Law Commons^™

Do Patent Challenges Increase Competition?, Stephen Yelderman

Journal Articles

This Article is the first to seriously scrutinize the claim that patent challenges lead to increased competition. It identifies a number of conditions that must hold for a patent challenge to provide this particular benefit, and evaluates the reasonableness of assuming that the pro-competitive benefits of patent challenges are generally available. As it turns out, there are a number of ways these conditions can and regularly do fail. This Article synthesizes legal doctrine, recent empirical scholarship, and several novel case studies to identify categories of challenges in which the potential benefits for competition are smaller than previously thought or, in …

The Golden Ratio Of Corporate Deal-Making, Christina M. Sautter

Journal Articles

The article discusses the Delaware Supreme Court's decision in the case 'Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc.' in which the court sale of corporate control, the target's board of directors has a duty to maximize stockholder value. Topics discussed include relationship between the deal protection devices and sale process; golden ratio of corporate deal-making; and the court's definition of an ideal merger and acquisition of a sale process.

The Litigation Budget, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

Because of fears that litigation is too costly, reduction of litigation expenses has been the touchstone of procedural reform for the past thirty years. In certain circumstances, however, the parties have incentives—both rational and irrational—to spend more on a lawsuit than the social benefits that the case provides. Present and proposed reform efforts do not adequately address these incentives, and, in some instances, exacerbate the parties’ incentives to overspend. The best way to ensure that the cost of a lawsuit does not exceed the benefits that it provides to the parties and society is to control spending directly: to require …

Why Retributivism Needs Consequentialism: The Rightful Place Of Revenge In The Criminal Justice System, Ken Levy

Journal Articles

Consider the reaction of Trayvon Martin’s family to the jury verdict. They were devastated that George Zimmerman, the defendant, was found not guilty of manslaughter or murder. Whatever the merits of this outcome, what does the Martin family’s emotional reaction mean? What does it say about criminal punishment – especially the reasons why we punish? Why did the Martin family want to see George Zimmerman go to jail? And why were – and are – they so upset that he didn’t? This Article will argue for three points. First, what fuels this kind of outrage is vengeance: the desire to …

Promises Made To Be Broken? Standstill Agreements In Change Of Control Transactions, Christina M. Sautter

Journal Articles

Many promises are made in the negotiation of a merger but not all promises are necessarily enforceable or consistent with a board of directors’ fiduciary duties. This article explores the enforceability of one such promise: the buyer’s standstill agreement. When a publicly traded company explores a sale, that company, the target, customarily requires each potential buyer to execute a standstill agreement. A typical standstill prevents potential buyers from publicly making or announcing a bid for the target during the sale process without the target’s prior consent and for a period of approximately twelve to eighteen months from the conclusion of …

Superiority As Unity, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

One of Professor Redish’s many important contributions to legal scholarship is his recent work on class actions. Grounding his argument in the theory of democratic accountability that has been at the centerpiece of all his work, Professor Redish suggests that, in nearly all instances, class actions violate the individual autonomy of litigants and should not be used by courts. This Essay, prepared for a festschrift in honor of Professor Redish, begins from the opposite premise: that class actions should be grounded in the notion of social utility rather than autonomy so that class actions should be used whenever they achieve …

The Political Economy Of Criminal Procedure Litigation, Anthony O'Rourke

Journal Articles

Criminal procedure has undergone several well-documented shifts in its doctrinal foundations since the Supreme Court first began to apply the Constitution’s criminal procedure protections to the States. This Article examines the ways in which the political economy of criminal litigation – specifically, the material conditions that determine which litigants are able to raise criminal procedure claims, and which of those litigants’ cases are appealed to the United States Supreme Court – has influenced these shifts. It offers a theoretical framework for understanding how the political economy of criminal litigation shapes constitutional doctrine, according to which an increase in the number …

Exiting Litigation, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

The American judicial system will face significant challenges in the twenty-first century. One of its immediate challenges is adapting the rules of civil procedure to the stresses under which the civil-justice system operates. Some of the most notable pressures arise from transnational litigation, mass litigation, proliferation of claims against governmental and corporate institutions, and competition from methods of alternative dispute resolution that promise to dispense cheaper, faster, and more satisfying justice.

