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An Empirical Case Study Of Informal Alternative Dispute Resolution, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

The following Article is taken from that portion of Merhige's biography that addresses the Westinghouse uranium case of the 1970s, perhaps the first of the major "complex cases" to attract national attention. This case study provides an opportunity to examine a judicial decision making process involving four years of litigation, international discovery proceedings, judicial administrative guidelines, diverse national precepts of economics and politics, the interplay between the free market and multinational cartels and embargoes, and lastly, the personality of the trial judge. Shunning any pretense of passivity, Merhige initiated proceedings in the Westinghouse case by ignoring administrative protocol in order …