Law Commons^™

Legal Process In A Box, Or What Class Action Waivers Teach Us About Law-Making, Rhonda Wasserman

Articles

The Supreme Court’s decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion advanced an agenda found in neither the text nor the legislative history of the Federal Arbitration Act. Concepcion provoked a maelstrom of reactions not only from the press and the academy, but also from Congress, federal agencies and lower courts, as they struggled to interpret, apply, reverse, or cabin the Court’s blockbuster decision. These reactions raise a host of provocative questions about the relationships among the branches of government and between the Supreme Court and the lower courts. Among other questions, Concepcion and its aftermath force us to grapple with the …

Slides: Water Footprints: Consciousness Raising Meets Risk Management, Steve Malloch

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Steve Malloch, Senior Western Water Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation, Seattle, WA

38 slides

Doctors, Hmos, Erisa, And The Public Interest After Pegram V. Herdrich, Jeffrey W. Stempel, Nadia Von Magdenko

Scholarly Works

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 was enacted in the wake of highly publicized pension disasters in order to protect employee pension rights. Born as a piece of pro-worker legislation, it initially was criticized by business groups as a cause of bureaucratic arteriosclerosis that was worse than the disease of pension failures. Even worse, it prompted many employers to consider dispensing with pension plans altogether rather than struggle with the administrative and financial obligations of ERISA. Business, labor, and the public all complained about the law's complexity. It even became something of a national joke as regulators took …

Bootstrapping And Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Arbitral Infatuation And The Decline Of Consent, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution preserves for litigants a right to a jury trial in actions at law. The right to a jury trial does not attach for equitable actions, but in cases presenting claims for both legal and equitable relief a right to a jury trial exists for common questions of fact. Although many modern statutes and claims did not exist in 1791, the Amendment has been interpreted to require a jury trial of statutory claims seeking monetary damages, the classic form of legal relief, so long as there is a relatively apt analogy between the modern statutory …

A Better Approach To Arbitrability, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Historically, Anglo-American courts refused to enforce arbitration agreements, jealously guarding their dispute resolution monopoly. During the early twentieth century, merchants and attorneys began seeking legislation requiring courts to defer to arbitration. The United States Abitration Act took effect January 1, 1926 and has remained essentially unchanged. It was written with the implicit assumption that it would be invoked by commercial actors having relatively equal bargaining power and emotive appeal to a jury. The Act says nothing to direct the court's inquiry concerning the quality of either party's assent to the arbitration clause other than requiring a written arbitration agreement and …