Law Commons^™

Class Actions, Statutes Of Limitations And Repose, And Federal Common Law, Stephen B. Burbank, Tobias Barrington Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

After more than three decades during which it gave the issue scant attention, the Supreme Court has again made the American Pipe doctrine an active part of its docket. American Pipe addresses the tolling of statutes of limitations in federal class action litigation. When plaintiffs file a putative class action in federal court and class certification is denied, absent members of the putative class may wish to pursue their claims in some kind of further proceeding. If the statute of limitations would otherwise have expired while the class certification issue was being resolved, these claimants may need the benefit of …

Congressional Power To Strip State Courts Of Jurisdiction, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The very substantial literature on the scope of congressional power to strip courts of jurisdiction contains a gap: it does not discuss the source of the affirmative power of Congress to strip state courts of their jurisdiction. Laws granting exclusive federal court jurisdiction over some category of cases are necessary and proper to the exercise of the power to ordain and establish lower federal courts, but what power does Congress exercise when it strips both state and federal courts of jurisdiction? The answer depends on the nature of the case. In stripping all courts of the power to hear federal …

Will Delaware Be Different? An Empirical Study Of Tc Heartland And The Shift To Defendant Choice Of Venue, Ofer Eldar, Neel U. Sukhatme

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Why do some venues evolve into litigation havens while others do not? Venues might compete for litigation for various reasons, like enhancing their judges’ prestige and increasing revenues for the local bar. This competition is framed by the party that chooses the venue. Whether plaintiffs or defendants primarily choose venue is crucial because, we argue, the two scenarios are not symmetrical.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods LLC illustrates this dynamic. There, the Court effectively shifted venue choice in many patent infringement cases from plaintiffs to corporate defendants. We use TC Heartland to empirically …

Comments On Proposed Amendments To The Rules For Judicial-Conduct And Judicial-Disability Proceedings, Arthur D. Hellman

Testimony

In late 2017, prominent Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski was accused of engaging in sexual harassment and other misconduct over a long period during his tenure as a judge. Judge Kozinski resigned, but the controversy continued. The Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, responding to a request from Chief Justice Roberts, formed a Working Group to recommend measures “to ensure an exemplary workplace for every judge and every court employee.” The Working Group issued its report in June 2018.

In September 2018, the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability (Conduct Committee) of the Judicial Conference of …

Guidelines And Best Practices For Large And Mass-Tort Mdls (Second Edition), Bolch Judicial Institute

Bolch Judicial Institute Publications

Mass-tort MDLs dominate the federal civil docket, yet they present enormous challenges to transferee judges assigned to manage them. There is little official guidance and no rules specific to the management of mass-tort MDLs, often requiring the transferee judge to develop procedures out of whole cloth.

Beginning in 2013, the Bolch Judicial Institute (then the Center for Judicial Studies) sought to address this issue through a series of annual bench-bar conferences. From these conferences came the Guidelines and Best Practices for Large and Mass-Tort MDLs document — now in its Second Edition — which is designed to help judges and …

Forum Selection Clauses And Consumer Contracts In Canada, Tanya Monestier

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Review Of Civil Protection Orders In Six Jurisdictions, Wing Cheong Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Traditional criminal and civil remedies are inadequate responses against the problem of domestic violence. The criminal justice system requires allegations to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, the focus is on punishment for past acts instead of prevention of vio-lence from recurring, and the existing criminal offences do not fully cover the range of undesirable conduct. As for the civil justice system, the court processes take too long and are often incomprehensible to litigants-in-person, and there are no clear penalties imposed by the law even if an injunction is awarded by the court. In order to provide vic-tims of domestic violence …

A Study In Sovereignty: Federalism, Political Culture, And The Future Of Conservatism, Clint Hamilton

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis confronts symptoms of an issue which is eroding at the principles of conservative advocacy, specifically those dealing with federalism. It contrasts modern definitions of federalism with those which existed in the late 1700s, and then attempts to determine the cause of the change. Concluding that the change was caused by a shift in American political identity, the author argues that the conservative movement must begin a conversation on how best to adapt to the change to prevent further drifting away from conservative principles.

Procedural Retrenchment And The States, Zachary D. Clopton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Although not always headline grabbing, the Roberts Court has been highly interested in civil procedure. According to critics, the Court has undercut access to justice and private enforcement through its decisions on pleading, class actions, summary judgment, arbitration, standing, personal jurisdiction, and international law.

