Litigation Commons^™

Rights And Retrenchment In The Trump Era, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

Fordham Law Review

Our aim in this Article is to leverage the archival research, data, and theoretical perspectives presented in our book, Rights and Retrenchment: The Counterrevolution against Federal Litigation, to illuminate the prospects for retrenchment in the current political landscape. In the book, we documented how an outpouring of rights-creating legislation from Democratic Congresses in the 1960s and 1970s, much of which contained provisions designed to stimulate private enforcement, prompted the conservative legal movement within the Republican Party to devise a response. Recognizing the political infeasibility of retrenching substantive rights, the movement’s strategy was to weaken the infrastructure for enforcing them. …

Civil Litigation Reform In The Trump Era: Threats And Opportunities Searching For Salvageable Ideas In Ficala, Howard M. Erichson

Fordham Law Review

The Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017 (FICALA) was introduced in Congress less than three weeks after Donald Trump took office as President. Supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and opposed by consumer advocates and civil rights groups, the bill passed the House of Representatives one month after its introduction on a party-line vote of 220 to 201, with 220 Republicans and zero Democrats voting in favor. FICALA stalled in the Senate and, as of this writing, does not appear to be moving toward passage in its current form. But reform ideas have a way of reappearing, …

What We Don't Know About Class Actions But Hope To Know Soon, Jonah B. Gelbach, Deborah R. Hensler

Fordham Law Review

Legislation that would alter class action practice in the federal courts has been pending in Congress. Nearly a decade’s worth of U.S. Supreme Court cases have restricted the scope and ease of use of the class action device. Class action critics argue that class litigation is a “racket” that fails to compensate plaintiffs and instead enriches plaintiffs’ lawyers at the expense of legitimate business practices. On the other hand, defenders of class actions decry the legislative and judicial forces aligned against them, warning that trends in class action law will eviscerate the practical rights held by consumers and workers. In …

The Looming Battle For Control Of Multidistrict Litigation In Historical Perspective, Andrew D. Bradt

Fordham Law Review

2018 marks fifty years since the passage of the Multidistrict Litigation Act. But instead of thoughts of a golden-anniversary celebration, an old Rodney Dangerfield one-liner comes to mind: “[M]y last birthday cake looked like a prairie fire.” Indeed, after a long period of relative obscurity, multidistrict litigation (MDL) has become a subject of major controversy—and not only among scholars of procedure. For a long time, both within and beyond the rarified world of procedure scholars, MDL was perceived as the more technical, less extreme cousin of the class action, which attracted most of the controversy. My goal in this Article …

A Bridge Between Copyright And Patent Law: Towards A Modern-Day Reapplication Of The Semiconductor Chip Protection Act, Timothy T. Hsieh

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

This Paper analyzes the history of the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act (SCPA), 17 U.S.C. §§ 901–914, and asks why the statute is so seldom used in intellectual property litigation. Afterwards, this Paper makes the argument that the SCPA should be used more in intellectual property litigation, perhaps in tandem with patent litigation, and can be a viable form of protection for semiconductor micro-fabrication companies or integrated circuit design companies engaged in pioneering innovations within the cutting-edge field of semiconductor technology.

Class Problem!: Why The Inconsistent Application Of Rule 23'S Class Certification Requirements During Overbreadth Analysis Is A Threat To Litigant Certainty, David I. Berman

Fordham Law Review

Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is home to the class action device. It is well-documented that this rule significantly impacts our legal system. As a result, the need for its effective utilization has been apparent since its introduction. Despite this, federal courts have inconsistently applied the rule during their analyses of overbroad class definitions at the class certification stage. Consequently, parties involved in such litigation have been exposed to unnecessary costs and the potential for forum shopping. Nonetheless, this judicial inconsistency has gone largely unrecognized because it does not implicate the results of class certification. Hence, …

Resolving The Crisis In U.S. Merger Regulation: A Transatlantic Alternative To The Perpetual Litigation Machine, Dan Awrey, Blanaid Clarke, Sean J. Griffith

Faculty Scholarship

Regulation by litigation has driven U.S. merger regulation to crisis. The reliance on private lawsuits to police disclosures and potential conflicts of interest in mergers, takeovers, and other control transactions has resulted in the filing of claims after every major transaction. However, it has failed to achieve meaningful benefits for shareholders and has instead deprived them of potentially valuable rights. Regulation by litigation has devolved into attorney rent-seeking, and the raft of substantive and procedural reforms aimed at resolving the crisis has failed. There is an alternative to regulation by litigation. Drawing upon the code and panel-based models of merger …

