Civil Procedure Commons^™

Subverting Rule 56? Mcdonnell Douglas, White V. Baxter Healthcare Corp., And The Mess Of Summary Judgement In Mixed-Motive Cases, Christopher J. Emden

William & Mary Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Restrictive Ethos In Civil Procedure, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

Those of us who study civil procedure are familiar with the notion that federal civil procedure under the 1938 Rules was generally characterized by a "liberal ethos," meaning that it was originally designed to promote open access to the courts and to facilitate a resolution of disputes on the merits. Most of us are also aware of the fact that the reality of procedure is not always access-promoting or fixated on merits- based resolutions as a priority. Indeed, I would say that a "restrictive ethos" prevails in procedure today, with many rules being developed, interpreted, and applied in a manner …

Summary Of Great Basin Water Network V. State Eng’R, 126 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 2, Jason Vanmeetren

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

A 2003 amendment to section 533.3702 of the Nevada Revised Statutes, empowering the State Engineer to postpone taking action on water appropriation applications “[for] municipal use,” applies retroactively to applications filed within one year of the 2003 amendment and does not apply to applications filed more than one year prior the amendment.

What Federal Rulemakers Can Learn From State Procedural Innovations, Seymour Moskowitz

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Clear As Mud: How The Uncertain Precedential Status Of Unpublished Opinions Muddles Qualified Immunity Determinations, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Restrictive Ethos In Civil Procedure, A. Benjamin Spencer

Scholarly Articles

Those of us who study civil procedure are familiar with the notion that federal procedure under the 1938 civil rules was generally characterized by a "liberal ethos," meaning that it was originally designed to promote open access to the courts and to facilitate a resolution of disputes on the merits. Most of us are also aware of the fact that the reality of procedure is not always access-promoting or fixated on merits-based resolutions as a priority. Indeed, I would say that a "restrictive ethos" characterizes procedure today, with many rules being developed, interpreted, and applied in a manner that frustrates …

Iqbal And The Slide Toward Restrictive Procedure, A. Benjamin Spencer

Scholarly Articles

Last term, in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court affirmed its commitment to more stringent pleading standards in the ordinary federal civil case. Although the decision is not a watershed, since it merely underscores the substantial changes to pleading doctrine wrought in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, Iqbal is disconcerting for at least two reasons. First, the Court treated Iqbal’s factual allegations in a manner that further erodes the assumption-of-truth rule that has been the cornerstone of modern federal civil pleading practice. The result is an approach to pleading that is governed by a subjective, malleable standard that permits judges …

Marbury V. Madison And The Foundation Of Law, Jeffrey C. Tuomala

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Let My Love Open The Door: The Case For Extending Marital Privileges To Unmarried Cohabitants, Julia Cardozo

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The Lyons Den: Summers V. Earth Island Institute's Misuse Of Lyons's Realistic Threat Of Harm Standing Test, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 129 S. Ct. 1142 (2009), the majority and dissenting opinions disagreed about how to apply the “realistic threat” test set forth in Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 107 (1983)). According to Justice Scalia’s majority opinion in Summers, the plaintiff organizations did not have standing to obtain injunctive relief because they failed to prove that their members were likely in the near future to hike on government land on which the Forest Service conducted allegedly illegal sales of timber without public notice and comment and that the facts alleged by …

Fresh Look At Punitive Damages, Richard Henry Seamon

Articles

No abstract provided.

Hearings, Mark Spottswood

Faculty Working Papers

This article explores a constantly recurring procedural question: When is fact-finding improved by a live hearing, and when would it be better to rely on a written record? Unfortunately, when judges, lawyers, and rulemakers consider this issue, they are led astray by the widely shared—but false—assumption that a judge can best determine issues of credibility by viewing the demeanor of witnesses while they are testifying. In fact, a large body of scientific evidence indicates that judges are more likely to be deceived by lying or mistaken witnesses when observing their testimony in person than if the judges were to review …

Interlocutory Review By Agreement Of The Parties: A Preliminary Analysis, James Pfander, Dave Pekarek-Krohn

Faculty Working Papers

Although the nineteenth century's final judgment rule no longer represents an absolute barrier to interlocutory appellate review, scholars disagree about what should take its place. Some favor a regime of discretionary interlocutory review, with power conferred on appellate courts to select issues that warrant intervention. Others reject discretionary review as a waste of appellate resources and call upon the rule makers to identify specific categories of non-final orders that always warrant review. While the Supreme Court's collateral order doctrine bears some similarity to this process of categorization, the Court may have called a halt to the judicial recognition of new …

Threshold Obstacles To Justice: The Interaction Of Procedural And Substantive Law In The United States, France, And China, Daniel Vandekoolwyk

Global Business & Development Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The International Criminal Court And The Closure Of The Time-Limited International And Hybrid Criminal Tribunals, Valerie Oosterveld

Law Publications

No abstract provided.

