Law Commons^™

Getting Real About Procedure: Changing How We Think, Write And Teach About American Civil Procedure, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

Regulating Impartiality In Agency Adjudication, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

Which should prevail—the Take Care Clause of Article II or the Due Process Clause? To Justice Breyer’s chagrin, the majorities in Lucia v. SEC and Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB expressly declined to resolve whether the U.S. Constitution condones SEC administrative law judges’ and other similarly situated agency adjudicators’ current statutory protection from at-will removal. The crux of the problem is that, on one hand, senior officials may use at-will removal to pressure agency adjudicators and thereby potentially imperil the impartiality that due process requires. On the other hand, Article II limits Congress’s ability to cocoon executive officers, including potentially …

Due Process Supreme Court Appellate Division Second Department

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hospital Peer Review Standards And Due Process: Moving From Tort Doctrine Toward Contract Principles Based On Clinical Practice Guidelines, Katharine A. Van Tassel

Katharine Van Tassel

This Article proposes a solution to the problems associated with the current use of vague standards in peer review. This Article will examine the proposal that medical staffs switch from ad hoc judicial decision-making to rule-making. This switch will allow medical staffs to abandon the troublesome practice of applying vague 'standard of care' measures ex post facto. In its stead, express contractual terminology could be adopted, such as 'expectations of performance,' which incorporates specifically chosen and uniquely tailored clinical practice guidelines ('CPGs') directly into the medical staff by-laws. Describing the expectations of physician performance in express contractual terms enables physicians …

Labor And Employment Arbitration Today: Mid-Life Crisis Or New Golden Age?, Theodore J. St. Antonie

Articles

The major developments in employer-employee arbitration currently do not involve labor arbitration, that is, arbitration between employers and unions. The focus is on employment arbitration, arbitration between employers and individual employees. Beginning around 1980, nearly all the states judicially modified the standard American doctrine of employment-at-will whereby, absent a statutory or contractual prohibition, an employer could fire an employee "for good cause, for no cause, or even for cause morally wrong." Under the new regime, grounded in expansive contract and public policy theories, wrongfully discharged employees often reaped bonanzas in court suits, with California jury awards averaging around $425,000." Many …

Judicial Recusation In The Federal Republic Of Germany, Sigmund A. Cohn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Arbitral Justice: The Demise Of Due Process In American Law, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

Arbitration consists of a process for resolving disputes in a final and binding manner outside the traditional court system. The rules that govern arbitration provide for flexible proceedings and do not require the strict application of legal rules. Owing largely to the holdings of the U.S. Supreme Court, arbitration law and procedure have emerged from the obscurity of specialized practice and entered the adjudicatory mainstream. In 1925, with the enactment of the U.S. Arbitration Act, the U.S. Congress declaredthe rehabilitation of arbitral justice and dispute resolution. These provisionsanticipated, in effect, the modern, world-wide legislative legitimization ofarbitration. Primarily because of the …

A Constitutional Right To Discovery? Creating And Reinforcing Due Process Norms Through The Procedural Laboratory Of Arbitration, Imre Stephen Szalai

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article explores an overlooked dynamic between arbitration and the more formal court system. As developed in more detail below, this article's thesis is that arbitration can help define and reinforce due process norms applicable in court, and a due process-like norm regarding discovery is beginning to develop. Courts often review arbitration agreements for fairness, and through this judicial review, courts have developed a body of law discussing and defining whether certain procedures (or the lack thereof) violate fairness norms in connection with the resolution of a particular dispute. Through this body of law exploring procedural fairness, one can identify …

The Idea And The Use Of Mediation And Collaborative Dispute Resolution In Due Process Disputes, Katherine Mcmurtrey

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This Comment discusses the future of alternative dispute resolution in special education conflicts by first examining a brief history of the IDEA and the areas it covers. Due process complaints under the IDEA and mediation as a solution to due process complaints will then be addressed. Then, it will focus on mediation and its impact on parents and schools, particularly the advantages and disadvantages of mediation, and the presence of attorneys in mediation. Finally, it will look towards collaborative law, when two attorneys and their clients collaborate to reach an agreement, and the future of collaborative dispute resolution in the …

