Law Commons^™

Bringing "Civil"Ity Into Immigration Law: Using The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure To Fix Immigration Adjudication, Richard Frankel -- Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Law Review

Government lawyers frequently argue, and courts have frequently held, that noncitizens in removal proceedings do not have the same rights as defendants in criminal proceedings. A common argument made to support this position is that removal proceedings are civil matters. Accordingly, a noncitizen facing deportation has fewer due process protections than a criminal defendant, and deportation proceedings similarly provide fewer protections than criminal proceedings.

In many ways, however, the rules governing immigration proceedings differ markedly from those governing civil actions in court. Immigration proceedings suffer from arcane and hypertechnical procedures that impede immigrants from having their claims reviewed on the …

Service Of Process Via Social Media: Exploring The Use Of Social Media Platforms To Provide Notice To Defendants In Civil Cases In Belgium, Cedric Vanleenhove

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In common law systems, there has recently been a trend to permit plaintiffs to serve process on defendants through social media networks. This trend raises the following question: Is this form of service also beneficial in civil law countries-in particular, Belgium? To answer this question, this Article analyzes the conditions under which this type of service has been allowed by US courts, where most of the new development has occurred. This Article concludes that social media service may be a valuable additional means of notice when the defendant does not have a known address. In such circumstances, Belgian law currently …

Amended Rules, Amended Pleadings: How The Abrogation Of Form 18 Politicized Direct Infringement Patent Pleading, Nick Baniel

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Since the abrogation of Form 18, the template for pleading direct infringement of patents, district courts have struggled to assess exactly what a plaintiff must assert in pleadings to survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. In place of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 84, courts have developed multiple standards to assess pleading sufficiency. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has provided little guidance when given the opportunity to resolve this division, leaving uncertainty for litigants and judges. Using data collected from opinions on motions to dismiss during 2016 and 2017, this Note …

Introduction: Reflections On The Future Of Discovery In Civil Cases, Paul W. Grimm

Vanderbilt Law Review

First, we have a long way to go to educate judges about the benefit of active judicial management of the discovery process and the proportionality requirement. Second, just telling judges to "go forth and actively manage" without showing them concrete ways to do it in realistic case settings is not going to be effective. I am happy to report that thanks to the hard work of Judge Jeremy Fogel, director of the Federal Judicial Center, the educational programs for new and experienced judges alike now include special emphasis on management of the discovery process and the proportionality requirement. And the …

A Plan For Reforming Federal Pleading, Discovery, And Pretrial Merits Review, David Rosenberg, Anne Brown, Jaehyun Oh, Benjamin Taylor

Vanderbilt Law Review

We propose a fundamental restructuring of the federal civil pretrial process to address its great expense and unreliability in resolving cases on their merits-problems largely attributable to discovery. The proposed reforms establish an affirmative-disclosure mandate that sharply reduces the role of discovery by transferring most of the parties' burden of fully revealing discoverable matter, favorable and unfavorable, to their pleadings. To effectuate the new function for pleadings, the reformed process replaces Rules 12(b)(6), (c), and (f) with pretrial merits review conducted exclusively pursuant to the procedures and standards for summary judgment under Rule 56. Responding parties will be required to …

Aligning Incentives And Cost Allocation In Discovery, Jonathan R. Nash, Joanna Shepherd

Vanderbilt Law Review

In this Article, we explain that either a rule requiring both parties to share the costs of discovery ("cost-sharing rule") or a rule creating a risk for both parties that they will bear the entire costs of discovery ("cost-shifting rule") would minimize many of the negative incentives that exist under either a strict producer-pays or requester pays rule. Whereas the producer-pays rule creates incentives for excessive discovery because requesters can externalize the costs of requests and use discovery to impose costs on producing parties to force settlement, requesters under a cost-sharing or cost-shifting rule cannot externalize the costs of discovery …

Application Of The New "Proportionality" Discovery Rule In Class Actions: Much Ado About Nothing, Robert H. Klonoff

Vanderbilt Law Review

The "proportionality" amendment to the federal discovery rules, which went into effect on December 1, 2015, was greeted with panic by the plaintiffs' bar (and the academy) and euphoria by the defense bar. Both sides predicted that the impact would be profound and immediate. Some predicted that the impact would be especially great in class actions. To examine whether the predictions have been correct, I have reviewed every published judicial opinion (approximately 135) between December 1, 2015 and April 30, 2018 that applied the new proportionality rule in the class action context. The analysis is necessarily anecdotal rather than empirical. …