Why Civil And Criminal Procedure Are So Different: A Forgotten History, Ion Meyn

Fordham Law Review

Much has been written about the origins of civil procedure. Yet little is known about the origins of criminal procedure, even though it governs how millions of cases in federal and state courts are litigated each year. This Article’s examination of criminal procedure’s origin story questions the prevailing notion that civil and criminal procedure require different treatment. The Article’s starting point is the first draft of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure—confidential in 1941 and since forgotten. The draft reveals that reformers of criminal procedure turned to the new rules of civil procedure for guidance. The contents of this draft …

Deference To The Plaintiff In Forum Non Conveniens Cases, Brett Workman

Fordham Law Review

This Note analyzes several cases in an effort to understand why, based on each case’s unique circumstances, the plaintiff’s choice of forum received a particular level of deference. This Note then produces a synthesized list of factors that alter the level of deference a plaintiff’s choice of forum receives under forum non conveniens analysis. An understanding of these factors provides increased predictability as to when a plaintiff’s choice of forum might receive heightened deference under this common law doctrine.

Reviving Reliance, Ann M. Lipton

Fordham Law Review

This Article explores the misalignment between the disclosure requirements of the federal securities laws and the private causes of action available to investors to enforce those requirements. Historically, federally mandated disclosures were designed to allow investors to set an appropriate price for publicly traded securities. Today’s disclosures, however, also enable stockholders to participate in corporate governance and act as a check on managerial misbehavior. To enforce these requirements, investors’ chief option is a claim under the general antifraud statute, section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. But courts are deeply suspicious of investors’ attempts to use the Act …

Restoring Bankruptcy’S Fresh Start, Jonathan S. Hermann

Fordham Law Review

The discharge injunction, which allows former debtors to be free from any efforts to collect former debt, is a primary feature of bankruptcy law in the United States. When creditors have systemically violated debtors’ discharge injunctions, some debtors have attempted to challenge those creditors through a class action lawsuit in bankruptcy court. However, the pervasiveness of class-waiving arbitration clauses likely prevents those debtors from disputing discharge injunction violations outside of binding, individual arbitration. This Note first discusses areas of disagreement regarding how former debtors may enforce their discharge injunctions. Then, it examines the types of disputes that allow debtors to …

Affirming Firm Sanctions: The Authority To Sanction Law Firms Under 28 U.S.C. § 1927, Vincent J. Margiotta

Fordham Law Review

A circuit split exists as to whether 28 U.S.C. § 1927 allows for an award of sanctions against nonattorneys or nonrepresentatives. Five federal courts of appeals—the Second, Third, Eighth, Eleventh, and the District of Columbia Circuits—hold that, to further the purpose of 28 U.S.C. § 1927, courts have the authority to sanction a law firm for the conduct of its attorneys, in addition to the authority to sanction individual officers of the court. The Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits disagree, concluding that the statute allows federal courts to sanction only individuals—“attorney[s] or other person[s] admitted to conduct cases in any …

Busting Up The Pretrial Industry, Andrew S. Pollis

Fordham Law Review

While some argue that “[r]eturning to a trial model would be a significant step toward fulfilling the traditional expectations for the federal courts,” that step backward is unlikely to occur. But I agree that fixes are in order, and I offer two. First, we should consider requiring at least some parties to engage in early settlement evaluation—ideally before extensive discovery gets underway—by submitting cases to summary jury trials and imposing consequences on parties who choose to disregard the results. Second, we should allocate a greater percentage of judicial resources to discovery management through the routine appointment of special masters to …

The Public Believes Predispute Binding Arbitration Clauses Are Unjust: Ethical Implications For Dispute-System Design In The Time Of Vanishing Trials, Victor D. Quintanilla, Alexander B. Avtgis

Fordham Law Review

Drawing on these findings, we discuss the pressing need for a wider ethic that applies to transactional attorneys who design binding arbitration clauses within adhesion contracts. We also draw lessons from behavioral legal ethics and social psychology. These lessons reveal that this wider ethic may be endangered by the situational influences that currently operate within law firms (and in-house) due to these two intersecting patterns. We discuss ways of altering the regulatory environment to encourage the wider ethic to flourish.

