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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Right To Appeal, Cassandra Burke Robertson
The Right To Appeal, Cassandra Burke Robertson
Faculty Publications
It is time for the Supreme Court to explicitly recognize a constitutional right to appeal. Over the last century, both the federal and state judicial systems have increasingly relied on appellate remedies to protect essential rights. In spite of the modern importance of such remedies, however, the Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to recognize a due-process right to appeal in either civil or criminal cases. Instead, it has repeated nineteenth-century dicta denying the right of appeal, and it has declined petitions for certiorari in both civil and criminal cases seeking to persuade the Court to reconsider that position.
In this …
Civil Rule 54(B): Seventy-Five And Ready For Retirement, Andrew S. Pollis
Civil Rule 54(B): Seventy-Five And Ready For Retirement, Andrew S. Pollis
Faculty Publications
As we commemorate the diamond anniversary of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, this Article takes a critical look at one of the failed Rules: Rule 54(b). Although many commentators have noted difficulties with Rule 54(b), this is the first effort to describe those difficulties comprehensively, analyze their root causes, and offer a workable alternative.
When an order resolves a discrete claim in a multi-claim action, Rule 54(b) permits a district court to sever the order for immediate appeal by “expressly determine[in] that there is no just reason for delay.” The rule was designed to ease the hardship on litigants …