Litigation Commons^™

Trial Practice And Procedure, John O'Shea Sullivan, Ashby K. Fox, Tala Amirfazli

Mercer Law Review

The 2013 survey period yielded noteworthy decisions relating to federal trial practice and procedure in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, several of which involved issues of first impression. This Article analyzes recent developments in the Eleventh Circuit, including significant rulings in the areas of statutory interpretation, subject matter jurisdiction, arbitration, and civil procedure.

The Federal Rules At 75: Dispute Resolution, Private Enforcement Or Decisions According To Law?, James R. Maxeiner

Georgia State University Law Review

This essay is a critical response to the 2013 commemorations of the75th anniversary of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were introduced in 1938 to provide procedure to decide cases on their merits. The Rules were designed to replace decisions under the “sporting theory of justice”with decisions according to law.

By 1976, at midlife, it was clear that they were not achieving their goal. America’s proceduralists split into two sides about what to do. One side promotes rules that control and conclude litigation: e.g.,plausibility pleading, case management, limited discovery, cost indemnity for discovery, and summary …

Division Of Labor: The Modernization Of The Supreme Court Of Georgia And Concomitant Workload Reduction Measures In The Court Of Appeals, Kyle G.A. Wallace, Andrew J. Tuck, Max Marks

Georgia State University Law Review

This article addresses two distinct yet interrelated topics: the arcane and unnecessarily complex jurisdictional division between the Georgia Supreme Court and Georgia Court of Appeals, and the excessive caseload at the Georgia Court of Appeals.

In Part I.A., this article discusses Georgia’s appellate system—its history, the jurisdictional division that arose, the confusion the current jurisdictional framework creates, and the limitations and burdens it places on Georgia’s highest court. In Part I.B., the article discusses the current caseload at the Court of Appeals and the burden any jurisdictional reforms would have on the Court of Appeals. In Part II, the article …

Historical Antecedents Of Challenges Facing The Georgia Appellate Courts, Michael B. Terry

Georgia State University Law Review

The Georgia appellate courts face challenges common to many courts in these days of reduced governmental resources. At the same time, the Georgia appellate courts face unusual challenges that can be traced to their historical antecedents and one unique constitutional provision: the “Two-Term Rule.” Just as “[t]he law embodies the story of a nation’s development through many centuries,” the current rules and practices of both the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Court of Appeals of Georgia embody the story of the development of those courts since their founding.

Several aspects of the history of the courts directly impact the …

The Practical Challenges Of Litigating And Trying A Claim For Attorney Fees To A Jury In Minnesota: Providing Minnesota’S District Court Judges, Lawyers, And Litigants The Guidance And Predictability They Need, S. Jamal Faleel

Hamline Law Review

abstract

The Perils Of Productivity, Emily Spottswood

Scholarly Publications

This Essay urges that those who seek to minimize delay in litigation should proceed with greater caution. Productivity reform proponents usually assume that an increase in case processing speed can be purchased at little cost to other procedural values, but this may not be the case. Such reforms may lower the quality of lawyers’ case preparation and worsen the quality of judicial decisions. The extent of these effects is unclear because the proponents of such changes have not made an effort to establish that increases in speed can be achieved without undermining the accuracy of litigation outcomes. Relatedly, it is …

Transactionalism Costs, Alan M. Trammell

Scholarly Articles

Modern civil litigation is organized around the “transaction or occurrence,” a simple and fluid concept that brings together logically related claims in one lawsuit. It was a brilliant innovation a century ago, but its time has passed. Two inherent defects always lurked within transactionalism, but modern litigation realities have exacerbated them. First, transactionalism represents a crude estimate about the most efficient structure of a lawsuit. Often that estimate turns out to be wrong. Second, the goals of transactionalism are in tension. To function properly, the transactional approach must be simultaneously flexible (when structuring a lawsuit at the beginning of litigation) …

In Re Mstg And The Shifting Role Of Litigation-Related Patent Licenses In Reasonable Royalty Rate Determinations, Whitney Levandusky

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Class Action In The Age Of Twitter: A Dispute Systems Approach, Jeremy Mcclane

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Cy Pres And The Optimal Class Action, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

This Article, prepared for a symposium on class actions, examines the problem of cy pres relief through the lens of ensuring that class actions have an optimal claim structure and class membership. It finds that the present cy pres doctrine does little to advance the creation of optimal class actions, and may do some harm to achieving that goal. The Article then proposes an alternative “nudge” to induce putative class counsel to structure class actions in an optimal way: set attorneys’ fees so that counsel is compensated through a combination of an hourly market rate and a percentage of the …

A Diamond In The Rough: Trans-Substantivity Of The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure And Its Detrimental Impact On Civil Rights, Suzette Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

