Civil Procedure Commons^™

Common Sense And Other Legal Reforms, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Enactment of Congress' proposed Common Sense Legal Reforms Act (CSLRA) would impose procedural and substantive reforms that could significantly affect much federal civil litigation and could have substantial systemic impacts on the civil justice process. For instance, the measure's advocates drafted and introduced the proposed legislation with little apparent appreciation for how it might conflict with a number of ongoing public and private reform initiatives, such as an earlier Congress's Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 and the American Law Institute's efforts to adopt a Third Restatement of Torts governing products liability.

The bill's enactment, therefore, could additionally complicate the …

Refining Federal Civil Justice Reform In Montana, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 (CJRA) has reached the mid-point of its implementation nationally and in the Montana Federal District Court. At this juncture, one of the most important aspects of statutory effectuation is evaluation of the experimentation that federal district courts have conducted under the legislation. The timing is particularly propitious in the Montana federal district because the court recently completed the annual assessment of statutory implementation that the CJRA requires. These developments in civil justice reform, particularly relating to evaluation of the experimentation which has occurred, warrant examination. This Article undertakes that effort.

The Article first …

Studying Montana State Civil Justice Reform, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Several years ago in the pages of this journal, I asked and attempted to answer the question whether the 1993 session of the Montana Legislature should adopt a civil justice reform act. The article initially afforded a brief analysis of the problems in federal civil litigation that prompted the United States Congress to pass the Civil Justice Reform Act (CJRA) of 1990. I next evaluated whether the state legislature in Montana should enact similar legislation which would govern civil litigation in the state court system. Because there were relatively few important reasons for adopting a measure covering civil justice reform …

Why Congress Should Reject Revision Of Rule 11, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The United States House of Representatives recently passed the Attorney Accountability Act of 1995. Section 2 of the measure would modify existing Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 by prescribing two-way fee-shifting in diversity cases. Section 3 of the bill would amend Federal Rule of Evidence 702 in ways that limit expert testimony, ostensibly to increase “honesty in testimony.” Section 4 of the legislation would substantially revise the 1993 amendment of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, effectively returning to the 1983 version of the provision. This essay emphasizes section 4 of the Attorney Accountability Act, because I believe that …

Corruption Of The Class Action: The New Technology Of Collusion, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Coffee's article, an oral version of which was given at the Cornell Mass Torts conference, is appearing in the Columbia Law Review. However, because commentators in this volume have responded to it, he has authorized the following summary of his views.

Settlement Of Mass Tort Class Actions: Order Out Of Chaos, William W. Schwarzer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Busting The Hart & Wechsler Paradigm, Michael L. Wells

Scholarly Works

Federal Courts law was once a vibrant area of scholarship and an essential course for intellectually ambitious students. Now its prestige has diminished so much that scholars debate its future in a recent issue of the Vanderbilt Law Review, where even one of its champions calls it (albeit in the subjunctive mood) a “scholarly backwater.” What, if anything, went wrong, and what should Federal Courts scholars do about it? In his contribution to the Vanderbilt symposium, Richard Fallon defends the reigning model of Federal Courts law, an approach to jurisdictional issues that dates from the publication in 1953 of Henry …

Vexatious Litigation As Unfair Competition And The Applicability Of The Noerr-Pennington Doctrine, Robert L. Tucker

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Confronting The Consolidation Conundrum, Richard L. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.