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Full-Text Articles in Law
Fee Shifting, Nominal Damages, And The Public Interest, Maureen Carroll
Fee Shifting, Nominal Damages, And The Public Interest, Maureen Carroll
Law & Economics Working Papers
As the Supreme Court recognized in its 2021 decision in Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, nominal damages can redress violations of “important, but not easily quantifiable, nonpecuniary rights.” For some plaintiffs who establish a violation of their constitutional rights, nominal damages will be the only relief available. In its 1992 decision in Farrar v. Hobby, however, the Court disparaged the nominal-damages remedy. The case involved the interpretation of federal fee-shifting statutes, which enable prevailing civil rights plaintiffs to recover a reasonable attorney’s fee from the defendant. According to Farrar, a plaintiff can prevail by obtaining the “technical” remedy of nominal damages, but …
Federal Courts And The Poor: Lack Of Standards And Uniformity In Civil In Forma Pauperis Pleadings, Ezra Rosser
Federal Courts And The Poor: Lack Of Standards And Uniformity In Civil In Forma Pauperis Pleadings, Ezra Rosser
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
Andrew Hammond's article, Pleading Poverty in Federal Court, shows that there is considerable variation in how federal courts consider requests by the poor for fee waivers in civil litigation. Courts not only use different forms to collect ability-to-pay information but they also apply different standards when determining whether fees should be waived. By focusing attention on federal court in forma pauperis motion practices, Hammond's article sheds light on how the poor can be negatively impacted by routine court practices that might ordinarily be treated as merely administrative. Hammond makes a convincing argument that federal courts should have uniform standards for …
Rethinking Criminal Contempt In The Bankruptcy Courts, John A. E. Pottow, Jason S. Levin
Rethinking Criminal Contempt In The Bankruptcy Courts, John A. E. Pottow, Jason S. Levin
Law & Economics Working Papers
A surprising number of courts believe that bankruptcy judges lack authority to impose criminal contempt sanctions. We attempt to rectify this misunderstanding with a march through the historical treatment of contempt-like powers in bankruptcy, the painful statutory history of the 1978 Bankruptcy Code (including the exciting history of likely repealed 28 U.S.C. § 1481), and the various apposite rules of procedure. (Fans of the All Writs Act will delight in its inclusion.) But the principal service we offer to the bankruptcy community is dismantling the ubiquitous and persistent belief that there is some form of constitutional infirmity with "mere" bankruptcy …
In Search Of "Laissez-Faire Constitutionalism", Matthew Lindsay
In Search Of "Laissez-Faire Constitutionalism", Matthew Lindsay
All Faculty Scholarship
This article is a response to Professor Jed Shugerman’s Economic Crisis and the Rise of Judicial Elections and Judicial Review, HARVARD LAW REVIEW (2010). Professor Shugerman argues that the widespread adoption of judicial elections in the 1850’s and the embrace by the first generation of elected judges of countermajoritarian rationales for judicial review helped to effect a transition from the active, industry-building state of the early nineteenth century to the "laissez-faire constitutionalism" of the Lochner era. This response argues that Professor Shugerman overstates the causal relationship between the elected judiciary’s robust constitutional defense of "vested rights" and the iconic, if …
Does Anyone Get Stopped At The Gate? An Empirical Assessment Of The Daubert Trilogy In The States, Eric Helland, Jonathan Klick
Does Anyone Get Stopped At The Gate? An Empirical Assessment Of The Daubert Trilogy In The States, Eric Helland, Jonathan Klick
All Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court’s trilogy of evidence cases, Daubert, Joiner, and Kumho Tire appear to mark a significant departure in the way scientific and expert evidence is handled in federal court. By focusing on the underlying methods used to generate the experts’ conclusions, Daubert has the potential to impose a more rigorous standard on experts. Given this potential, some individuals have called for states to adopt the Daubert standards to purge “junk science” from state courts. However, there is relatively little empirical support for the notion that Daubert affects the quality of expert evidence. Using a large dataset of state court …
The Futility Of Appeal: Disciplinary Insights Into The "Affirmance Effect" On The United States Courts Of Appeals, Tracey E. George, Chris Guthrie
The Futility Of Appeal: Disciplinary Insights Into The "Affirmance Effect" On The United States Courts Of Appeals, Tracey E. George, Chris Guthrie
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In contrast to the Supreme Court, which typically reverses the cases it hears, the United States Courts of Appeals almost always affirm the cases that they hear. We set out to explore this affirmance effect on the U.S. Courts of Appeal by using insights drawn from law and economics (i.e., selection theory), political science (i.e., attitudinal theory and new institutionalism), and cognitive psychology (i.e., heuristics and biases, including the status quo and omission biases).