Bespoke Discovery, Jessica Erickson

Vanderbilt Law Review

The U.S. legal system gives contracting parties significant freedom to customize the procedures that will govern their future disputes.' With forum selection clauses, parties can decide where they will litigate future disputes.2 With fee-shifting provisions, they can choose who will pay for these suits. 3 And with arbitration clauses, they can make upfront decisions to opt out of the traditional legal system altogether.4 Parties can also waive their right to appeal,5 their right to a jury trial,6 and their right to file a class action.7 Bespoke procedure, in other words, is commonplace in the United States. Far less common, however, …

Opting Out Of Discovery, Jay Tidmarsh

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article proposes a system in which both parties are provided an opportunity to opt out of discovery. A party who opts out is immunized from dispositive motions, including a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim or a motion for summary judgment. If neither party opts out of discovery, the parties waive jury-trial rights, thus giving judges the ability to use stronger case-management powers to focus the issues and narrow discovery. If one party opts out of discovery but an opponent does not, the cost of discovery shifts to the opponent. This Article justifies this proposal in …

Seeking Proportional Discovery: The Beginning Of The End Of Procedural Uniformity In Civil Rules, Linda S. Simard

Vanderbilt Law Review

After more than two decades of vigorous debate, the original Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective on September 16, 1938, and ushered in broad provisions for discovery. The need for discovery, however, was not a central theme of the debates that preceded the original codification. Rather, the proponents of the new rules asserted that the Conformity Act of 1872 created uncertainty regarding the procedure that would apply in federal court. This uncertainty caused unnecessary expense and delay, particularly for interstate corporations that felt compelled to retain specialized counsel in every state. Proponents asserted that adoption of trans-substantive rules of …

One-Way Fee Shifting After Summary Judgment, Cameron T. Norris

Vanderbilt Law Review

New, defendant-friendly amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure took effect in December 2015. Included in the amendments were several provisions designed to curb the cost of discovery. Although modest, the discovery-related provisions created more controversy than perhaps anything the rule makers have done in recent memory. Yet the new amendments were only part of what corporate defendants asked the rule makers to do. Left undone was a much more ambitious proposal: to outright flip who pays for discovery, from the party who produces the discovery to the party who requests it. To the surprise of many commentators, the …

A Comparative Discussion Of Who Pays For Document Discovery In Australia, Canada, Guernsey (Channel Islands), And Singapore And Its Effect On Access To Justice, Gordon Mckee, Anne Glover, Francis Rouleau

Vanderbilt Law Review

symposium organized by the Vanderbilt Law Review to discuss the future of discovery in the United States.' More specifically, the topic for discussion was an ongoing debate in the United States about proposals by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform and Lawyers for Civil Justice to adopt a "requestor-pays" discovery rule. In a requestor-pays system, each party pays for the discovery it seeks, which includes the costs of discovery belonging to the other parties to the litigation. It is based on the theory that a requestor-pays rule will encourage each party to manage its own discovery expenses and tailor …

A Proposal To End Discovery Abuse, Alexandra D. Lahav

Vanderbilt Law Review

When commentators, lawyers, judges, politicians, business people-anyone really-are looking to heap abuse on part of the civil process, they complain about discovery. But in truth, civil discovery is treated cruelly and often misunderstood. This is the case for two reasons. First, we do not know much about what actually happens in civil discovery in different types of cases. As a result, people seem to fill in the gaps of knowledge with their priors, which are, in turn, dependent on a few examples that loom large in their imaginations. Whatever limited reliable evidence about discovery we do have-and it is indeed …

Procedural Design, Alexandra D. Lahav

Vanderbilt Law Review

The procedural law dictates the sequence of steps that bring a lawsuit from filing to completion. The design of civil procedure in the federal courts is generally described as having the following sequential order: complaint, motion to dismiss, discovery, summary judgment, trial, and finally, appeal. While this is a passable description of the vision of the drafters of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938, it no longer describes the reality of federal litigation. Jurisdiction can be determined at the end of the lawsuit rather than the beginning. Judges demand determination of factual disputes before discovery commences through a …

Forensics, Chicken Soup, And Meteorites: A Tribute To Michael Risinger, Edward K. Cheng

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Michael Risinger's scholarship has had a profound impact on our field. And while his work has run the gamut in evidence law, I think it is clear that Michael's true love has always been expert evidence, and more specifically, forensics. So let me take a moment to revisit "an oldie but a goodie": his 1989 article entitled Exorcism of Ignorance as a Proxy for Rational Knowledge: The Lessons of Handwriting Identification "Expertise," published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and co-authored with Mark Denbeaux and Michael Saks.' For those of you who have not read the article, you should. …