Between Law And Religion: Procedural Challenges To Religious Arbitration Awards, Michael A. Helfand

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This Article explores the unique status of religious law as a hybrid concept that simultaneously retains the characteristics of both law and religion. To do so, the Article considers as a case study how courts should evaluate procedural challenges to religious arbitration awards. To respond to such challenges, courts must treat religious law as law when defining the contractually adopted religious procedural rules, but treat religious law as religion when reviewing precisely what the religious procedural rules require. On this account, constitutional and arbitration doctrine combine to insulate religious arbitration awards from judicial scrutiny even on procedural grounds, leaving courts …

Faith-Based Private Arbitration As A Model For Preserving Rights And Values In A Pluralistic Society, Michael J. Broyde

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article discusses private arbitration in religious and values-oriented communities. Using contract law as the foundation for arbitration law, religious arbitration panels can function almost like courts so long as the government can assure basic fairness and proper procedures, while allowing the parties to resolve their private dispute as the parties wish. This article explains that to be enforced, these private courts must meet the procedural requirements set by the Federal Arbitration Act, but American arbitration law is not generally concerned with the substantive law used by these tribunals, although this article recommends practices that religious tribunals ought to adopt …

In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Due Process hearing rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are under attack. A major professional group and several academic commentators charge that the hearings system advantages middle class parents, that it is expensive, that it is futile, and that it is unmanageable. Some critics would abandon individual rights to a hearing and review in favor of bureaucratic enforcement or administrative mechanisms that do not include the right to an individual hearing before a neutral decision maker. This Article defends the right to a due process hearing. It contends that some criticisms of hearing rights are simply erroneous, and …

In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark Weber

College of Law Faculty

Due Process hearing rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are under attack. A major professional group and several academic commentators charge that the hearings system advantages middle class parents, that it is expensive, that it is futile, and that it is unmanageable. Some critics would abandon individual rights to a hearing and review in favor of bureaucratic enforcement or administrative mechanisms that do not include the right to an individual hearing before a neutral decision maker. This Article defends the right to a due process hearing. It contends that some criticisms of hearing rights are simply erroneous, and …

Efectos De La Constitucionalización Del Arbitraje, Juan Carlos Riofrío Martínez-Villalba

Juan Carlos Riofrío Martínez-Villalba

Se analiza aquí cuáles son los efectos de que la Carta suprema del Ecuador haya reconocido la figura de los medios alternativos de solución de conflictos, entre los que se encuentra el arbitraje. Primero se relata la historia de esta constitucionalización (cap. I), para luego revisar cómo se acoplan estos medios al principio constitucional de unidad jurisdiccional (cap. II). En los capítulos III a VII se analiza la naturaleza de estos medios, que ha de considerarse como el núcleo esencial del derecho constitucional a usar estos medios. Los capítulos VIII y IX analizan otros efectos adicionales: la garantía de inderogabilidad …

The Confirmation Of Punitive Awards In Arbitration: Did Due Process Disappear?, Stuart M. Boyarsky

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Part I of this article provides a brief overview of the reasoning behind the limited judicial review of an arbitral award. Part II describes the state action doctrine and explains how several courts have used the doctrine in order to apply due process protection to proceedings involving private actors. In particular, this section discusses several significant decisions that involve the issue of whether a court's confirmation of an arbitrator's award of punitive damages creates state action and requires the application of constitutional protections such as due process. This Note concludes that due to a leading decision by the Eleventh Circuit, …

Access-To-Justice Analysis On A Due Process Platform, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