While I have much sympathy for the Court's critics, the current discourse too often ignores the states. Rather than bemoaning the Roberts Court's decisions to limit court access-and despairing further developments in the age of Trump-we instead might productively focus on the options open to state courts and public enforcement. Many of the aforementioned decisions are …

The Power Of "So-Called Judges", Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Origins (And Fragility) Of Judicial Independence, Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

The federal judiciary today takes certain things for granted. Political actors will not attempt to remove Article III judges outside the impeachment process; they will not obstruct federal court orders; and they will not tinker with the Supreme Court’s size in order to pack it with like-minded Justices. And yet a closer look reveals that these “self-evident truths” of judicial independence are neither self-evident nor necessary implications of our constitutional text, structure, and history. This Article demonstrates that many government officials once viewed these court-curbing measures as not only constitutionally permissible but also desirable (and politically viable) methods of “checking” …

Curbing Remedies For Official Wrongs: The Need For Bivens Suits In National Security Cases, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Microsoft Ireland, The Cloud Act, And International Lawmaking 2.0, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

On March 23, President Trump signed the CLOUD Act, 1 thereby mooting one of the most closely watched Supreme Court cases this term: the Microsoft Ireland case. 2 This essay examines these extraordinary and fast-moving developments, explaining how the Act resolves the Supreme Court case and addresses the complicated questions of jurisdiction over data in the cloud. The developments represent a classic case of international lawmaking via domestic regulation, as mediated by major multinational corporations that manage so much of the world's data.

Reining In A 'Renegade' Court: Tc Heartland And The Eastern District Of Texas, Jonas Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, the Supreme Court tightened the venue requirement for patent cases, making it more difficult for a plaintiff to demonstrate that a district court has venue over a defendant. Many commentators, however, view TC Heartland as merely a “reshuffling” of the district courts that receive patent cases. Whereas before the case, a large percentage of patent cases were filed in the Eastern District of Texas, now, after TC Heartland, various other U.S. district courts (principally, the District of Delaware) have experienced an increase in patent infringement filings. Some commentators are unconvinced that this …

Hogan Vs. Gawker Ii: A Statutory Solution To Fraudulent Joinder, Michelle S. Simon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article will first review the intersection of federal jurisdiction and litigation strategy by examining the requirements for diversity jurisdiction in federal court as well as the circumstances that must be present to allow a defendant to remove a case from state court to federal court. The Article will then review the history of the court-created doctrine of fraudulent joinder, and will examine the various tests currently in use by the lower federal courts. The Article will then address whether it makes more sense to create a statutory solution, and will examine and analyze the Fraudulent Joinder Prevention Act of …

Judge Murphy's Indian Law Legacy, Kirsten Matoy Carlson

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Lobbying As A Strategy For Tribal Resilience, Kirsten Matoy Carlson

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Jurisdictional Idealism And Positivism, John F. Preis

Law Faculty Publications

“If I should call a sheep’s tail a leg, how many legs would it have? Four, because calling a tail a leg would not make it so.” This old quip, often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, captures an issue at the heart of the modern law of subject matter jurisdiction. Some believe that there is a Platonic ideal of jurisdiction that cannot be changed by judicial or legislative fiat. Others take a positivist approach and assert that jurisdiction is nothing more than whatever a legislature says it is. Who is right?

Neither and both. Although neither idealism nor positivism is the …

Political Question Disconnects, Elizabeth Earle Beske

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Borders And Bits, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Our personal data is everywhere and anywhere, moving across national borders in ways that defy normal expectations of how things and people travel from Point A to Point B. Yet, whereas data transits the globe without any intrinsic ties to territory, the governments that seek to access or regulate this data operate with territorial-based limits. This Article tackles the inherent tension between how governments and data operate, the jurisdictional conflicts that have emerged, and the power that has been delegated to the multinational corporations that manage our data across borders as a result. It does so through the lens of …

Court Capture, Jonas Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Capture — the notion that a federal agency can become controlled by the industry the agency is supposed to be regulating — is a fundamental concern for administrative law scholars. Surprisingly, however, no thorough treatment of how capture theory applies to the federal judiciary has been done. The few scholars who have attempted to apply the insights of capture theory to federal courts have generally concluded that the federal courts are insulated from capture concerns.