Remanding Multidistrict Litigation, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Multidistrict litigation has frequently been described as a “black hole” because transfer is typically a one-way ticket. The numbers lend truth to this proposition. As of 2010, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation remanded only 3.425% of cases to their original districts. That number dwindled to 3.1% in 2012, and to a scant 2.9% in 2013. Retaining cases in hopes of forcing a global settlement can cause a constellation of complications. These concerns range from procedural justice issues over selecting a forum and correcting error, to substantive concerns about fidelity to state laws, to undermining democratic participation ideals fulfilled through …

Mixed Signals On Summary Judgment, Howard Wasserman

Faculty Publications

This essay examines three cases from the Supreme Court’s October Term 2013 addressing the standards for summary judgment. In one case, the Court affirmed summary judgment against a civil-rights plaintiff, in a continued erroneous over-reliance on the certainty of video evidence. In two other cases, the Court rejected the grant of summary judgment against civil-rights plaintiffs, arguably for the first time in quite a while. This essay unpacks the substance and procedure underlying all three decisions and considers the effect of the three cases and what signals they send to lower courts and litigants about the proper approach to summary …

Preliminary Injunctions Post-Mayo And Myriad, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

The Supreme Court's recent interest in patentable subject matter has had several, unexpected downstream effects on preliminary injunctions in patent disputes.

The Supreme Court has recently expressed increased interest in patent eligibility, or patentable subject matter, the doctrine that limits the types of inventions eligible for patenting. Its two decisions, Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., in 2012, and Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., in 2013, represented the first broad restrictions on patentable subject matter in over thirty years. And later this term, the Court will decide yet another patent eligibility case: Alice Corp. v. CLS …

Class Actions And Justiciability, Sergio J. Campos

Articles

A lingering issue in class action law concerns the case or controversy requirement of Article III, otherwise known as the requirement of justiciability. For purposes of justiciability doctrines such as standing, mootness, and ripeness, is the class action brought by all class members, some class members, or just the class representative?

This Article argues that the answer should be none of the above-it should be the class attorney. This Article first shows that the function of the class action is to assign dispositive control of, and a partial beneficial interest in, the class members' claims to the class attorney. Put …

Trial Practice And Procedure, Brandon L. Peak, John C. Morrison Iii, Tedra C. Hobson, Mary K. Weeks, Jeb Butler, Anna W. Howard, Morgan E. Duncan

Mercer Law Review

This Article addresses several significant cases and legislation of interest to the Georgia civil trial practitioner occurring during the survey period of this publication.

The Misbegotten Judicial Resistance To The Daubert Revolution, David E. Bernstein

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article reviews the history of the evolution of the rules for the admissibility of expert testimony since the 1980s, the revolutionary nature of what ultimately emerged, and the consistent efforts by recalcitrant judges to stop or roll back the changes, even after Rule 702 was amended to explicitly incorporate a strict interpretation of those changes.

Part I reviews the law of expert testimony through the Supreme Court’s Daubert decision. Critics had charged for decades that the adversarial system was a failure with regard to expert testimony. Parties to litigation, they argued, often presented expert testimony of dubious validity because …

An Implausible Standard For Affirmative Defenses, Stephen Mayer

Michigan Law Review

In the wake of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the federal district courts split over whether to apply Twombly’s plausibility standard to the pleading of affirmative defenses. Initially, a majority of district courts extended Twombly to defense pleadings, but recently the courts that have declined to extend the plausibility standard have gained majority status. This Note provides a comprehensive analysis of each side of the plausibility split, identifying several hidden assumptions motivating the district courts’ decisions. Drawing from its analysis of the two opposing positions, this Note responds to the courts that have applied plausibility pleading …

Class Actions, Thomas M. Byrne, Stacey Mcgavin Mohr

Mercer Law Review

This year saw the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit set the ground rules for collateral attacks on class settlements and elaborate on the predominance requirements for class certification. The court also considered the enforceability of a, variety of arbitration provisions in light of the United States Supreme Court's decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion and examined standing issues common in data security breach class actions.

Walking The Class Action Maze: Toward A More Functional Rule 23, Robert G. Bone

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Over roughly the past fifteen years, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have limited access to class actions. Many of the more restrictive decisions-such as Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., and Wal- Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes-are based on interpretations of Rule 23 and thus fall within the power of the Advisory Committee and rulemaking process to modify. This Article proposes revisions to Rule 23 designed to deal with some of these decisions and to make the class action a more pragmatic and functional device. It focuses on two areas: (1) the constraints imposed by …

The Future Of Classwide Punitive Damages, Catherine M. Sharkey

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Conventional wisdom holds that the punitive damages class action is susceptiblenot only to doctrinal restraints imposed on class actions but also to constitutionaldue process limitations placed on punitive damages. Thus, it would seem that theprospects for punitive damages classes are even grimmer than for class actionsgenerally.This conventional picture misunderstands the role of punitive damages and, inparticular, the relationship between class actions and punitive damages. It eitherignores or underestimates the distinctly societal element of punitive damages, whichmakes them especially conducive to aggregate treatment. Furthermore, punitivedamages classes offer a solution to the constitutional due process problem of juriesawarding "classwide" damages in a …