Dance Like No One Is Watching, Post Like Everyone Is: The Accessibility Of "Private" Social Media Content In Civil Litigation, Nicole A. Keefe

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

An increasing amount of information about an individual manifests in online activity, specifically through the use of the numerous social media platforms available today. Though these platforms offer users the ability to shield content behind various degrees of privacy options, even the most private information might be accessed in the course of robust legal proceedings. This Note analyzes the accessibility of private social media content in civil litigation through the vehicles of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, and the Federal Rules of Evidence. The solution suggests methods for incorporating this new technological medium …

How To Assert State Sovereign Immunity Under The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, Calvin Cohen

Vanderbilt Law Review

Twenty years have passed since the Supreme Court announced dramatic changes to the doctrine of state sovereign immunity in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida.' This doctrine prevents "suits by private parties against unconsenting States" in recognition of the state's power to govern itself and its citizens freely, as well as the financial impact lawsuits have on the state's treasury. Since Seminole Tribe, the Supreme Court has-in a series of contentious 5-4 decisions-increasingly allowed this doctrine to immunize states and their officers from suits arising under the federal laws and sometimes even the Constitution. But while the Court has expanded …

The Rise And Fall Of Plausibility Pleading?, Adam N. Steinman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Supreme Court's 2007 decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and its 2009 decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal unleashed a torrent of scholarly reaction. Commentators charged these decisions with adopting a new pleading regime, "plausibility pleading," that upended the notice-pleading approach that had long prevailed in federal court. Whether a complaint could survive a motion to dismiss-it was argued-now depends on whether the court found the complaint plausible, allowing courts to second-guess a complaint's allegations without any opportunity for discovery or consideration of actual evidence. Lower courts began to cite Twombly and Iqbal at a remarkably high rate, and …

Man Versus Machine Review: The Showdown Between Hordes Of Discovery Lawyers And A Computer-Utilizing Predictive-Coding Technology, Nicholas Barry

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The discovery process is regularly capturing millions of pages of documents. Electronic storage is making storing documents cheaper and easier. When litigation begins, however, sorting through this massive amount of electronically stored information is costly and time intensive. Keyword searches are a start to managing the growing amount of electronic documents, but the discovery process is still falling behind in efficiency. Predictive coding could change all that.

Predictive coding is capable of solving the time-intensive nature (and resultant growing cost) of processing discovery documents. Predictive coding is faster, cheaper, and more accurate than traditional linear document review, the current "gold …

Mass Torts And Due Process, Sergio J. Campos

Vanderbilt Law Review

As the old saying goes, hard cases make bad law. But hard cases also reveal the limits of legal doctrine. In this Article, I turn to a class of hard cases--mass torts--to rethink the law of procedural due process under the Due Process Clause. Mass torts have long perplexed courts and scholars. They include torts caused by asbestos and other toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, oil spills, and other mass-produced products and services. The plaintiffs not only suffer significant injuries, but the sheer number of plaintiffs, each with claims that raise unique fact and legal issues, stretch judicial resources to the limit. …

Twombly And Iqbal Reconsidered, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court reinterpreted the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to permit judges to dismiss claims at the very outset of a case whenever they think the claims are implausible. The decisions have been extremely controversial, and they are already on track to become the most cited Supreme Court decisions of all time. Critics contend that the decisions are prime examples of the “conservative judicial activism” widely attributed to the Roberts Court. In particular, critics contend that the decisions circumvented the usual process for promulgating amendments to the Federal Rules …

Erie And The Rules Of Evidence, Edward K. Cheng

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Jay Tidmarsh offers an intriguing new test for drawing the allimportant line between procedure and substance for purposes of Erie. The Tidmarsh test is attractively simple, yet seemingly reaches the right result in separating out truly “procedural” rules from more substantive ones. Since I am not a proceduralist, in this Response I will leave the Tidmarsh test’s explanatory power and practical workability vis-à-vis general civil procedure rules to others more qualified than I. Instead, I want to focus on the implications of the Tidmarsh test for the Federal Rules of Evidence. Like others in the evidence world, I have long …

Should "Twombly" And "Iqbal" Apply To Affirmative Defenses?, Nathan Pysno

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court promulgated a new pleading standard in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, specifically holding that complaints must state a claim to relief that is "plausible on its face." The Twombly decision retired the well-established and more lenient pleading regime that reigned since the Court's 1957 decision in Conley v. Gibson. Two years after Twombly, the Supreme Court confirmed in Ashcroft v. Iqbal that neither the reach of the new plausibility standard nor the death of Conley was exaggerated. "Labels and conclusions" are now insufficient, as are "naked assertions devoid of further factual enhancement" and "unadorned …