In their article, Forum Non Conveniens and The Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, Christopher Whytock and Cassandra Burke Robertson provide a wonderful ride through the landscape of the law of both forum non convenience and judgments recognition and enforcement. They explain doctrinal development and current case law clearly and efficiently, in a manner that educates, but does not overburden, the reader. Based upon that explanation, they then provide an analysis of both areas of the law and offer suggestions for change. Those suggestions, they tell us, are necessary to close the “transnational access-to-justice gap” that results from apparent differences between rules …

Mandatory Employment Arbitration: Keeping It Fair, Keeping It Lawful, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

President Obama's election and the Democrats' takeover of Congress, including what was their theoretically filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, have encouraged organized labor and other traditional Democratic supporters to make a vigorous move for some long-desired legislation. Most attention has focused on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). As initially proposed, the EFCA would enable unions to get bargaining rights through signed authorization cards rather than a secret-ballot election, and would provide for the arbitration of first-contract terms if negotiations fail to produce an agreement after four months. The EFCA would apply to the potentially organizable private-sector working population; at …

Mandating Minimum Quality In Mass Arbitration, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court's decision in McMahon and its progeny has led many businesses and employers to embrace what was once deemed a localized, industry-specific practice. The "new" or "mass arbitration" only mildly resembles the traditional system employed by niches in industry for settling commercial matters among commercial actors. While the "old" system involved parties who were relatively equal in bargaining power and knowledge, these systems for mass arbitration lack a freely entered bargain and resemble more closely, contracts of adhesion. Privatized arbitration resolves issues of both statutory and substantive law, and there is a strong argument, given the inexperience of …

Mandatory Arbitration: Why It's Better Than It Looks, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

"Mandatory arbitration" as used here means that employees must agree as a condition of employment to arbitrate all legal disputes with their employer, including statutory claims, rather than take them to court. The Supreme Court has upheld the validity of such agreements on the grounds that they merely provide for a change of forum and not a loss of substantive rights. Opponents contend this wrongfully deprives employees of the right to a jury trial and other statutory procedural benefits. Various empirical studies indicate, however, that employees similarly situated do about as well in arbitration as in court actions, or even …

Application Of Due Process To Arbitration Awards Of Punitive Damages - Where Is The State Action, The, Charles Smith

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This article will analyze why the position of the courts-no state action-is correct. Specifically, this article will take the position that the policy of finality traditionally found in arbitration law must trump any constitutional inquiries. This is because arbitration is ultimately based on the parties' agreement, which inevitably recites that the arbitrator's decision shall be final and, in any event, this finality is generally implied.

Designer Trials, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article considers the intersection of freedom of contract and the trials that have not vanished. Could contracting parties effectively agree in advance of a dispute that any litigation of the case will comply with certain rules? Would such an agreement be enforced even in a contract of adhesion? If so, parties with sufficient bargaining leverage could design away many of the characteristics of litigation that they find unappealing, without the need to resort to private processes. The result: a designer trial with the procedural deck stacked in favor of the party with the greatest pre-dispute bargaining power.

Such a …

Procedural Justice, Lawrence B. Solum

ExpressO

The real work of procedure is to guide conduct. It is sometimes said that the regulation of primary conduct is the work of the general and abstract norms of substantive law—clauses of the constitution, statutes, regulations, and common law rules of tort, property, and contract. But substance cannot effectively guide primary conduct without the aid of procedure. This is true because of three problems: (1) the problem of imperfect knowledge of law and fact, (2) the problem of incomplete specification of legal norms, and (3) the problem of partiality. The solution to these problems is particularization by a system of …

Procedural Justice, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article begins in part I, Introduction, with two observations. First, the function of procedure is to particularize general substantive norms so that they can guide action. Second, the hard problem of procedural justice corresponds to the following question: How can we regard ourselves as obligated by legitimate authority to comply with a judgment that we believe (or even know) to be in error with respect to the substantive merits?

