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Aligning Incentives And Cost Allocation In Discovery, Jonathan R. Nash, Joanna Shepherd Nov 2018

Aligning Incentives And Cost Allocation In Discovery, Jonathan R. Nash, Joanna Shepherd

Vanderbilt Law Review

In this Article, we explain that either a rule requiring both parties to share the costs of discovery ("cost-sharing rule") or a rule creating a risk for both parties that they will bear the entire costs of discovery ("cost-shifting rule") would minimize many of the negative incentives that exist under either a strict producer-pays or requester pays rule. Whereas the producer-pays rule creates incentives for excessive discovery because requesters can externalize the costs of requests and use discovery to impose costs on producing parties to force settlement, requesters under a cost-sharing or cost-shifting rule cannot externalize the costs of discovery …


Asymmetry And Adequacy In Discovery Incentives: The Discouraging Implications In Haeger V. Goodyear, Jeffrey W. Stempel Jan 2017

Asymmetry And Adequacy In Discovery Incentives: The Discouraging Implications In Haeger V. Goodyear, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

In this article, Professor Jeffrey Stempel explores the implications the decision in Haeger v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has for discovery and civil procedure. Professor Stempel argues the troublesome narrative that discovery problems and "abuse" are largely problems of claimants seeking excessive discovery that is unduly burdensome and costly relative to the case at hand is a significant part of the problem. Since the mid-1970s, the prevailing narrative has blamed discovery seekers more than discovery resisters.In that narrative, discovery problems are largely the problems of plaintiffs that are too unrealistic, sloppy, lazy, or greedy in frequently seeking excessive discovery. …


Can We Learn Anything About Pleading Changes From Existing Data?, Jonah B. Gelbach Jan 2015

Can We Learn Anything About Pleading Changes From Existing Data?, Jonah B. Gelbach

All Faculty Scholarship

In light of the gateway role that the pleading standard can play in our civil litigation system, measuring the empirical effects of pleading policy changes embodied in the Supreme Court's controversial Twombly and Iqbal cases is important. In my earlier paper, Locking the Doors to Discovery, I argued that in doing so, special care is required in formulating the object of empirical study. Taking party behavior seriously, as Locking the Doors does, leads to empirical results suggesting that Twombly and Iqbal have had substantial effects among cases that face Rule 12(b)(6) motions post-Iqbal. This paper responds to …


To Skin A Cat: Qui Tam Actions As A State Legislative Response To Concepcion, Janet Cooper Alexander Jun 2013

To Skin A Cat: Qui Tam Actions As A State Legislative Response To Concepcion, Janet Cooper Alexander

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court's decision in Concepcion is widely regarded as heralding the demise of small-claims class actions whenever contracts of adhesion are involved in the transaction-which means for virtually all consumer and employment claims. Amending the Federal Arbitration Act to overturn Concepcion would be a relatively simple exercise in legislative drafting, but in the current political climate such efforts are unlikely to succeed. Thus far, proposed federal corrective legislation has failed to pass, and federal agency regulation of class waivers has been lacking. State legislatures might have the political ability to pass corrective legislation, but virtually all state limitations on …


Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing Of The Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution, David Korn, David Rosenberg Jun 2013

Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing Of The Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution, David Korn, David Rosenberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion entrenched a potent structural and systemic bias in favor of defendants. The bias arises from the parties' divergent stakes in the outcome of the common question litigation in individual arbitrations: each plaintiff will only invest to maximize the value of his or her own claim, but the defendant has an incentive to protect its entire exposure and thus will have a classwide incentive to invest more in contesting common questions. …