This Article challenges the notion that the federal courts cannot be captured. It makes two primary arguments. As an initial matter, this Article makes the …

In Re Trulia: Revisited And Revitalized, Emma Weiss

Law Student Publications

"After an escalation in deal litigation that culminated with challenges to 95% of $100,000,000 deals, merger objection litigation that ends in disclosure-only settlements has become a topic of great concern. These cases are concerning because it seems implausible that 95% of all mergers are executed carelessly. The problematic cases all follow a similar pattern. When a merger is announced, multiple shareholder plaintiffs challenge the transaction in multiple jurisdictions. Plaintiffs and corporate defendants then quickly agree to a disclosure-only settlement, wherein the plaintiffs receive trivial supplemental disclosures about the transaction. In return, defendants receive a broad release from liability for future …

A New Guard At The Courthouse Door: Corporate Personal Jurisdiction In Complex Litigation After The Supreme Court’S Decision Quartet, David W. Ichel

Faculty Scholarship

In a quartet of recent decisions, the Supreme Court substantially reshaped the analysis of due process limits for a state's exercise of personal jurisdiction over corporations for the first time since its groundbreaking 1945 decision in International Shoe Co. v. Washington. The Court's decision quartet recasts the International Shoe continuum of corporate contacts for which it would be "reasonable" for the state to exercise jurisdiction based on "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice" into a more rigid bright-line dichotomy between "general" and "specific" jurisdiction: for a state to exercise general (or all-purpose) jurisdiction over any suit, regardless of …

The Federal Equity Power, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

Throughout the first century and a half of our nation’s history, federal courts treated equity as a type of general law. They applied a uniform, freestanding body of principles derived from the English Court of Chancery to all equitable issues that came before them, regardless of whether a case arose under federal or state law. In 1945, in Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, the United States Supreme Court held that, notwithstanding the changes wrought by the Erie Doctrine, federal courts may continue to rely on these traditional principles of equity to determine the availability of equitable relief, such as injunctions, …

Interim Relief: National Report For Canada, Trevor C. W. Farrow, Jonathan Silver

Articles & Book Chapters

Evolving litigation poses many challenges to litigants and their counsel before final adjudication. Canadian courts have fashioned various remedies to meet these challenges in order to preserve and maintain the court's authority to secure a just result.

Introduction: Troubling Transparency, David E. Pozen, Michael Schudson

Faculty Scholarship

Transparency is a value in the ascendance. Across the globe, the past several decades have witnessed a spectacular explosion of legislative reforms and judicial decisions calling for greater disclosure about the workings of public institutions. Freedom of information laws have proliferated, claims of a constitutional or supra-constitutional "right to know" have become commonplace, and an international transparency lobby has emerged as a civil society powerhouse. Open government is seen today in many quarters as a foundation of, if not synonymous with, good government.

At the same time, a growing number of scholars, advocates, and regulators have begun to raise hard …

The Erie Doctrine: A Flowchart, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Devil Take The Hindmost: Reform Considerations For States With A Constitutional Right To Bail, Jordan Gross

Faculty Law Review Articles

This Article submits that any meaningful discussion of bail reform at the state level must be jurisdiction-specific, and it must account for the practical, historical, and philosophical aspects of the state constitutional right to bailability. Part II of this Article is an overview of the origins and history of English and American bail law. Part III describes the role and regulation of commercial bail bonding in the United States. Part IV traces the history and current state of bail reform in the United States. Part V considers legal and practical barriers to reform unique to right-to-bail states, particularly jurisdictions without …

Spousal Support In Quebec: Resisting The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines, Jodi Lazare

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Since 2005, the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines have become an essential part of the practice of family law throughout Canada. Aimed at structuring discretionary spousal support determinations under the Divorce Act and increasing the fairness of awards, the Advisory Guidelines have been embraced by appellate courts across jurisdictions. Quebec is the exception to that trend. Despite that marriage and divorce fall under federal jurisdiction, Quebec courts resist the application of these non-binding rules, written by two family law scholars. This article responds to Quebec's resistance to the Advisory Guidelines and suggests that concerns about them may be misplaced. By reviewing …

Qui Tam Litigation Against Government Officials: Constitutional Implications Of A Neglected History, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court concluded twenty-five years ago, in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, that uninjured private plaintiffs may not litigate “generalized grievances” about the legality of executive branch conduct. According to the Lujan Court, Congress lacked power to authorize suit by a plaintiff who could not establish some “particularized” injury from the challenged conduct. The Court believed litigation to require executive branch legal compliance, brought by an uninjured private party, is not a “case” or “controversy” within the Article III judicial power and impermissibly reassigns the President’s Article II responsibility to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The …