Arbitrating Human Rights, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

Corporate liability for human rights abuses is one of the most important developments in current international law and practice. With the advent of human rights litigation against corporations, there is now the prospect of a deep-pocket defendant that is complicit in grave human rights abuses, subject to personal jurisdiction, and not immune from suit. Indeed, if a corporation is accused of "aiding and abetting" human rights abuses, this is all but a concession that the corporate actor is not the principal wrong-doer. It is of course possible that this controversial trend toward corporate responsibility may reflect a genuine concern about …

Counter-Rejoinder: Justice Vs. Justiciability?: Normative Neutrality And Technical Precision, The Role Of The Lawyer In Supranational Social Rights Litigation, Tara J. Melish

Journal Articles

An important debate is currently underway in the inter-American human rights system involving the proper approach litigators, adjudicators, and advocates should take to supranational litigation of economic, social and cultural rights. Centered on questions of jurisdiction and the proper characterization and limits of justiciability, its resolution has tremendous implications for the tools available to on-the-ground advocates, their real-world effectiveness and sustainability in adjudicatory and advocacy contexts alike, and the rationalization of the system's developing jurisprudence over the long-term.

This article book-ends a trilogy of pieces appearing in the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics by two sets of authors, …

Solving The Nuisance-Value Settlement Problem: Manadatory Summary Judgment, David Rosenberg, Randy J. Kozel

Journal Articles

The nuisance-value settlement problem arises whenever a litigant can profitably initiate a meritless claim or defense and offer to settle it for less than it would cost the opposing litigant to have a court dismiss the claim or defense on a standard motion for merits review like summary judgment. The opposing litigant confronted with such a nuisance-value claim or defense rationally would agree to settle for any amount up to the cost of litigating to have it dismissed. These settlement payoffs skew litigation outcomes away from socially appropriate levels, undermining the deterrence and compensation objectives of civil liability. Yet current …

New Opportunities For Obtaining And Using Litigation Reserves And Disclosures, Matthew J. Barrett

Journal Articles

Following the publication of Opportunities for Obtaining and Using Litigation Reserves and Disclosures, which highlighted the helpful information about litigation reserves that a litigator can often detect or discover from an opponent's financial statements, accounting books and records, tax returns, public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), and auditor, two important regulatory developments occurred in early 2003 that create additional opportunities to obtain information about an opponent's assessments of (i) expected liability in the underlying case or (ii) obligations or settlements in similar cases. First, pursuant to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the SEC issued final regulations …

Opportunities For Obtaining And Using Litigation Reserves And Disclosures, Matthew J. Barrett

Journal Articles

In late 1975, the accounting and legal professions reached an accord that led to three new professional standards: (1) a new financial accounting rule for contingencies, (2) an auditing standard addressing the requirement that an auditor obtain evidence about an audit client's contingent liabilities to determine whether the client has properly treated those items in its financial statements, and (3) the American Bar Association's Statement of Policy Regarding Lawyers' Responses to Auditors' Requests for Information under that auditing standard. The Commentary that accompanied the Statement of Policy explicitly stated that the organized bar's expectation that communications between lawyers and auditors …

Students And Due Process In Higher Education: Of Interests And Procedures, Fernand N. Dutile

Journal Articles

In the process of enforcing their academic and disciplinary standards, colleges and universities increasingly find themselves confronting the possibility and even the reality of litigation. At public institutions, of course, the strictures of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment loom especially large. Meeting the complex needs of their institutions and students as well as the expectations of American courts presents an ongoing and daunting challenge to higher education personnel.

For both internal and external reasons, institutional dealings with aberrant students in public higher education has, over the years, developed on a dual track. Courts themselves have generally treated …

The Constitutional Dilemma Of Litigation Under The Independent Counsel System, William K. Kelley

Journal Articles

The independent counsel system as established by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 has put different components of the executive branch, such as the President and Department of Justice in the position of litigating against a special counsel. Litigation is not only a bad idea, it also gives rise to a serious constitutional dilemma. It either violates Article III because there is insufficient adversity to support litigation between the parties. Or it violates Article II, by preventing the President and his subordinates from controlling central functions of the executive branch, and places the independent counsel, an inferior officer, in …

New York Times Co V Sullivan: The 'Actual Malice' – Standard And Editorial Decision-Making, Geoffrey Bennett, Russel L. Weaver

Journal Articles

In an effort to explore conflicting views of the New York Times decision, this article compares how the British media functions under Britain's more restrictive defamation laws with how the US media functions under the actual malice standard. It does so based on interviews with reporters, editors, defamation lawyers, and others involved in the media in an effort to understand how they decide which stories to publish, and to gain some understanding of how libel laws affect editorial decision-making.

Unattainable Justice: The Form Of Complex Litigation And The Limits Of Judicial Power, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

Part I begins the inquiry by describing the practical and theoretical factors that have led various courts and commentators to label particular types of litigation "complex." Although all the definitions provide important data about the nature of complex litigation, none capture its full breadth. Thus, the task of the Article's next two Parts is to develop a formal and inclusive definition. Part II builds the theoretical framework for the definition by describing the form of adjudication and the positive assumptions of modern civil litigation.

Next, Part III demonstrates that complex litigation arises from the friction between the real-world problems outlined …