Erie Step Zero, Alexander A. Reinert

Fordham Law Review

Courts and commentators have assumed that the Erie doctrine, while originating in diversity cases, applies in all cases whatever the basis for federal jurisdiction. Thus, when a federal court asserts jurisdiction over pendent state law claims through the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction in a federal question case, courts regularly apply the Erie doctrine to resolve conflict between federal and state law. This Article shows why this common wisdom is wrong. To understand why, it is necessary to return to Erie’s goals, elaborated over time by the U.S. Supreme Court. Erie and its progeny are steeped in diversity-driven policy concerns: …

Due Process Without Judicial Process?: Antiadversarialism In American Legal Culture, Norman W. Spaulding

Fordham Law Review

For decades now, American scholars of procedure and legal ethics have remarked upon the death of the jury trial. If jury trial is not in fact dead as an institution for the resolution of disputes, it is certainly “vanishing.” Even in complex litigation, courts tend to facilitate nonadjudicative resolutions—providing sites for aggregation, selection of counsel, fact gathering, and finality (via issue and claim preclusion)—rather than trial on the merits in any conventional sense of the term. In some high-stakes criminal cases and a fraction of civil cases, jury trial will surely continue well into the twenty-first century. Wall-to-wall media coverage …

Lawyers' Ethics Beyond The Vanishing Trial: Unrepresented Claimaints, De Facto Aggregations, Arbitration Mandates, And Privatized Processes, Judith Resnik

Fordham Law Review

Trials are a vivid variable in the world of litigation, as reflected in the title of this colloquium, Civil Litigation Ethics at a Time of Vanishing Trials. The conveners have wisely drawn attention to the disjuncture between legal ethics and today’s litigation world. In this Introduction, I argue that the challenges for lawyers loom larger than those reflected in the declining rate of trials. More facets of contemporary dispute resolution need to be engaged when contemplating the topics and roles that legal ethics need to address in the decades to come.

Busting Up The Pretrial Industry, Andrew S. Pollis

Fordham Law Review

While some argue that “[r]eturning to a trial model would be a significant step toward fulfilling the traditional expectations for the federal courts,” that step backward is unlikely to occur. But I agree that fixes are in order, and I offer two. First, we should consider requiring at least some parties to engage in early settlement evaluation—ideally before extensive discovery gets underway—by submitting cases to summary jury trials and imposing consequences on parties who choose to disregard the results. Second, we should allocate a greater percentage of judicial resources to discovery management through the routine appointment of special masters to …

Restraining Lawyers: From “Cases” To “Tasks”, Morris A. Ratner

Fordham Law Review

These regulatory and market mechanisms for restraining lawyers share a common thread but differ in their purposes, efficacy, and fairness. Despite these differences, the growing intensity of their focus, and their possible amplification of each other, suggest the possibility of the emergence of new professional norms that call on litigators to think more deeply and inclusively about value from the perspective of court and client when making litigation choices.

Closure Provisions In Mdl Settlements, D. Theodore Rave

Fordham Law Review

Closure has value in mass litigation. Defendants often insist on it as a condition of settlement, and plaintiffs who can deliver it may be able to command a premium. But in multidistrict litigation (MDL), which currently makes up over one-third of the federal docket, closure depends on individual claimants deciding to participate in a global settlement. Accordingly, MDL settlement designers often include terms designed to encourage claimants to opt in to the settlement and discourage them from continuing to litigate. Some of these terms have been criticized as unduly coercive and as benefiting the negotiating parties—the defendant and the lead …

Due Process Without Judicial Process?: Antiadversarialism In American Legal Culture, Norman W. Spaulding

Fordham Law Review

For decades now, American scholars of procedure and legal ethics have remarked upon the death of the jury trial. If jury trial is not in fact dead as an institution for the resolution of disputes, it is certainly “vanishing.” Even in complex litigation, courts tend to facilitate nonadjudicative resolutions—providing sites for aggregation, selection of counsel, fact gathering, and finality (via issue and claim preclusion)—rather than trial on the merits in any conventional sense of the term. In some high-stakes criminal cases and a fraction of civil cases, jury trial will surely continue well into the twenty-first century. Wall-to-wall media coverage …

Lawyers' Ethics Beyond The Vanishing Trial: Unrepresented Claimaints, De Facto Aggregations, Arbitration Mandates, And Privatized Processes, Judith Resnik

Fordham Law Review

Trials are a vivid variable in the world of litigation, as reflected in the title of this colloquium, Civil Litigation Ethics at a Time of Vanishing Trials. The conveners have wisely drawn attention to the disjuncture between legal ethics and today’s litigation world. In this Introduction, I argue that the challenges for lawyers loom larger than those reflected in the declining rate of trials. More facets of contemporary dispute resolution need to be engaged when contemplating the topics and roles that legal ethics need to address in the decades to come.