A Barrier To Child Welfare Reform: The Supreme Court’S Flexible Approach To Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 60(B)(5) And Granting Relief To States In Institutional Reform Litigation, Rachel Dunnington

Seattle University Law Review

In a recent decision, Horne v. Flores, the Court demanded a broader and more flexible application of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (Rule) 60(b)(5). In doing so, the Court opened the door for states to seek relief from court-enforced agreements like consent decrees. This decision undermines the use of institutional reform litigation as a means of fixing the child welfare system and thus deals a further blow to the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. This Note will discuss Horne’s impact on consent decrees stemming from institutional reform litigation in child welfare. Part II will explore the history of Rule 60 as …

Some Important Causes For Settlement In American Civil Litigation, Felipe Forte Cobo

LLM Theses and Essays

This paper focuses on pure economic disputes such as contract, real property and tort conflicts, in which the economic efficiency model is very accepted. In this limited scenario, the consensual resolution of disputes is always more efficient than decisions made by a third-party decision-maker, whether from a post-trial or pre-trial perspective.

Considering that lower transaction costs drive parties towards settlement, part II of this essay provides an overview of the American costs of legal disputes, framing several issues that might be determinative to settlements. Part III explores how two specific American procedural institutes – discovery and civil jury trial – …

Buying A Judicial Seat For Appeal: Caperton V. A.T. Massey Coal Company, Inc., Is Right Out Of A John Grisham Novel, Richard Gillespie

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Class Actions, Heightened Commonality, And Declining Access To Justice, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

A prerequisite to being certified as a class under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is that there are "questions of law or fact common to the class. " Although this "commonality" requirement had heretofore been regarded as something that was easily satisfied, in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes the Supreme Court gave the requirement new vitality by reading into it an obligation to identify among the class a common injury and common questions that are "central" to the dispute. Not only is such a reading of Rule 23 's commonality requirement unsupported by the text of …

Has The Right To A Jury Trial As Guaranteed Under The Seventh Amendment Become Outdated In Complex Civil Litigation?, Georgiana G. Rodiger

Pepperdine Law Review

Recognizing the continually increasing burden placed on the jury in complex litigation cases, the author undertakes an extensive study of the origins of jury trials in the United States and England. Various arguments in favor of eliminating jury trials in complex litigation are discussed, along with a possible constitutional method of limiting the scope of the seventh amendment guarantee. The author also studies the case of Ross v. Bernhardt where the Supreme Court outlined a seldom used three- pronged test to determine whether or not a jury trial is constitutionally appropriate. The comment concludes that the factors in favor of …

Punitive Damages And The Drunken Driver, William C. Cooper

Pepperdine Law Review

A discussion of the history and theory of punitive damages which results in advocating their application in a drunk driving context after giving due consideration to the pros and cons of such a sanction. An analysis of case law will reveal the underlying rationale that has motivated certain jurisdictions in applying this severe penal approach in an attempt to deter and curtail the senseless destruction on our nation's highways as well as exploring the impetus behind those other jurisdictions that do not utilize the remedy of punitive damages. The culminating focus is on California's position in this regard. Finally, there …

(Still) A "Real And Substantial" Mess: The Law Of Jurisdiction In Canada, Tanya Monestier

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ruckleshaus V. Sierra Club: Muddying The Waters Of Fee-Shifting In Federal Environmental Litigation , Jeanne A. Taylor

Pepperdine Law Review

In numerous federal environmental statutes, Congress gave plaintiffs the right to recover attorneys' fees when the court finds them "appropriate." In Ruckleshaus v. Sierra Club, the United States Supreme Court held that it was only "appropriate" to grant attorneys' fees when the plaintiff had at least partially prevailed on the merits. The decision ignored both the important role environmental groups play in the interpretation and development of regulatory programs through litigation and the ability of the lower courts to determine when attorneys' fees were "appropriate." The Court, instead, focused on the adversarial nature of such groups and the traditional American …

The Manville Corporation Bankruptcy: An Abuse Of The Judicial Process?, Mark Kunkler

Pepperdine Law Review

Federal bankruptcy law offers a refuge to the honest debtor who is unable to pay his creditor's when his debts are due. Here, the twin aims of bankruptcy law, to give the debtor a fresh start and to provide roughly equal treatment for his! Creditors, are laudably accomplished. But what policies support the use of federal bankruptcy law when the "debtor" is in fact solvent and apparently seeks refuge only to escape liability for the products it manufactures? This comment examines the recent filing of the Manville Corporation for Chapter 11 protection under bankruptcy law with this question in mind.