Law Commons^™

Has Shoe Run Its Course?, David W. Ichel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

Erie As A Way Of Life, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Professor Stephen E. Sachs As Amicus Curiae, Bnsf Railway Co. V. Tyrrell, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

[This brief was filed in support of the petitioner in No. 16-405 (U.S., cert. granted Jan. 13, 2017).]

BNSF Railway Co. should win this case, but on statutory grounds alone. BNSF makes three arguments:

1) That Daimler AG v. Bauman forbids Montana’s exercise of general personal jurisdiction here;

2) That Congress has not sought to license the state’s exercise of jurisdiction; and

3) That such a license would be void under the Fourteenth Amendment.

BNSF’s first two arguments are fully persuasive and decide the case. As a result, the Court should decline to reach the third argument. Not only is …

Neutralizing The Stratagem Of “Snap Removal”: A Proposed Amendment To The Judicial Code, Arthur Hellman, Lonny Hoffman, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Joan Steinman, Georgene Vairo

Faculty Scholarship

The “Removal Jurisdiction Clarification Act” is a narrowly tailored legislative proposal designed to resolve a widespread conflict in the federal district courts over the proper interpretation of the statutory “forum-defendant” rule.

The forum-defendant rule prohibits removal of a diversity case “if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the [forum state].” 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2) (emphasis added). Some courts, following the “plain language” of the statute, hold that defendants can avoid the constraints of the rule by removing diversity cases to federal court when a citizen of the forum state has …

Brief Of Amici Curiae 56 Professors Of Law And Economics In Support Of Petition Of Writ Of Certiorari, John R. Allison, Margo Bagley, James Bessen, Jeremy Bock, Daniel H. Brean, Michael A. Carrier, Michael W. Carroll, Bernard Chao, Tun-Jen Chiang, Colleen V. Chien, Andrew Chin, Robert Cook-Deegan, Md, Rochelle Dreyfuss, Dr. Dieter Ernst, Samuel F. Ernst, Robin C. Feldman, Lee Fleming, Brian Frye, William Gallagher, Shubha Ghosh, Eric Goldman, Bronwyn H. Hall, Yaniv Heled, Christian Helmers, Joachim Henkel, Susan Helper, Tim Holbrook, Herbert Hovenkamp, William Hubbard, Dr. Xavier Jaravel, Dennis S. Karjala, Peter Lee, Mark A. Lemley, David K. Levine, David S. Levine, Doug Lichtman, Yvette Joy Liebesman, Orly Lobel, Brian Love, Phil Malone, Michael J. Meurer, Dr. Shawn Miller, Matthew Mitchell, Susan Barbieri Montgomery, Sean Pager, Arti K. Rai, Jacob H. Rooksby, Jorge R. Roig, Matthew Sag, Pamela Samuelson, Ana Santos Rutschman, Lea Bishop Shaver, Toshiko Takenaka, John L. Turner, Jennifer Urban, Eric Von Hippel

Faculty Scholarship

28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) provides that a defendant in a patent case may be sued where the defendant is incorporated or has a regular and established place of business and has infringed the patent. This Court made clear in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Prods. Corp., 353 U.S. 222, 223 (1957), that those were the only permissible venues for a patent case. But the Federal Circuit has rejected Fourco and the plain meaning of § 1400(b), instead permitting a patent plaintiff to file suit against a defendant anywhere there is personal jurisdiction over that defendant. The result has been rampant …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Federal Courts Scholars And Southeastern Legal Foundation In Support Of Respondents, Kimberly S. Hermann, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Backlash Against International Courts In West, East And Southern Africa: Causes And Consequences, Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

This paper discusses three credible attempts by African governments to restrict the jurisdiction of three similarly-situated sub-regional courts in response to politically controversial rulings. In West Africa, when the ECOWAS Court upheld allegations of torture by opposition journalists in the Gambia, that country’s political leaders sought to restrict the Court’s power to review human rights complaints. The other member states ultimately defeated the Gambia’s proposal. In East Africa, Kenya failed in its efforts to eliminate the EACJ and to remove some of its judges after a decision challenging an election to a sub-regional legislature. However, the member states agreed to …

