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Full-Text Articles in Law
Defining Civil Disputes: Lessons From Two Jurisdictions, Camille Cameron, Elizabeth Thornburg
Defining Civil Disputes: Lessons From Two Jurisdictions, Camille Cameron, Elizabeth Thornburg
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Court systems have adopted a variety of mechanisms to narrow the issues in dispute and expedite litigation. This article analyses the largely unsuccessful attempts in two jurisdictions - the United States and Australia - to achieve early and efficient issue identification in civil disputes. Procedures that rely on pleadings to provide focus have failed for centuries, from the common (English) origins of these two systems to their divergent modern paths. Case management practices that are developing in the United States and Australia offer greater promise in the continuing quest for early, efficient dispute definition. Based on a historical and contemporary …
Destruction Of Documents Before Proceedings Commence: What Is A Court To Do?, Camille Cameron, Jonathan Liberman
Destruction Of Documents Before Proceedings Commence: What Is A Court To Do?, Camille Cameron, Jonathan Liberman
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
The effective performance by courts of their adjudicative role depends on the availability of relevant evidence. In civil proceedings, the discovery process aims to ensure that such evidence is available. If documents that would be relevant evidence in a trial are destroyed, a fair adjudication is made difficult, if not impossible. This is so whether the destruction of documents occurs before or after proceedings commence. This article asks what a trial judge should do in a situation where relevant evidence is unavailable because one of the parties has destroyed documents before the proceedings commenced but anticipating that such proceedings were …