal civil court was an MDL case, and 97% of those were products liability like opioids, talc, and Roundup.
Ordinarily, civil procedure puts tort plaintiffs in the driver’s seat, allowing them to choose who and where to sue, and what claims to bring. Procedural justice tells courts to ensure …
Bringing Predictability To The Chaos Of Punitive Damages, W. Kip Viscusi, Benjamin J. Mcmichael
Bringing Predictability To The Chaos Of Punitive Damages, W. Kip Viscusi, Benjamin J. Mcmichael
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Punitive damages remain unique in the American legal system. Awarded in the civil context with none of the protections offered in criminal law, courts levy punitive damages to punish and deter. The Supreme Court of the United States has clearly stated that courts may only seek to achieve these two goals when imposing punitive damages. A closer reading of the Court's punitive damages jurisprudence, however, reveals another goal that has largely been ignored: predictability. Unlike punishment and deterrence, predictability is not a purpose for which to award punitive damages. Instead, the Court requires that, when awarded, the level of punitive …
Toward Universal Deportation Defense: An Optimistic View, Michael Kagan
Toward Universal Deportation Defense: An Optimistic View, Michael Kagan
Scholarly Works
One of the most positive responses to heightened federal enforcement of immigration laws has been increasing local and philanthropic interest in supporting immigrant legal defense. These measures are tentative and may be fleeting, and for the time being are not a substitute for federal support for an immigration public defender system. Nevertheless, it is now possible to envision many more immigrants in deportation having access to counsel, maybe even a situation in which the majority do. In this paper, Professor Michael Kagan makes no real predictions. Instead, he offers a deliberately-perhaps even blindly optimistic assessment of how concrete steps that …
Turner In The Trenches: A Study Of How Turner V. Rogers Affected Child Support Contempt Proceedings, Elizabeth Patterson
Turner In The Trenches: A Study Of How Turner V. Rogers Affected Child Support Contempt Proceedings, Elizabeth Patterson
Faculty Publications
In its 2011 ruling in Turner v. Rogers, the Supreme Court held that a nonpaying child support obligor may not be incarcerated in a civil contempt proceeding if he did not have the ability to pay the ordered support or the purge necessary to regain his freedom. The Turner case arose in South Carolina, a state in which civil contempt proceedings are a routine part of the child support enforcement process. The author observed child support contempt proceedings in South Carolina both before and after the Turner decision to assess the extent to which indigent obligors were being held in …
Newsroom: Monestier On Long-Arm Jurisdiction, Roger Williams University School Of Law
Newsroom: Monestier On Long-Arm Jurisdiction, Roger Williams University School Of Law
Life of the Law School (1993- )
No abstract provided.
Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, And The Failed Experiment Of "Sexually Violent Predator" Commitment, Deirdre M. Smith
Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, And The Failed Experiment Of "Sexually Violent Predator" Commitment, Deirdre M. Smith
Faculty Publications
In its 1997 opinion, Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that reflected a new model of civil commitment. The targets of this new commitment law were dubbed “Sexually Violent Predators” (SVPs), and the Court upheld indefinite detention of these individuals on the assumption that there is a psychiatrically distinct class of individuals who, unlike typical recidivists, have a mental condition that impairs their ability to refrain from violent sexual behavior. And, more specifically, the Court assumed that the justice system could reliably identify the true “predators,” those for whom this unusual and extraordinary deprivation of liberty …
Cy Pres Relief And The Pathologies Of The Modern Class Action: A Normative And Empirical Analysis, Samantha Zyontz, Martin H. Redish, Peter Julian
Cy Pres Relief And The Pathologies Of The Modern Class Action: A Normative And Empirical Analysis, Samantha Zyontz, Martin H. Redish, Peter Julian
Faculty Scholarship
Since the mid 1970s, federal courts have taken the doctrine of cy pres relief from the venerable law of trusts and adapted it for use in the modern class action proceeding. In its original context, cy pres was utilized as a means of judicially designating a charitable recipient when, for whatever reason, it was no longer possible to fulfill the original goal of the maker of the trust. The purpose of cy pres was to provide “the next best relief” by finding a recipient who would resemble the original donor’s recipient as much as possible. In the context of class …
Judicial Power And Moral Ideology In Wartime: Shaping The Legal Process In World War I Britain , Rachel Vorspan
Judicial Power And Moral Ideology In Wartime: Shaping The Legal Process In World War I Britain , Rachel Vorspan
Faculty Scholarship
Offering a cautionary lesson of contemporary significance, the Article suggests that judicial power is not in and of itself the solution to executive infringements on due process rights in wartime. It examines the response of the British judiciary to serious threats to its institutional power during the First World War. To facilitate prosecution of the war, the government narrowed the jurisdiction of the traditional courts by eliminating jury trial, subjecting civilians to court-martial, and establishing new administrative tribunals to displace the traditional courts. Rather than remaining passive and deferential to the executive, as scholars have generally assumed, the judges moved …
Comparison To Criminal Sanctions In The Constitutional Review Of Punitive Damages, Colleen P. Murphy
Comparison To Criminal Sanctions In The Constitutional Review Of Punitive Damages, Colleen P. Murphy
Law Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Supreme Court 2002 Term - The Property Cases: Iolta, Qui Tam Actions, And Punitive Damages (Symposium: The Fifteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Leon D. Lazer
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
The Latest Word From The Supreme Court On Punitive Damages (Symposium: The Thirteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Leon D. Lazer
The Latest Word From The Supreme Court On Punitive Damages (Symposium: The Thirteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Leon D. Lazer
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
"We're Only Trying To Help": The Burden And Standard Of Proof In Short-Term Civil Commitment, Lynne Henderson
"We're Only Trying To Help": The Burden And Standard Of Proof In Short-Term Civil Commitment, Lynne Henderson
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.