Jurisdiction, Foundations, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Five Questions After Atlantic Marine, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s Atlantic Marine ruling did a lot to clear up the law of forum selection. But it also left a number of live questions in place. This essay briefly discusses five of them. When a party wants to move a case to the selected forum, what procedures can it use, other than venue transfer or forum non conveniens? When is a forum selection clause valid and enforceable, as a matter of state or federal law? If the clause isn’t valid, should a federal court still give it any weight? What if there are multiple parties or claims, and …

A Tradition Of Sovereignty: Examining Tribal Sovereign Immunity In Bay Mills Indian Community V. Michigan, Meredith L. Jewitt

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Bay Mills Indian Community v. Michigan, in which the Court may decide whether the doctrine of Tribal Sovereign Immunity prohibits Michigan's attempt to enjoin Indian gaming in the state or whether Congress expressly allowed the suit when passing the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

Federalism, Treaty Implementation, And Political Process: Bond V. United States, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Testing The Boundaries Of Family Privacy: The Special Case Of Pediatric Sibling Transplants, Doriane Lambelet Coleman

Faculty Scholarship

A six-year-old girl suffers third-degree burns over eighty percent of her body. Her chance of survival with minimal scarring is said to depend on her identical twin sister’s availability as an organ source. There are other transplant options—including the parents—but because the twins’ skin is “equivalent,” a “sibling transplant” is likely to result in a better medical and aesthetic outcome for the burned twin. Her doctor thus proposes to harvest her healthy sister’s skin on “her backside from her bra line down to the bottom of her buttocks or possibly her thighs.” This procedure would be repeated up to three …

How Congress Should Fix Personal Jurisdiction, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

Personal jurisdiction is a mess, and only Congress can fix it. The field is a morass, filled with buzzwords of nebulous origin and application. Courts have sought a single doctrine that simultaneously guarantees convenience for plaintiffs, fairness for defendants, and legitimate authority for the tribunal. Caught between these goals, we've let each new fact pattern pull precedent in a different direction, robbing litigants of certainty and blunting the force of our substantive law.

Solving the problem starts with reframing it. Rather than ask where a case may be heard, we should ask who may hear it. If the parties are …

At Home In The Outer Limits: Daimlerchrysler V. Bauman And The Bounds Of General Personal Jurisdiction, Todd W. Noelle

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, DaimlerChrysler v. Bauman, in which the Court may decide whether maintaining a wholly-owned subsidiary in a forum state can render a foreign parent corporation "essentially at home" in that state, thereby permitting the forum state to exercise general personal jurisdiction over the parent corporation.

Atlantic Marine V. J-Crew: The Future Of Forum-Selection Clauses In Federal Courts, Sarah Sheridan

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Atlantic Marine v. J-Crew, in which the Court may clarify a circuit split regarding the enforceability of forum-selection clauses by deciding which procedure should govern the enforcement of these clauses and which party carries the burden of proof in these disputes.

In All Fairness: Us Airways V. Mccutchen And The Use Of Equitable Defenses In Erisa Reimbursement Claims, Ravi Patel

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, US Airways v. McCutchen, in which the Court will decide whether courts are permitted to use equitable principles to rewrite contractual language for benefit plans under ERISA. In so doing, the Court must decide whether to give effect to the Third Circuit's holding, that ERISA does permit this use of equitable principles, which runs contrary to the majority of circuits.

