Courts Commons^™

Silver Linings In Federal Civil Justice Reform, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Many observers, including most of the participants in the civil litigation symposium, have levelled considerable criticism at the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 ("CJRA" or "Act") and its implementation. This criticism--which encompasses numerous phenomena, as abstract as constitutional theory and as pragmatic as numerical limitations on interrogatories--emanates from several quarters and ranges across the political spectrum.

Notwithstanding the numerous criticisms that observers have lodged at the statute and its effectuation, a number of which have considerable validity, the federal reform initiative has afforded many advantages. Unfortunately, these benefits have received comparatively little recognition. Because the reform's salutary aspects could …

The D.C. Circuit As A National Court, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Every President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has appointed lawyers from across the country to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ("D.C. Circuit") and has been accused of ignoring the members of the D.C. Bar. The tradition of nationwide recruitment for appointment to the D.C. Circuit has served the District and the nation well, yielding some of the court's and America's finest judges.

The practice of seeking nominees nationally to fill vacancies on the D.C. Circuit recently faced a serious challenge. Many members of the D.C. Bar, who have long opposed this practice, developed a …

Rethinking Federal Judicial Selection, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The inauguration of President Bill Clinton, who will appoint more than three hundred new federal judges, affords an auspicious occasion for rethinking the process of federal judicial selection. The current federal bench, two-thirds of whose members were appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, reflects increased conservatism and is quite homogeneous in terms of race, gender, and political perspectives. For instance, President Reagan appointed a dramatically smaller, and President Bush named a substantially lower, percentage of African-Americans than did President Jimmy Carter. The Republican chief executives made these appointments although they had much larger, more experienced, pools of female …

Opt-Outs At The Outlaw Inn: A Report From Montana, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Report of Prof. Tobias' CLE presentation at the Montana State Bar Association's annual meeting, highlighting the 1993 revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Civil Justice Reform Act.

Keeping The Covenant On The Federal Courts, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

When Governor Clinton was campaigning for the presidency, he contended that the federal court appointments of President Ronald Reagan and President George Bush significantly reduced the diversity that President Jimmy Carter had strongly promoted. Candidate Clinton pledged, if elected President, to rectify that situation. Since the election, Bill Clinton has fulfilled his promise by naming to the judiciary outstanding attorneys who reflect the diverse composition of American society. Now that President Clinton has completed his initial year of service, it is important to analyze the Clinton Administration's record of choosing judges to ascertain precisely how the President has kept his …

Executive Branch Civil Justice Reform, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The authors of several papers in this Symposium have justifiably criticized the essay that former Vice President Dan Quayle published in Volume 41 of The American University Law Review. Many knowledgeable observers of the civil justice system have leveled equally legitimate criticism at civil justice reform initiatives that the Bush administration instituted. Questionable data, arguable policy, or overheated political rhetoric supported certain aspects of the Vice President's paper, as well as most of the proposals developed by the Competitiveness Council that the Vice President chaired and numerous efforts of the Republican administration in the area of civil justice reform.

One …

Closing The Gender Gap On The Federal Courts, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

When the Bush Administration placed comparatively few women on the bench during its initial half-term, I criticized President Bush's mediocre record. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Bush Administration ultimately appointed an unprecedented percentage of women to the federal courts; 36 of the 192 judges President Bush appointed were women (18.7%).

Notwithstanding the Bush Administration's efforts, the percentage of female judges remains significantly lower than the representation of women in the legal profession. Moreover, President Bush left 100 open judgeships. These vacancies mean that President Bill Clinton can greatly increase the numbers and percentages of female judges and …

Civil Justice Reform And The Balkanization Of Federal Civil Procedure, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The recent civil war ripping apart Yugoslavia is a trenchant reminder of the horrors of balkanization. Without trivializing the Yugoslavian experience, the term balkanization usefully applies to developments in American federal civil procedure that now threaten the continued viability of a uniform, simple system of procedure. Thirty-four federal courts' nascent implementation of the Civil Justice Reform Act (CJRA) of 1990 will exacerbate these developments; indeed, if the remaining sixty districts that must issue civil justice expense and delay reduction plans by December 1993 fail to halt this trend, the Act will further fragment procedure. This article cautions those responsible for …

The President And The Federal Bench, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias assesses the efforts of the George H.W. Bush Administration in appointing women and African-Americans to the federal bench.

