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Full-Text Articles in Law
Between The Ceiling And The Floor: Making The Case For Required Disclosure Of High-Low Agreements To Juries, Richard Lorren Jolly
Between The Ceiling And The Floor: Making The Case For Required Disclosure Of High-Low Agreements To Juries, Richard Lorren Jolly
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Parties are increasingly using high-low agreements to limit the risks of litigation. High-low agreements are contracts in which defendants agree to pay plaintiffs a minimum recovery in return for plaintiffs’ agreement not to execute on a jury award above a maximum amount. Currently no jurisdiction requires high-low agreements to be disclosed to the jury. This Note argues that disclosure should be required. It contends that non-disclosed high-low agreements are a type of procedural contract modifying the jury’s core adjudicative function. Drawing on theories of procedural justice, it suggests that by usurping the jury’s role these agreements undermine the legitimacy of …
Access To Information, Access To Justice: The Role Of Presuit Investigatory Discovery, Lonny Sheinkopf Hoffman
Access To Information, Access To Justice: The Role Of Presuit Investigatory Discovery, Lonny Sheinkopf Hoffman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
What is the relationship between access to information and access to justice? Private parties obviously have many publicly available points of access to the information they seek in order to file a lawsuit. Lawyers can talk to their clients and other willing witnesses. Documents can be gathered. Specific statutes may sometimes permit information to be obtained before a formal lawsuit is brought. On other occasions, however, information needed or desired will lie solely within the exclusive knowledge and control of another The ability of private parties to compel the production of information, documents, or testimony before litigation rarely has been …
Fictions, Fault, And Forgiveness: Jury Nullification In A New Context, David N. Dorfman, Chris K. Iijima
Fictions, Fault, And Forgiveness: Jury Nullification In A New Context, David N. Dorfman, Chris K. Iijima
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Recently, critics of the Anglo-American jury system have complained that juries in criminal trials have been ignoring the law, in favor of defendants who claim that they lack criminal responsibility because they are afflicted by the various victimization syndromes now popularized in the mass media. In this Article, Professors Dorfman and Iijima counter this characterization of the "runaway" jury and argue that juries are not ignoring the law, but rather, are exercising a primary power of the jury, to nullify the application of the law when such application to a particular defendant is unjust. The Authors trace the development of …
Judicial Administration And Invisible Justice, Mary Murphy Schroeder
Judicial Administration And Invisible Justice, Mary Murphy Schroeder
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
My theme here is the conflict between the visibility of the appellate judge and recent procedural changes designed to cope with the quantum leaps in the numbers and complexity of cases. I will develop that theme, first, by suggesting the ways that three of the major controls on the system, namely the selection, evaluation, and discipline of judges, depend upon the exercise of recognizable and individual judicial responsibility; second, by illustrating how this "imperative" can be undermined if devices intended to cope with increased volume are adopted without vigilance; and finally by pointing up some approaches to permit courts to …