Judging The Flood Of Litigation, Marin K. Levy

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court has increasingly considered a particular kind of argument: that it should avoid reaching decisions that would “open the floodgates of litigation.” Despite its frequent invocation, there has been little scholarly exploration of what a floodgates argument truly means, and even less discussion of its normative basis. This Article addresses both subjects, demonstrating for the first time the scope and surprising variation of floodgates arguments, as well as uncovering their sometimes-shaky foundations. Relying on in-depth case studies from a wide array of issue areas, the Article shows that floodgates arguments primarily have been used to protect three institutions: …

Brief Of Professor Stephen E. Sachs As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Neither Party, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

The parties in this case defend two sides of a many-sided circuit split. This brief argues that a third view is correct.

If a contract requires suit in a particular forum, and the plaintiff sues somewhere else, how may the defendant raise the issue? Petitioner Atlantic Marine Construction Company suggests a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(3) or 28 U.S.C. § 1406, on the theory that the contract renders venue improper. Respondent J-Crew Management, Inc. contends that venue remains proper, and that the defendant¹s only remedy is a transfer motion under § 1404.

Both sides are wrong. Forum-selection …

Kiobel V. Royal Dutch Petroleum: Delineating The Bounds Of The Alien Tort Statute, Tara Mcgrath

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews the upcoming Supreme Court case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., in which the Court will address questions regarding the Alien Tort Statute and its applicability to foreign conduct and foreign litigants. The case will require the Court to reexamine the bounds of a long-ago established tort doctrine in light of more modern considerations and developments in international law.

Jurisdiction And Choice Of Law In International Antitrust Law - A Us Perspective, Ralf Michaels, Hannah L. Buxbaum

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Business Interests And The Long Arm In 2011, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Aiming At The Wrong Target: The "Audience Targeting" Test For Personal Jurisdiction In Internet Defamation Cases, Sarah H. Ludington

Faculty Scholarship

In Young v. New Haven Advocate, 315 F.3d 256 (4th Cir. 2002), the Fourth Circuit crafted a jurisdictional test for Internet defamation that requires the plaintiff to show that the defendant specifically targeted an audience in the forum state for the state to exercise jurisdiction. This test relies on the presumption that the Internet — which is accessible everywhere — is targeted nowhere; it strongly protects foreign libel defendants who have published on the Internet from being sued outside of their home states. Other courts, including the North Carolina Court of Appeals, have since adopted or applied the test. The …

Forbidden Territory Or Well-Defined Boundaries? M.B.Z. V. Clinton And The Overzealous Application Of The Political Question Doctrine, Andrew Hand

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

International Law And The U.S. Common Law Of Foreign Official Immunity, Curtis A. Bradley, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

In Samantar v. Yousuf, 130 S. Ct. 2278 (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not apply to lawsuits brought against foreign government officials for alleged human rights abuses. The Court did not necessarily clear the way for future human rights litigation against such officials, however, cautioning that such suits “may still be barred by foreign sovereign immunity under the common law.” At the same time, the Court provided only minimal guidance as to the content and scope of common law immunity. Especially striking was the Court’s omission of any mention of the …

Do Differences In Pleading Standards Cause Forum Shopping In Securities Class Actions?: Doctrinal And Empirical Analyses, James D. Cox, Randall S. Thomas, Lynn Bai

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Amending The Exceptions Clause, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

Jurisdiction stripping is the new constitutional amendment, and the Exceptions Clause is the new Article V. But despite legal academia’s long-running obsessions with the meaning of constitutional amendment and the limits (if any) on Congress’s power to control federal jurisdiction, we still lack even a basic understanding of how these two forms of constitutional politicking interact. As legislators increasingly propose and pass jurisdiction-stripping legislation and pursue politically charged constitutional amendments, these constitutional processes have begun to step off of the pages of law reviews and into the halls of Congress. The looming collision between them makes it all the more …

Preferring Defects: The Jurisdiction Of Military Commissions, Madeline Morris, Allison Hester-Haddad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Federal Suits And General Laws: A Comment On Judge Fletcher's Reading Of Sosa V. Alvarez-Marchain, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.