The theory of procedural justice is developed in several stages, beginning with some preliminary questions and problems. The first question--what is procedure?--is the most difficult and requires an extensive …

Fast, Cheap & Out Of Control: Lessons From The Icann Dispute Resolution Process, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Some people have argued that the uniform dispute resolution process used by ICANN to resolve domain name disputes would be a good model for internet disputes generally. This article argues the opposite: the UDRP teaches sobering lessons about the consequences of privatized dispute resolution processes. The lessons include: the questionable legitimacy of privately-adopted substantive standards; the danger of unprincipled choice of law decisions to fill in the gaps in that private law; unreconciled splits among arbitrators as to the meaning of the standards; and a tendency to expand beyond the narrow jurisdictional limits of the policy. The UDRP also demonstrates …

The Changing Role Of Labor Arbitration (Symposium: New Rules For A New Game: Regulating Employment Relationships In The 21st Century), Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

A quarter century ago, in a provocative and prophetic article, David E. Feller lamented the imminent close of what he described as labor arbitration's "golden age." I have expressed reservations about that characterization, insofar as it suggested an impending shrinkage in the stature of arbitration. But Professor Feller was right on target in one important respect. Labor arbitration was going to change dramatically from the autonomous institution in the relatively self-contained world of union-management relations which it had been from the end of World War II into the 1970s. When the subject matter was largely confined to union-employer agreements, arbitration …

Gilmer In The Collective Bargaining Context, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Can a privately negotiated arbitration agreement deprive employees of the statutory right to sue in court on claims of discrimination in employment because of race, sex, religion, age, disability, and similar grounds prohibited by federal law? Two leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions, decided almost two decades apart, reached substantially different answers to this questionand arguably stood logic on its head in the process. In the earlier case of Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., involving arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement, the Court held an adverse award did not preclude a subsequent federal court action by the black grievant alleging racial discrimination. …

Adr, The Judiciary, & Justice: Coming To Terms With The Alternatives, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

[This student note is the closing chapter of the Harvard Law Review “Developments in the Law” issue for the year 2000, devoted to developments in civil litigation.] Any discussion of recent developments in civil litigation must address the virtual revolution that has taken place regarding alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Attorneys have witnessed a steady growth in their clients' recourse to ADR in place of lawsuits, and ADR is increasingly incorporated into the litigation process by the judiciary itself—in the form of court-annexed arbitration, mediation, summary jury trials, early neutral evaluation, and judicial settlement conferences. “Alternative” models of dispute resolution have …

Mandatory Arbitration Of Employee Discrimination Claims: Unmitigated Evil Or Blessing In Disguise?, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

One of the hottest current issues in employment law is the use of mandatory arbitration to resolve workplace disputes. Typically, an employer will make it a condition of employment that employees must agree to arbitrate any claims arising out of the job, including claims based on statutory rights against discrimination, instead of going to court. On the face of it, this is a brazen affront to public policy. Citizens are being deprived of the forum provided them by law. And indeed numerous scholars and public and private bodies have condemned the use of mandatory arbitration. Yet the insight of that …

Rethinking The Constitutionality Of The Supreme Court's Preference For Binding Arbitration: A Fresh Assessment Of Jury Trial, Separation Of Powers, And Due Process Concerns, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Courts and commentators have typically assumed that binding arbitration is both private and consensual, and that it therefore raises no constitutional concerns. This Article challenges both assumptions and goes on to consider arguments that arbitration agreements may unconstitutionally deprive persons of their right to a jury trial, to a judge, and to due process of law. The author argues first that courts' interpretation of seemingly private arbitration agreements may often give rise to "state action," particularly where courts have used a "preference favoring arbitration over litigation" to construe a contract in a non-neutral fashion. The author next draws on the …

Why Mandatory Arbitration May Benefit Workers, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Would employees-including union employees-be better off with mandatory arbitration, even of statutory employment claims? The answer to this important question should depend less on abstract notions about the importance of statutory claims and the sanctity of the right to a jury trial, and more on a pragmatic assessment of what is likely to be best for the great majority of workers. Employing this type of analysis, which would take into account an overworked, underfunded Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, backlogged court dockets and other practical problems, my view is that most employees might well be better off with mandatory arbitration, provided …