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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Summary Judgment Revolution That Wasn't, Jonathan R. Nash, D. Daniel Sokol
The Summary Judgment Revolution That Wasn't, Jonathan R. Nash, D. Daniel Sokol
Faculty Articles
The U.S. Supreme Court decided a trilogy of cases on summary judgment in 1986. Questions remain as to how much effect these cases have had on judicial decision-making in terms of wins and losses for plaintiffs. Shifts in wins, losses, and what cases get to decisions on the merits impact access to justice. We assemble novel datasets to examine this question empirically in three areas of law that are more likely to respond to shifts in the standard for summary judgment: antitrust, securities regulation, and civil rights. We find that the Supreme Court’s decisions had a statistically significant effect in …
The Irrepressible Influence Of Byrd, Richard D. Freer, Thomas Arthur
The Irrepressible Influence Of Byrd, Richard D. Freer, Thomas Arthur
Faculty Articles
We set forth four interrelated theses in this article. First, Byrd is the only Supreme Court case since Erie itself to discuss all three of the core interests balanced, expressly or not, in every vertical choice of law case. Second, because Hanna's "twin aims" test ignores two of these three core interests, it cannot adequately serve as the standard for cases under the Rules of Decision Act ("RDA"). This fact is evidenced by the Court's eschewing the twin aims test in cases, like Gasperini, where state and federal interests must be accommodated. Third, as all three opinions in …
Compounding Confusion And Hampering Diversity: Life After Finley And The Supplemental Jurisdiction Statute, Richard D. Freer
Compounding Confusion And Hampering Diversity: Life After Finley And The Supplemental Jurisdiction Statute, Richard D. Freer
Faculty Articles
It has been a tough couple of years for supplemental jurisdiction. In recent decades, the doctrine, which earlier had been called the "child of necessity and sire of confusion," had become somewhat less confusing. The Supreme Court created a flurry of concern over the future of the doctrine with a pair of restrictive decisions in the late 1970s, but showed no further interest; the lower courts generally interpreted those holdings narrowly. With exceptions in a couple of areas, the application of supplemental jurisdiction in the various joinder situations became relatively clear and predictable, and the doctrine played a major role …