Courts Commons^™

Violating The Inviolate?: Divided Tennessee Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality Of Noneconomic Damage Caps, Focuses On Right To Jury Trial, Bailey D. Barnes

Faculty Publications

On Feb. 26, in McClay v. Airport Management Services LLC, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the noneconomic damage cap provisions of the Tennessee Civil Justice Act of 2011. The court’s analysis primarily centered on the constitutional right to a trial by jury. The justices split on whether the General Assembly maintains the authority to alter or abridge the state’s common law when doing so affects a constitutional right.

The three-justice majority concluded that noneconomic damage caps do not violate the right to a jury trial, though one of those justices authored a concurring opinion declaring the issue …

State-Circuit Split: Reconciling Tennessee Damage Caps After Lindenberg And Mcclay, Bailey D. Barnes

Faculty Publications

A divided panel of jurists on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit invalidated Tennessee's caps on punitive damages in Lindenberg v. Jackson National Life Insurance Company on December 21, 2018. The Sixth Circuit, sitting en bane, denied an application to rehear the case. A year later, the United States Supreme Court denied the petitions for writs of certiorari of both Jackson National Life Insurance Company and the State of Tennessee. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Supreme Court heard a challenge, via certified question from the Middle District of Tennessee, to the Volunteer State's statutory limits on non-economic damages. …

Why The Dea & Not The Fda? Revisiting The Regulation Of Potentially Addictive Substances, Taleed El-Sabawi

Faculty Publications

In addressing the opioid overdose crisis, Congress has explicitly questioned its historic reliance on a criminal justice approach to problem drug use and has instead adopted a more health-oriented approach. Despite Congress' rhetoric, the DEA, a criminal justice agency, continues to retain the power to make key decisions on the classification of potentially-addictive substances, thereby affecting their manufacture, distribution, and overall availability. While the DEA is statutorily required to defer to the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), a public health agency, at junctions of the decision-making process, the current “split enforcement” scheme laid out in the statutes has not actualized …

Concepts, Not Nomenclature: Universal Injunctions, Declaratory Judgments, Opinions And Precedent, Howard Wasserman

Faculty Publications

Battle lines are drawn on the permissibility and validity of injunctions in federal constitutional litigation purporting to halt government enforcement of a challenged law against all possible targets of that law and to protect all rights holders against enforcement. Courts, members of the Supreme Court, and legal scholars are divided — some supporting and others rejecting them as impermissible.; I have staked my position in the latter camp.

From that starting point, this paper considers three subsidiary issues: 1) the proper label for these injunctions, arguing that “universal” or “non-particularized” is a more accurate term than the prevailing “nationwide”; 2) …

The Life And Legal Legacy Of Justice Steven L. Zinter, Neil Fulton

Faculty Publications

Justice Steven L. Zinter was a vital part of South Dakota's legal landscape for decades. As a private practitioner, circuit court judge, supreme court justice, and in other official capacities, he forged a powerful legacy in South Dakota. Over the course of his time he worked on cases large and small in many areas of law. He was recognized as a brilliant legal mind, precise writer, and careful thinker. It is a challenge to capture the breadth and depth of such a career. This article takes a look at his personal formation, his legal work in several settings, and how …

Measuring The Impact Of Access To Justice Programs: An Assessment Tool For Funders And Policymakers, Thomas M. Clarke, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

Across the fifty states and the nation, many organizations have implemented a variety of programs to reduce the access-to-justice gap. The result is a widely varying patchwork of capabilities that provide different services and solutions in very different amounts that do not necessarily or even usually align with the problems that the target populations face. This paper proposes more of an “engineering” approach by introducing an analytical tool for organizations working on closing the access gap to estimate the potential impact of proposed solutions.

The tool can be used to: 1) assess the magnitude of an access problem that could …

Preventing Whack-A-Mole Management Of Consumer Debt Cases: A Proposal For A Coherent And Comprehensive Approach For State Courts, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Brittany Kauffman

Faculty Publications

The debt burden is growing, and there is a strong likelihood that state courts will see corresponding increases in debt collection caseloads. To meet the challenge, state courts need to implement policies, rules, procedures, and business practices to manage consumer debt collection cases in a more consistent and coherent manner. As part of the Civil Justice Institute Implementation Plan, the National Center for State Courts and Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System conducted preliminary research to document the impact of rules enacted in New York State on consumer debt litigation. The project also included an exploratory survey …

Virtual Briefing At The Supreme Court, Jeffrey L. Fisher, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

The open secret of Supreme Court advocacy in a digital era is that there is a new way to argue to the Justices. Today's Supreme Court arguments are developed online: they are dissected and explored in blog posts, fleshed out in popular podcasts, and analyzed and re-analyzed by experts who do not represent the parties or have even filed a brief in the case at all. This "virtual briefing" (as we call it) is intended to influence the Justices and their law clerks but exists completely outside of traditional briefing rules. This article describes virtual briefing and makes a case …

Out Of The Quandary: Personal Jurisdiction Over Absent Class Member Claims Explained, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