Civil Justice Planning In The Montana Federal District, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The Montana Federal District Court recently finalized its civil justice expense and delay reduction plan under the Civil Justice Reform Act (CJRA) of 1990. In April, 1992, the Montana District essentially adopted whole cloth, and made effective, the civil justice plan that it had issued in December, 1991 to qualify for designation as an Early Implementation District Court (EIDC). Relatively few members of the Montana Bar exhibited much interest in the planning effort that preceded promulgation of the civil justice plan. Because the new procedural regime that the Montana District instituted could significantly change the character of federal court practice, …

More Women Named Federal Judges, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The essay initially assesses information pertinent to President Bush's record of appointments to the federal bench during his first three years in office. The prospects for future appointment of women are explored next. Finding these prospects inconclusive, this essay suggests that President Bush continue employing the constructive measures initiated during his administration's third year to name additional women while seriously considering the possibility of instituting even more vigorous efforts to appoint women in the future. Finally, the essay examines why greater numbers of women should be placed on the federal courts and how that goal can be attained.

Judicial Discretion And The 1983 Amendments To The Federal Civil Rules, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The first section of this Article briefly describes the developments which created the perception that the federal courts were experiencing a litigation explosion and which ultimately led to the promulgation of the 1983 amendments as one response to the perceived explosion. It also examines the substantive content of those changes, especially how the revisions enlarged federal judicial discretion. The second section evaluates the courts' implementation of the 1983 amendments and finds that this application has adversely affected numerous litigants, particularly civil rights plaintiffs, while providing some benefits, namely fostering more expeditious dispute resolution.

The third section provides suggestions for the …

The Gender Gap On The Federal Bench, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

This Commentary evaluates President George H.W. Bush's lackluster record of appointing women to the federal courts. The Commentary initially examines the relevant data on female judicial appointments and assesses why the Bush Administration has placed few women on the bench. It next recommends that President Bush name substantially more women in 1991 and 1992 and explores why and how this endeavor should be instituted. The Commentary then analyzes what the Bush Administration is likely to do about the paucity of female appointees. Because it is not clear that President Bush will place very many women on the federal courts, the …

The Federal Judiciary Engendered, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The dearth of women named to cabinet level positions in the George H.W. Bush Administration does not augur well for appointment of women to the federal bench. Equally discouraging was Mr. Bush's campaign response to the question whether there should be special efforts to select more women for the federal judiciary: "[I] remain committed to appointing to the bench the best qualified candidates we can find-regardless of ... gender--and the record shows that we have been successful in fulfilling this commitment. " The record compiled by the Administration in which he served as Vice-President for two terms was deplorable.

To …

When Racists And Radicals Meet, Ronald J. Bacigal, Margaret Ivey Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

In order to stimulate scholarly discussion, this Essay presents an empirical account of the Greensboro incident from the perspective of those who participated in the episode and in the resulting civil rights trial. The Essay traces the circumstances leading to the violence and reviews the resultant litigation with special attention given to the role of the trial judge in politically volatile cases. The candid reflections offered by the trial judge and other participants allow the reader to examine both the event and the litigation, not merely in the abstract, but as implemented by flesh-andblood lawyers, litigants, and judges. .

The School Pays The Piper, But How Much? Attorneys Fees In Special Education Cases After The Handicapped Children’S Protection Act Of 1986, Thomas F. Guernsey

Law Faculty Publications

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (the EHA) imposes significant responsibilities on local and state educational authorities to ensure that handicapped children are receiving free and appropriate public education. To protect this substantive right to education, Congress mandated extensive procedural protections, including the right to file a judicial action following exhaustion of administrative remedies. The EHA did not provide for the recovery of attorneys' fees, however, until the statute was recently amended. ...