The Battle Lines Of Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 8(A)(2) And The Effects On A Pro Se Litigant's Ability To Survive A Motion To Dismiss, Melodee C. Rhodes

St. Thomas Law Review

Part II of this Comment discusses the development of pro se litigation from its historical roots to modern day concepts. Part III addresses the transformation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) through the Court's interpretation in Conley v. Gibson, Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, and Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Part IV explains the unique relationship between pro se litigation and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Part V examines the tremendous effect of pro se litigation on the court system and highlights areas of the law in which pro se litigants find it extremely difficult to survive a motion to …

The Changing Shape Of Federal Civil Pretrial Practice: The Disparate Impact On Civil Rights And Employment Discrimination Cases, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Tao Of Pleading: Do Twombly And Iqbal Matter Empirically?, Patricia W. Hatamyar

American University Law Review

This article is an empirical study of the effect of Bell Atlantic Corp. vs. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft vs. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009), two recent Supreme Court cases that portend the decline of “notice pleading” in federal civil practice. The article analyzes how Twombly and Iqbal have begun to dismantle the regime of notice pleading by not only discarding the “no set of facts” standard of Conley vs. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 (1957), but by changing or ignoring other principles that federal courts have followed for decades on 12(b)(6) motions. The statistical study then examines …

Everyone Knows Medellin; Has Anyone Heard Of O'Brien? Reconciling The United States And The International Community By Amending The Vccr, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 817 (2010), Steven M. Novak

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is Ashcroft V. Iqbal The Death (Finally) Of The “Historical Test” For Interpreting The Seventh Amendment?, Kenneth S. Klein

Faculty Scholarship

There is the possibility that the recent Supreme Court decision of Ashcroft v. Iqbal finally will be the necessary impetus to revisit one of the more bizarre but enduring canards of American jurisprudence -- the way we interpret the Seventh Amendment's preservation of a right to a jury trial in federal civil litigation. The Seventh Amendment provides that "[i]n suits at common law ... the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." To this day, the way we apply the Seventh Amendment-in other words, what we interpret to be the constitutional intent and mandate of our Founders-is to postulate …

It's The Law! Applying The Law Is The Missing Measure Of Civil Law / Common Law Convergence, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

It’s the Law! The application of law to facts is a measure of convergence of common and civil law systems of civil procedure that is missing from our program. The previous session addressed “Getting Straight to the Facts” and “Getting Results.” Facts and results are fine, but what of the law and of its application? Should not applying law have pride of place in systems of civil justice? Should not it be the measure of convergence?

The measure of convergence that I propose is whether methods of applying law to facts are converging. Applying law to facts is the principal …

Iqbal, Twombly, And The Expected Cost Of False Positive Error, Mark Anderson

Articles

Iqbal and Twombly introduced a new standard for pleading federal claims by overruling five-decades old language from Conley v. Gibson. Instead of plaintiffs being entitled to discovery unless the complaint affirmatively forecloses the possibility of recovery, Iqbal and Twombly require a more searching evaluation of the complaint under an ambiguous "plausibility" standard. The policy behind this increased burden on plaintiffs is to prevent the false positive error that burdensome discovery creates. How the plausibility standard from Iqbal and Twombly should operate in the real world is poorly understood. There is general acknowledgement that no clear guidance exists about how to …

Proportionality In Discovery: A Cautionary Tale, John L. Carroll

Campbell Law Review

"There has been widespread criticism of the abuse of discovery."' That statement comes not from a recent edition of the Defense Research Institute newsletter but from the Advisory Committee notes to the 1980 amendment that gave us the Rule 26(f) conference. Discovery abuse and the increase in the cost of litigation that flows from such abuse has been a constant theme emerging from analysis of the civil justice system.

Iqbal, Procedural Mismatches, And Civil Rights Litigation, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

Understanding the twin pleading cases of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal from the vantage point of only a few months (or even years) requires as much prediction as explanation. Early confusion is a product of the long-heralded link between substance and procedure. What we are seeing now may be less about Court-imposed changes to procedure as about changes to substantive law and a "mismatch " between new substance and the old procedure of the Federal Rules. Much of the current business of federal courts involves constitutional litigation under 42 U.S. C. §S 1983 and Bivens, …

Law In The Shadow Of Bargaining: The Feedback Effect Of Civil Settlements, Ben Depoorter

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Removing The Blindfold And Tipping The Scales: The Unintended Lesson Of Ashcroft V. Iqbal Is That Frivolous Lawsuits May Be Important To Our Nation, Kenneth S. Klein

Faculty Scholarship

This Article questions whether the gain of curbing perceived frivolous litigation is worth the cost of undermining the core civic value of neutrality of justice. In Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court weighed in on the public debate about frivolous litigation. The lqbal opinion is essentially a memorandum by the Supreme Court written to the trial judges of America, encouraging these judges to aggressively, indeed very aggressively, identify and dismiss potentially frivolous civil complaints. That leeway-wrapped mandate comes at a cost. A cornerstone of our civic philosophy is that the judicial branch, as a general proposition, is a neutral …

Hydrogen Peroxide: The Third Circuit Comes Clean About The Rule 23 Class Action Certification Standard, Amy Dudash

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Tremors Of Things To Come: The Great Split Between Federal And State Pleading Standards, Roger Michalski

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure And Legal Realism As A Jurisprudence Of Law Reform, David Marcus

Georgia Law Review

Since the 1930s, legal realism has weathered claims that its adherents had no use for legal rules and lacked a positive program of law reform. This Article uses the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the major procedural reform of the twentieth century, to illuminate more accurately the treatment of rules in realism as well as its constructive potential. It draws upon the published and unpublished writings of Charles Clark, the primary author of the Federal Rules and a leading realist, to describe a realist procedural jurisprudence and to explain why the Federal Rules neatly illustrate this jurisprudence in practice. Part …

What The Federal Circuit Can Learn From The Supreme Court-And Vice Versa, Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.