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Confronting Supreme Court Fact Finding, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Legal Scholarship Highlight: Confronting Supreme Court Fact Finding, Allison Orr Larsen

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Allegedly "Biased", "Intimidating," And "Incompetent" State Court Judges And The Questionable Removal Of State Law Class Actions To Purportedly "Impartial" And "Competent" Federal Courts -- A Historical Analysis Of Class Action Dispositions In Federal And State Courts, 1925-2011, Willy E. Rice

William & Mary Business Law Review

Judges as well as members of plaintiffs’ and defense bars agree: a class action is a superior, efficient, and inexpensive procedural tool to litigate disputes that present similar questions of fact and law. To be sure, corporations and insurers have a long history of filing successful class actions against each other in state courts. Yet those corporate entities convinced Congress to embrace an uncommon view: continuing to allow allegedly “hostile” and “biased” state judges and juries to hear and decide everyday consumers’ “purely substantive state law class actions” is unfair and inefficient. Responding to the plea, Congress enacted the Class …

Explaining The Supreme Court's Shrinking Docket, Ryan J. Owens, David A. Simon

William & Mary Law Review

In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has decided fewer cases than at any other time in its recent history. Scholars and practitioners alike have criticized the drop in the Court’s plenary docket. Some even believe that the Court has reneged on its duty to clarify and unify the law. A host of studies examine potential reasons for the Court’s change in docket size, but few rely on an empirical analysis of this change and no study examines the correlation between ideological homogeneity and docket size. In a comprehensive study, the authors analyze ideological and contextual factors to determine …

Hierarchy And Heterogeneity: How To Read A Statute In A Lower Court, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

Is statutory interpretation an activity that all courts should perform the same way? Courts and commentators implicitly so conclude. I believe that conclusion is wrong. Statutory interpretation is a court-specific activity that should differ according to the institutional circumstances of the interpreting court. The U.S. Supreme Court is not the model all other courts should emulate.

I identify three kinds of institutional differences between courts that bear on which interpretive methods are appropriate: (1) the court’s place in the hierarchical structure of appellate review, (2) the court’s technical capacity and resources, and (3) the court’s democratic pedigree, particularly as reflected …