Since the Supreme Court's decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, litigants and lower courts have wrestled with the issue of whether a federal court must be able to exercise personal jurisdiction with respect to each of the claims asserted by absent class members in a class action and, if so, what standard governs that jurisdictional determination. This issue is rapidly coming to a head and is poised for inevitable resolution by the Supreme Court in the near future; multiple circuit courts have heard appeals from district courts that have reached varying conclusions on …

State Constitutionalism In The Age Of Party Polarization, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Territorial Reach Of Federal Courts, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

Federal courts exercise the sovereign authority of the United States when they assert personal jurisdiction over a defendant. As components of the national sovereign, federal courts' maximum territorial reach is determined by the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, which permits jurisdiction over persons with sufficient minimum contacts with the United States and over property located therein. Why, then, are federal courts limited to the territorial reach of the states in which they sit when they exercise personal jurisdiction in most cases? There is no constitutional or statutory mandate that so constrains the federal judicial reach. Rather, it is by operation …

Civil Justice Initiative: Evaluation Of The Civil Justice Initiative Pilot Project (Cjipp), Lydia Hamblin, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

Previous reform efforts have not fully addressed the underlying issues facing civil litigation. In response, the Civil Justice Improvements (CJI) Committee produced thirteen recommendations to do just that. To test the effectiveness of these recommendations, demonstration pilot projects were funded by the State Justice Institute to empirically test their effects on civil case processing and litigation.

In 2016 the Circuit Civil Division of the 11th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, Miami-Dade County, implemented one of the first demonstration projects: the CJI Pilot Project (CJIPP). The focus of the evaluation would be on Recommendation 7, which describes the civil case management …

Government Standing And The Fallacy Of Institutional Injury, Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

A new brand of plaintiff has come to federal court. In cases involving the Affordable Care Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, and partisan gerrymandering, government institutions have brought suit to redress “institutional injuries”—that is, claims of harm to their constitutional powers or duties. Jurists and scholars are increasingly enthusiastic about these lawsuits, arguing (for example) that the Senate should have standing to protect its power to ratify treaties; that the House of Representatives may sue to preserve its role in the appropriations process; and that the President may go to court to vindicate his Article II prerogatives. This Article …

Pleading Conditions Of The Mind Under Rule 9(B): Repairing The Damage Wrought By Iqbal, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

In 2009, the Supreme Court decided Ashcroft v. Iqbal, in which it pronounced-among other things- that the second sentence of Rule 9(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure-which permits allegations of malice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of the mind to be alleged "generally" -requires adherence to the plausibility pleading· standard it had devised for Rule 8(a)(2) in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly. That is, to plead such allegations sufficiently, one must offer sufficient facts to render the condition-of-the-mind allegation plausible. This rewriting of the standard imposed by Rule 9(b)'s second sentence-which came only veritable moments after the Court …

Impact Of The Fastar Program On Civil Cases In The Superior Court In Pima County, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

To address the shortcomings of compulsory arbitration, the Arizona Committee on Civil Justice Reform recommended implementation of a pilot program in which parties could opt for a "short trial" instead of compulsory arbitration. The Supreme Court of Arizona adopted the Committee's recommendation and approved experimental rules for the Fast Trial and Alternative Resolution (FASTAR) Program for a three-year period effective November 1, 2017. The pilot program was implemented in the Superior Court of Pima County. The National Center for State Courts collaborated with the Arizona Office of the Courts to assess the effectiveness of the program. The evaluation framework specifically …

Superior Court Of Arizona In Maricopa County: Commercial Court Evaluation, Final Report, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

On July 1, 2015, the Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County (“Superior Court”) implemented a specialized commercial court (“Commercial Court”) as a pilot project. The goal of the Commercial Court was to meet the unique needs of business cases by assigning them to judges with substantial commercial and civil case management experience. Specialized rules governing the assignment and management of Commercial Court cases were developed by the Superior Court and implemented as Experimental Rule 8.1 of the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure. Three judges were initially assigned to the Commercial Court. The Commercial Court was authorized to conduct a …

Statutory Interpretation And The Rest Of The Iceberg: Divergences Between The Lower Federal Courts And The Supreme Court, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the methods of statutory interpretation used by the lower federal courts, especially the federal district courts, and compares those methods to the practices of the U.S. Supreme Court. This novel research reveals both similarities across courts and some striking differences. The research shows that some interpretive tools are highly overrepresented in the Supreme Court’s decisions, while other tools are much more prevalent in the lower courts. Differences in prevalence persist even after accounting for the selection effect that stems from the Supreme Court’s discretionary docket. Another finding—based on a study of 40 years of cases from all …

Divide & Concur: Separate Opinions & Legal Change, Thomas B. Bennett, Barry Friedman, Andrew D. Martin, Susan Navarro Smelcer

Faculty Publications

To the extent concurring opinions elicit commentary at all, it is largely contempt. They are condemned for muddying the clarity of the law, fracturing the court, and diminishing the authoritative voice of the majority. But what if this neglect, or even disdain, of concurring opinions is off the mark? In this article, we argue for the importance of concurring opinions, demonstrating how they serve as the pulse and compass of legal change. Concurring opinions let us know what is happening below the surface of the law, thereby encouraging litigants to push the law in particular directions. This is particularly true …

