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Full-Text Articles in Law
Where Equity Meets Expertise: Re-Thinking Appellate Review In Complex Litigation, Michael J. Hays
Where Equity Meets Expertise: Re-Thinking Appellate Review In Complex Litigation, Michael J. Hays
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The field of complex litigation continues to grow as both an academic study and a popular phenomenon. One cannot escape news accounts of major class action litigation, and lawyers continue to find new ways to push the outer bounds of civil litigation practices to accommodate large-scale disputes involving multiple claims or parties. Many question whether traditional procedures can or should apply to these cases. Drawing on this well-recognized procedural tension, this Article explores the relationship between trial and appellate courts in complex litigation and argues for a revised standard of appellate review for trial court decisions affecting the party structure …
The Class Action Fairness Act Of 2005 In Historical Context: A Preliminary View, Stephen B. Burbank
The Class Action Fairness Act Of 2005 In Historical Context: A Preliminary View, Stephen B. Burbank
All Faculty Scholarship
As courts confront, and commentators begin to write about, the many jurisdictional questions that emerged from CAFA’s long and messy legislative process, I propose instead to set that legislation in context. The contexts that, given my training and interests, I find most revealing concern the history of federal diversity of citizenship litigation in general and, within that larger story, the history of diversity class actions in federal court. Because all questions of federal court subject matter jurisdiction implicate the "happy relations of States to Nation," both accounts necessarily pay attention to state court litigation and to the impact of doctrinal …
Federal Courts As Constitutional Laboratories: The Rat's Point Of View, Maureen N. Armour
Federal Courts As Constitutional Laboratories: The Rat's Point Of View, Maureen N. Armour
Maureen N Armour
This article examines the operation of the lower federal courts as constitutional laboratories where problems related to implementing the Supreme Court's problematic constitutional decisions are routinely addressed. By using the methodology of a detailed case study of Eighth Amendment litigation the author provides critical insights into the workings of the federal trial courts and three judge appellate panels and insights into the applied phenomenology of ajudicative discretion, the moving force of this judicial laboratory. The article also examines the problematic nature of the Supreme Court's constitutional decisions, their textual openness, doctrinal malleability,and prudential "errors," and how this effects the institutional …
A Federal Tête-À-Tête? The Multiparty, Multiforum Trial Jurisdiction Act And Hurricane Katrina: Past, Present, And Future Considerations, Joshua A. Decuir
A Federal Tête-À-Tête? The Multiparty, Multiforum Trial Jurisdiction Act And Hurricane Katrina: Past, Present, And Future Considerations, Joshua A. Decuir
Louisiana Law Review
No abstract provided.
National Juries For National Cases: Preserving Citizen Participation In Large-Scale Litigation, Laura G. Dooley
National Juries For National Cases: Preserving Citizen Participation In Large-Scale Litigation, Laura G. Dooley
Law Faculty Publications
Procedural evolution in complex litigation seems to have left the civil jury behind. Reliance on aggregating devices, such as multidistrict litigation and class actions, as well as settlement pressure created by “bellwether” cases, has resulted in cases of national scope being tried by local juries. Local juries thus have the potential to impose their values on the rest of the country. This trend motivates parties to forum-shop, and some commentators suggest eliminating jury trials in complex cases altogether. Yet the jury is at the heart of our uniquely American understanding of civil justice, and the Seventh Amendment mandates its use …
The Complexity Of Modern American Civil Litigation: Curse Or Cure?, Stephen B. Burbank
The Complexity Of Modern American Civil Litigation: Curse Or Cure?, Stephen B. Burbank
All Faculty Scholarship
Originally prepared for the 2007 meetings of the Italian Association of Comparative Law, this paper seeks to excavate the roots of procedural complexity in modern American litigation. Proceeding from the view that there is no accepted definition of complex litigation in the United States, the paper discusses five related phenomena that the author regards as consequential: (1) the architecture of modern American lawsuits and the procedural philosophy that architecture reflects, (2) the volume of litigation and the public and private policies, attitudes and arrangements that affect it, (3) the dynamic nature of, and dispersed institutional responsibility for, American law, (4) …