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Full-Text Articles in Law
Frivolous Floodgate Fears, Blair Druhan Bullock
Frivolous Floodgate Fears, Blair Druhan Bullock
Indiana Law Journal
When rejecting plaintiff-friendly liability standards, courts often cite a fear of opening the floodgates of litigation. Namely, courts point to either a desire to protect the docket of federal courts or a burden on the executive branch. But there is little empirical evidence exploring whether the adoption of a stricter standard can, in fact, decrease the filing of legal claims in this circumstance. This Article empirically analyzes and theoretically models the effect of adopting arguably stricter liability standards on litigation by investigating the context of one of the Supreme Court’s most recent reliances on this argument when adopting a stricter …
"On The Eve Of Destruction": Courts Confronting The Climate Emergency, Mary Christina Wood
"On The Eve Of Destruction": Courts Confronting The Climate Emergency, Mary Christina Wood
Indiana Law Journal
In the dim and smokey twilight, with only bare necessities in tow, a family rushes to escape the wildfire racing toward them. Elsewhere, a household evacuates just ahead of a category five hurricane, perhaps not for the first time. Along the coastlines, countless others are resigned to looking on as their homesites erode into the inexorably rising surf. At this moment, millions of Americans are forced to reckon with the horrors of the climate catastrophe, and the number of such people who now viscerally grasp our grim climate reality grows every day. Even the judges of this nation prove no …
A Clumsy Couple: The Problem Of Applying Model Rule 1.7 In Transactional Settings, Katelyn K. Leveque
A Clumsy Couple: The Problem Of Applying Model Rule 1.7 In Transactional Settings, Katelyn K. Leveque
Indiana Law Journal
The American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct (“Model Rules”) have long addressed conflicts of interest, with fluctuating degrees of stringency.1 For as long as the rules have been in place, legal scholars have grappled with how lawyers can work within the confines of the rules to serve their clients best, as well as how the rules might better align with what clients seek and expect from their legal representation. In their current form, the Model Rules address conflicts of interest in Rule 1.7. However, both this rule and the Model Rules more generally are not one size fits …
Fee-Shifting Statutes And Compensation For Risk, Maureen Carroll
Fee-Shifting Statutes And Compensation For Risk, Maureen Carroll
Indiana Law Journal
A law firm that enters into a contingency arrangement provides the client with more than just its attorneys’ labor. It also provides a form of financing, because the firm will be paid (if at all) only after the litigation ends; and insurance, because if the litigation results in a low recovery (or no recovery at all), the firm will absorb the direct and indirect costs of the litigation. Courts and markets routinely pay for these types of risk-bearing services through a range of mechanisms, including state feeshifting statutes, contingent percentage fees, common-fund awards, alternative fee arrangements, and third-party litigation funding. …
Flipping The Script On Brady, Ion Meyn
Flipping The Script On Brady, Ion Meyn
Indiana Law Journal
Brady v. Maryland imposes a disclosure obligation on the prosecutor and, for this
reason, is understood to burden the prosecutor. This Article asks whether Brady also
benefits the prosecutor, and if so, how and to what extent does it accomplish this?
This Article first considers Brady’s structural impact—how the case influenced
broader dynamics of litigation. Before Brady, legislative reform transformed civil
and criminal litigation by providing pretrial information to civil defendants but not
to criminal defendants. Did this disparate treatment comport with due process?
Brady arguably answered this question by brokering a compromise: in exchange for
imposing minor obligations on …
Influencing Juries In Litigation "Hot Spots", Megan M. La Belle
Influencing Juries In Litigation "Hot Spots", Megan M. La Belle
Indiana Law Journal
This Article considers how corporations are using image advertising in litigation "hot spots" as a means of influencing litigation outcomes. It describes how Samsung and other companies advertised in the Eastern District of Texas--a patent litigation "hot spot"--to curry favor with the people who live there, including by sponsoring an ice rink located directly outside the courthouse. To be sure, image advertisements are constitutionally protected speech and might even warrant the highest level of protection under the First Amendment when they are not purely commercial in nature. Still, the Article argues, courts should be able to prohibit such advertisements altogether, …
Screening Out Innovation: The Merits Of Meritless Litigation, Alexander A. Reinert
Screening Out Innovation: The Merits Of Meritless Litigation, Alexander A. Reinert
Indiana Law Journal
Courts and legislatures often conflate meritless and frivolous cases when balancing the desire to keep courthouse doors open to novel or unlikely claims against the concern that entertaining ultimately unsuccessful litigation will prove too costly for courts and defendants. Recently, significant procedural and substantive barriers to civil litigation have been informed by judicial and legislative assumptions about the costs of entertaining meritless and frivolous litigation. The prevailing wisdom is that eliminating meritless and frivolous claims as early in a case’s trajectory as possible will focus scarce resources on the truly meritorious cases, thereby ensuring that available remedies are properly distributed …
The Feasibility Of Litigation Markets, Jonathan T. Molot
The Feasibility Of Litigation Markets, Jonathan T. Molot
Indiana Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Seeing Is Believing: The Anti-Inference Bias, Eyal Zamir Prof., Ilana Ritov, Doron Teichman
Seeing Is Believing: The Anti-Inference Bias, Eyal Zamir Prof., Ilana Ritov, Doron Teichman
Indiana Law Journal
A large body of studies suggests that people are reluctant to impose liability on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone, even when this evidence is more reliable than direct evidence. Current explanations for this pattern of behavior focus on factors such as the tendency of fact finders to assign low subjective probabilities to circumstantial evidence, the statistical nature of such evidence, and the fact that direct evidence can rule out with greater ease any competing factual theory regarding liability. This Article describes a set of four new experiments demonstrating that even when these factors are controlled for, the disinclination to …
Redeeming A Lost Generation: "The Year Of Law School Litigation" And The Future Of The Law School Transparency Movement, Andrew S. Murphy
Redeeming A Lost Generation: "The Year Of Law School Litigation" And The Future Of The Law School Transparency Movement, Andrew S. Murphy
Indiana Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Section 1983 Wrongful Death And Survival Actions In The Seventh Circuit: An Indiana Litigant's Guide To Claims After Russ V. Watts, Michelle R. Gough
Section 1983 Wrongful Death And Survival Actions In The Seventh Circuit: An Indiana Litigant's Guide To Claims After Russ V. Watts, Michelle R. Gough
Indiana Law Journal
The availability of survival and wrongful death damages in 42 U.S.C. § 1983 cases is an area that involves both changing precedent and unaddressed issues within the Seventh Circuit. In both of the aforementioned types of claims, the cases will necessarily involve the tangled application of both state and federal law, and the Seventh Circuit and other federal courts of appeals have struggled to provide a clear, coherent approach to these issues. Indeed, there is strong disagreement among the circuits. Dean Steven H. Steinglass offered the most comprehensive discussion of the nature of both types of claims under § 1983 …
How U.S. Procedure Skews Tort Law Incentives, Jonathan T. Molot
How U.S. Procedure Skews Tort Law Incentives, Jonathan T. Molot
Indiana Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Blind Man's Bluff: An Analysis Of The Discovery Of Expert Witnesses Under Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 26(B)(4) And A Proposed Amendment, Mathew R. Wildermuth
Blind Man's Bluff: An Analysis Of The Discovery Of Expert Witnesses Under Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 26(B)(4) And A Proposed Amendment, Mathew R. Wildermuth
Indiana Law Journal
No abstract provided.