The Jury Sunshine Project: Jury Selection Data As A Political Issue, Ronald F. Wright, Kami Chavis, Gregory S. Parks

Faculty Publications

In this Article, the authors look at jury selection from the viewpoint of citizens and voters, standing outside the limited boundaries of constitutional challenges. They argue that the composition of juries in criminal cases deserves political debate outside the courtroom. Voters should use the jury selection habits of judges and prosecutors to assess the overall health of local criminal justice: local conditions are unhealthy when the full-time courtroom professionals build juries that exclude parts of the local community, particularly when they exclude members of traditionally marginalized groups such as racial minorities. Every sector of society should participate in the administration …

Benefits And Costs Of Civil Justice Reform, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

For more than a century, excessive costs and delays have been a chronic complaint about the American civil justice system. Although some states took steps to improve civil case processing in the past, most of those efforts had only a negligible effect, if any, and few were able to sustain those effects over time. Recently, however, a number of states have implemented civil justice reforms that couple changes in pro­cedural rules with improved civil case automation and staffing models that offer new hope for significant improvements in civil case processing. This paper focuses on four reforms implemented in the Eleventh …

Family Justice Initiative: The Landscape Of Domestic Relations Cases In State Courts, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Lydia Hamblin, Brittney Via, Natalie Anne Knowlton

Faculty Publications

The Family Justice Initiative (FJI) Landscape study represents the first large, aggregate examination of how family court cases are litigated in the state courts. Much of the findings confirmed conventional wisdom about family court litigation, though several offered new insights into the typical domestic relations case. The study findings also raise questions both of how domestic relations cases should be managed and whether the judicial branch is still the most appropriate forum for such cases.

This report documents the caseload characteristics of domestic relations cases disposed between July 1, 2016, and June 30, 2017, across eleven large, urban courts. Three …

Changing Times, Changing Relationships For The Bench And Civil Bar, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

For the past century, the interests of the bench and bar in delivering justice to civil litigants were closely aligned. As civil litigants’ needs change, courts recognize they must lead the way on civil justice reforms both for their own sake and to encourage productive change in civil legal practice.

Justice Scalia's Other Standing Legacy, Tara Leigh Grove

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

One Good Plaintiff Is Not Enough, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Faculty Publications

This Article concerns an aspect of Article III standing that has played a role in many of the highest-profile controversies of recent years, including litigation over the Affordable Care Act, immigration policy, and climate change. Although the federal courts constantly emphasize the importance of ensuring that only proper plaintiffs invoke the federal judicial power, the Supreme Court and other federal courts have developed a significant exception to the usual requirement of standing. This exception holds that a court entertaining a multiple-plaintiff case may dispense with inquiring into the standing of each plaintiff as long as the court finds that one …

Five Questions For The Next Thirty Years Of Federal Sentencing, Steven L. Chanenson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Judicial Fact-Finding In An Age Of Rapid Change: Creative Reforms From Abroad, Allison Orr Larsen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Court Transparency And The First Amendment, David S. Ardia

Faculty Publications

This is a critical time for court transparency because the courts, like so many institutions of government, are in the midst of a transformation from the largely paper-based world of the twentieth century to an interconnected, electronic world where physical and temporal barriers to information are disappearing. Not surprisingly, the shift to electronic access to the courts raises significant privacy concerns. As a result of these and other concerns, a number of courts and legislatures are considering sharply limiting public access to certain court proceedings and records.

Tweeting #Justice: Audio-Visual Coverage Of Court Proceedings In A World Of Shifting Technology, Itay Ravid

Faculty Publications

The debate over whether to allow cameras into courtrooms refuses to fade away. In 2015 alone, U.S. federal courts completed a five-year experiment with cameras in courts, New Zealand published new guidelines for audio-visual coverage, and Scotland completely revised its former broadcast policy. These jurisdictions, and others around the globe, constantly struggle to design model practices that successfully balance freedom of the press, transparency, and public access to information, with rights to a fair trial and privacy. The constant need to rethink coverage policies can be attributed in large part to the advancement of technology, providing the media innovative tools …

Symposium: Business In The Roberts Court - Introduction: Still In Search Of The Pro-Business Court, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts is often described as a “pro-business” court. Many commentators believe that Court is particularly sympathetic to business interests in concerns. A 2016 volume, Business and the Roberts Court turned a critical eye to this hypothesis. In September 2016, the Center for Business Law & Regulation at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law hosted a symposium to further explore how the Roberts Court deals with business issues. Papers from this conference were published in the Case Western Reserve Law Review, and this brief article served as the Introduction for this symposium.

The History Of The Florida Supreme Court, M C. Mirow

Faculty Publications

This article describes the challenges to writing the history of Florida's colonial courts in the Spanish and British periods from 1513 to 1821. These courts are an important yet understudied aspect of Florida legal history.