Court Costs In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

Costs are certain official expenses of litigation that the court orders the losing party to pay to the prevailing party. They are not a part of the judgment but are appurtenant to it.

An Empirical Case Study Of Informal Alternative Dispute Resolution, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

The following Article is taken from that portion of Merhige's biography that addresses the Westinghouse uranium case of the 1970s, perhaps the first of the major "complex cases" to attract national attention. This case study provides an opportunity to examine a judicial decision making process involving four years of litigation, international discovery proceedings, judicial administrative guidelines, diverse national precepts of economics and politics, the interplay between the free market and multinational cartels and embargoes, and lastly, the personality of the trial judge. Shunning any pretense of passivity, Merhige initiated proceedings in the Westinghouse case by ignoring administrative protocol in order …

Toward A Unified Approach To Privileges And Relevancy, Thomas F. Guernsey

Law Faculty Publications

No topic in evidence has received more attention from commentators than evidentiary privileges. In the writings on privilege, however, there has been little discussion that the auxiliary public policies excluding otherwise logically relevant evidence under relevance analysis are essentially the same as the public policies that underlie the creation of privileges. In fact, as a general matter, if no topic has received more attention than privileges, few topics have received less attention than relevancy, and there has been virtually no discussion of the connection between privilege analysis and relevancy analysis. ...

Review Of Virginia Lawyers Practice Handbook: Appellate Practice: Virginia And Federal Courts, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

A book review on Virginia Lawyers Practice Handbook: Appellate Practice: Virginia and Federal Courts by the Committee on Continuing Legal Education of the Virginia Law Foundation.

Hearings On Jury Bias Or Misconduct, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

In the recent cases of Smith v. Phillips, and Rushen v. Spain, the United States Supreme Court recognized that judicial review of ex parte contacts with a sitting jury may raise a number of separate but interrelated constitutional rights: (1) the right to an impartial jury; (2) the right to a due process post-trial hearing on jury bias; (3) a possible due process right to a mid-trial hearing on jury bias; (4) the defendant's right to be present at such mid· trial hearings; and (5) the right to be represented at such mid-trial hearings. As Justice Stevens noted in his …

Discovery Of Penalites, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The purpose of this essay is to discuss some aspects of the scope of the privilege against self-incrimination. It will consider first what can not be and then what can be discovered by the common law of England before 1776, when the first republican constitution of Virginia was promulgated. Finally, the developments in Virginia and federal practice will be dealt with.

Service Of Process In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

Initial process is an official summons to a person requiring him to appear in court and defend himself or suffer default judgment. The purpose of the summons is notification to the defendant.

Juvenile Court And Arrest Records, Adrienne Volenik

Law Faculty Publications

Recognizing the near impossibility of changing societal views toward juvenile offenders, many legislators have at- tempted instead to combat the harmful effects of a delinquency adjudication by providing for concealment of juvenile records, on the grounds that such concealment will aid the child's reintegration into society.

Workmen's Compensation Benefits Recoverable On The Existence Of A Quasi Contract, David Frisch

Law Faculty Publications

An analysis on a worker's compensation case decided by the Supreme Court of Florida.

The Equity Side Of The Exchequer: Its Jurisdiction, Administration, Procedures, And Records, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The equity side of the court of exchequer "is by far the most obscure of all the English jurisdiction," declared Plucknett. The purpose of this essay is to shed some light upon this court and to explore its jurisdiction, to introduce its staff, to discover its procedures, to explain its equity records, and perhaps to render Plucknett's statement obsolete.

The Equity Side Of The Exchequer: Its Jurisdiction, Administration, Procedures, And Records Vol. 2 Appendices, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The principles of transcribing which have been followed in these appendices and in the extracts throughout the text are basically those of the "Report on Editing Historical Documents".