Rethinking Jurisdictional Discovery Under The Hague Evidence Convention, Kathleen B. Gilchrist

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When a federal court in the United States compels the discovery of information located abroad to determine whether it has jurisdiction over the defendant, the court can apply the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or the Hague Evidence Convention. This Note argues that the approach taken by most courts--applying the balancing test formulated by the Supreme Court in Societe Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale v. U.S. District Court and favoring application of the Federal Rules--is misguided. Courts should apply the Evidence Convention more often in jurisdictional discovery disputes. They can do so under the existing legal framework with one of three holdings: …

Do Class Action Lawyers Make Too Little?, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Class action lawyers are some of the most frequently derided players in our system of civil litigation. It is often asserted that class action lawyers take too much from class judgments as fees, that class actions are little more than a device for the lawyers to enrich themselves at the expense of the class. In this Article, I argue that some of this criticism of class action lawyers is misguided. In particular, I perform a normative examination of fee percentages in class action litigation using the social-welfarist utilitarian account of litigation known as deterrence-insurance theory. I argue that in perhaps …

Are An Empty Head And A Pure Heart Enough? Mens Rea Standards For Judge-Imposed Rule 11 Sanctions And Their Effect On Attorney Action, Sybil L. Dunlop

Vanderbilt Law Review

"In her wildest dreams, Barbie could not have imagined herself in the middle of Rule 11 proceedings."' However, in 2002, Mattel's Barbie Doll found herself in the center of "acrimonious litigation." Attorney James Hicks brought suit on behalf of Harry Christian, claiming that the Cool Blue Barbie infringed on the Christian Claudene Doll's copyright. Hicks, however, had failed to discover that Mattel designed Cool Blue Barbie six years before Christian's Claudine Doll. In light of this egregious error, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding Hicks' complaint frivolous under Rule 11. Barbie …

How Can Japanese Corporations Protect Confidential Information In U.S. Courts?, Masamichi Yamamoto

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

U.S. courts have seen a significant increase in the number of lawsuits involving both U.S. and Japanese corporations. In deciding these cases, U.S. courts may have to choose how to apply the attorney-client privilege to in-house lawyers retained by corporations in Japan, where the legal system and discovery rules are fundamentally different from those of the United States. U.S. courts would most likely analyze these situations under the Remy-Martin/Minolta test and recognize the attorney-client privilege only for managers of legal departments in Japanese corporations, not for other non-bengoshi (non-licensed) in-house lawyers. This will change in the near future, however, when …

Juror Questions During Trial: A Window Into Juror Thinking, Shari Seidman Diamond, Mary R. Rose, Beth Murphy, Sven Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

The jury has undergone a dramatic transformation from its earliest incarnation when jurors acted as witnesses, investigators, and tribunal. In the modern American jury trial, the parties determine what jurors learn during the proceedings. Jurors of today, assigned the role of audience members until deliberations begin, typically speak in the courtroom only during jury selection and through their verdict at the end of the trial. In light of their enforced silence throughout the trial, jurors have no opportunity to clarify or check on their interpretation of the evidence and they provide few external indications about their thinking as the trial …

A Teacher's Teacher, Lonnie T. Brown Jr.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Jackie Robinson once said, "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." By that measure, Harold Maier has led an extraordinarily important life. I know that he has had a profound impact on innumerable students throughout his career and upon one in particular. I continue to learn because Professor Maier inspired me, and I teach others because of the wonderful example he set. Though he has now left the classroom, Professor Maier's legacy as a teacher will always endure through the countless minds he has awakened and lives he has touched.

Toward A New Federalism In State Civil Justice: Developing A Uniform Code Of State Civil Procedure Through A Collaborative Rule-Making Process, Glenn S. Koppel

Vanderbilt Law Review

There is a sense of "deja vu" to the vision of a uniform body of state procedural law applicable in every state court throughout the nation. "Swift v. Tysons'" dream of a nationally uniform body of state substantive common law that mirrored an evolving body of uniform federal common law never materialized because state courts refused to defer to federal common law, which was applied only in federal court. Swift itself was overturned in 1938 by the Supreme Court's ruling in "Erie Railroad v. Tompkins" that federal courts must defer to the substantive lawmaking authority of state courts. But almost …