The Public Believes Predispute Binding Arbitration Clauses Are Unjust: Ethical Implications For Dispute-System Design In The Time Of Vanishing Trials, Victor D. Quintanilla, Alexander B. Avtgis

Fordham Law Review

Drawing on these findings, we discuss the pressing need for a wider ethic that applies to transactional attorneys who design binding arbitration clauses within adhesion contracts. We also draw lessons from behavioral legal ethics and social psychology. These lessons reveal that this wider ethic may be endangered by the situational influences that currently operate within law firms (and in-house) due to these two intersecting patterns. We discuss ways of altering the regulatory environment to encourage the wider ethic to flourish.

Restraining Lawyers: From “Cases” To “Tasks”, Morris A. Ratner

Fordham Law Review

These regulatory and market mechanisms for restraining lawyers share a common thread but differ in their purposes, efficacy, and fairness. Despite these differences, the growing intensity of their focus, and their possible amplification of each other, suggest the possibility of the emergence of new professional norms that call on litigators to think more deeply and inclusively about value from the perspective of court and client when making litigation choices.

Closure Provisions In Mdl Settlements, D. Theodore Rave

Fordham Law Review

Closure has value in mass litigation. Defendants often insist on it as a condition of settlement, and plaintiffs who can deliver it may be able to command a premium. But in multidistrict litigation (MDL), which currently makes up over one-third of the federal docket, closure depends on individual claimants deciding to participate in a global settlement. Accordingly, MDL settlement designers often include terms designed to encourage claimants to opt in to the settlement and discourage them from continuing to litigate. Some of these terms have been criticized as unduly coercive and as benefiting the negotiating parties—the defendant and the lead …

Erie Step Zero, Alexander A. Reinert

Fordham Law Review

Courts and commentators have assumed that the Erie doctrine, while originating in diversity cases, applies in all cases whatever the basis for federal jurisdiction. Thus, when a federal court asserts jurisdiction over pendent state law claims through the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction in a federal question case, courts regularly apply the Erie doctrine to resolve conflict between federal and state law. This Article shows why this common wisdom is wrong. To understand why, it is necessary to return to Erie’s goals, elaborated over time by the U.S. Supreme Court. Erie and its progeny are steeped in diversity-driven policy concerns: …

The Sixteenth Annual Albert A. Destefano Lecture On Corporate, Securities & Financial Law At The Fordham Corporate Law Center, Sean J. Griffith, The Honorable Andre G. Bouchard

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Threatening Litigation, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ad Hoc Procedure, Pamela K. Bookman, David L. Noll

Faculty Scholarship

Ad hoc procedure” seems like an oxymoron. A traditional model of the civil justice system depicts courts deciding cases using impartial procedures that are defined in advance of specific disputes. This model reflects a process-based account of the rule of law in which the process through which laws are made helps to ensure that lawmakers act in the public interest. Judgments produced using procedures promulgated in advance of specific disputes are legitimate because they are the product of fair rules of play designed in a manner that is the opposite of ad hoc.

Actual litigation frequently reveals the inadequacy of …

Do The Second Circuit’S Legal Standards On Class Certification Incentivize Forum Shopping?: A Comparative Analysis Of The Second Circuit’S Class Certification Jurisprudence, Shrey Sharma

Fordham Law Review

The Class Action Fairness Act altered the jurisdictional landscape of class actions by relaxing the barriers to satisfying diversity jurisdiction in federal court. As a result, plaintiffs’ attorneys frequently find themselves filing class actions in federal court, and face the critical question of where to initiate their lawsuit. Many plaintiffs’ attorneys consider the favorability of legal standards when determining the forum in which to file their class action. Among other substantive and procedural considerations, the applicable class certification standards of the forum are an important forum selection factor. The Second Circuit, in particular, is a forum that plaintiffs’ attorneys might …