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The Absence Of Legal Ethics In The Ali's Principles Of Aggregate Litigation: A Missed Opportunity - And More, Nancy J. Moore
The Absence Of Legal Ethics In The Ali's Principles Of Aggregate Litigation: A Missed Opportunity - And More, Nancy J. Moore
Faculty Scholarship
There is little discussion of legal ethics in the American Law Institute’s recently adopted Principles of Aggregate Litigation, either in the black-letter rules or the comments. The primary exception is that the Principles devote several sections to the so-called aggregate settlement rule (Rule 1.8(g) of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct), although the purpose of these sections appears to be a proposed modification of that rule to permit claimants to agree in advance to be bound by majority approval of a particular settlement. The purpose of this essay is not to discuss the controversial aggregate settlement proposal (which the …
The Supreme Court's Assault On Litigation: Why (And How) It Could Be Good For Health Law, Abigail Moncrieff
The Supreme Court's Assault On Litigation: Why (And How) It Could Be Good For Health Law, Abigail Moncrieff
Faculty Scholarship
In recent years, the Supreme Court has narrowed or eliminated private rights of action in many legal regimes, much to the chagrin of the legal academy. That trend has had a significant impact on health law; the Court’s decisions have eliminated the private enforcement mechanism for at least four important healthcare regimes: Medicaid, employer-sponsored insurance, and medical devices. In a similar trend outside the courts, state legislatures have capped noneconomic and punitive damages for medical malpractice litigation, weakening the tort system’s deterrent capacity in those states. This Article points out that the trend of eliminating private rights of action in …
Due Process And Punitive Damages: An Economic Approach, Keith N. Hylton
Due Process And Punitive Damages: An Economic Approach, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
This paper sets out a public choice (rent-seeking) theory of the Due Process Clause, which implies that the function of the clause is to prevent takings through the legislative or common law process. This view of the clause's function supports a preference for expanding rather than contracting the set of entitlements protected by the clause. The Supreme Court's application of due process reasoning in the punitive damages case law is in some respects consistent and in other respects inconsistent with this theory. For the most part, the Court has failed to develop a set of doctrines that would enable lower …
Information, Litigation, And Common Law Evolution, Keith N. Hylton
Information, Litigation, And Common Law Evolution, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
It is common in the legal academy to describe judicial decision trends leading to new common law rules as resulting from conscious judicial effort. Evolutionary models of litigation, in contrast, treat common law as resulting from pressure applied by litigants. One apparent difficulty in the theory of litigation is explaining how trends in judicial decisions favoring one litigant, and biasing the legal standard, could occur. This article presents a model in which an apparent bias in the legal standard can occur in the absence of any effort toward this end on the part of judges. Trends can develop favoring the …
Common Law Disclosure Duties And The Sin Of Omission: Testing The Meta-Theories, Kimberly Krawiec, Kathryn Zeiler
Common Law Disclosure Duties And The Sin Of Omission: Testing The Meta-Theories, Kimberly Krawiec, Kathryn Zeiler
Faculty Scholarship
Since ancient times, legal scholars have explored the vexing question of when and what a contracting party must disclose to her counterparty, even in the absence of explicit misleading statements. This fascination has culminated in a set of claims regarding which factors drive courts to impose disclosure duties on informed parties. Most of these claims are based on analysis of a small number of non-randomly selected cases and have not been tested systematically. This article represents the first attempt to systematically test a number of these claims using data coded from 466 case decisions spanning over a wide array of …