Litigation Commons^™

Aggregation, Community, And The Line Between, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

As class-action theorists, we sometimes focus so heavily on the class certification threshold that we neglect to reassess the line itself. The current line asks whether procedurally aggregated individuals form a sufficiently cohesive group before the decision to sue. Given this symposium’s topic - the state of aggregate litigation and the boundaries of class actions in the decade after Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor and Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp. - the time is ripe to challenge our assumptions about this line in non-class aggregation. Accordingly, this Article examines group cohesion and asks whether the current line is the only dividing …

John Paul Stevens And Equally Impartial Government, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

This article is the second publication arising out of the author's ongoing research respecting Justice John Paul Stevens. It is one of several published by former law clerks and other legal experts in the UC Davis Law Review symposium edition, Volume 43, No. 3, February 2010, "The Honorable John Paul Stevens."

The article posits that Justice Stevens's embrace of race-conscious measures to ensure continued diversity stands in tension with his early rejections of affirmative action programs. The contrast suggests a linear movement toward a progressive interpretation of the Constitution’s equality guarantee; however, examination of Stevens's writings in biographical context reveal …

A Mock Terrorism Application Of The P300-Based Concealed Information Test, John B. Meixner Jr., J. Peter Rosenfeld

Scholarly Works

Previous studies examining the P300-based concealed information test typically tested for mock crime or autobiographical details, but no studies have used this test in a counterterrorism scenario. Subjects in the present study covertly planned a mock terrorist attack on a major city. They were then given three separate blocks of concealed information testing, examining for knowledge of the location, method, and date of the planned terrorist attack, using the Complex Trial Protocol (Rosenfeld et al., 2008). With prior knowledge of the probe items, we detected 12/12 guilty subjects as having knowledge of the planned terrorist attack with no false positives …

Should A Statement Of Interest Matter?: Judging Executive Branch Foreign Policy Concerns, Catherine H. Curlet

Georgia Law Review

Since the enactment of the Constitution, scholars have fiercely debated the question of the appropriate balance between the branches of the federal government in matters of foreign affairs. Recently, the Supreme Court set forth some guidelines for striking this balance between the Executive and the Judicial Branches in litigation implicating foreign affairs,yet the guidelines leave much of this debate unresolved. A cross-section of recent appellate court decisions illustrates how lower courts have filled in these gaps when assessing how much deference to give an Executive's Statement of Interest filed in cases concerning foreign affairs. This Note extracts from these cases …

Lumpkin And Chattahoochee Inns Of Court Members, 2009, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

A New Way Forward: A Response To Judge Weinstein, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

This short essay responds to Judge Jack Weinstein's essay, Preliminary Reflections on Administration of Complex Litigations, 2009 Cardozo De Novo 1. In so doing, it also provides a condensed version of my earlier article, Litigating Groups, which analyzes group dynamics within nonclass aggregation. By drawing on the literature of moral and political philosophy as well as social psychology, I contend that, in the face of hard cases, of instability and disunity, plaintiffs who have made promises and assurances to one another can invoke social norms of promise-keeping, social agglomeration, compatibility, and the desire for means-end coherence to achieve consensus, mitigate …

Litigating Groups, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Large-scale litigation, such as the Vioxx, Zyprexa, and asbestos cases, breeds conflict. Conflicts arise between attorneys and their clients (agency problems), plaintiffs and other plaintiffs (group problems), and plaintiffs' attorneys and other plaintiffs' attorneys (competition problems). Although these cases cannot be certified as class actions, they still proceed en masse to achieve economies of scale and present a credible threat to defendants. Assuming that coordinating and consolidating large-scale litigation is systemically desirable, this Article explores a new approach to removing the group and agency problems that increase aggregate litigation's costs and undermine its normative goals such as fairness, compensation, and …

Securities Class Actions As Pragmatic Ex Post Regulation, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Securities class actions are on the chopping block-again. Traditional commentators continue to view class actions with suspicion; they see class suits as nonmeritorious byproducts of self-interest and the attorneys who bring them as rent-seekers. Their conventional approach has popularized securities class actions' negative effects. High-profile commissions capitalizing on this rhetoric, such as the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, have recently recommended eliminating or severely curtailing securities class actions. But this approach misses the point: in the ongoing push and pull of securities regulation, corporations are winning the battle.

Thus, understanding the full picture and texture of securities class actions necessitates …

Cafa's Impact On Litigation As A Public Good, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Class actions regulate when government fails. Perhaps this use as an ex post remedy when ex ante regulation founders explains the fervor and rhetoric surrounding Rule 23's political life. In truth, the class action does more than aggregate; it augments government policing and generates external societal benefits. These societal benefits - externalities - are the spillover effects from facilitating small claims litigation. In federalizing class actions through the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), Congress, in some ways, impeded class action practice, thereby negating its positive externalities and inhibiting backdoor regulation. This Article critically considers those effects on the common good. …

Mock Trial Executive Board And Teams, 2008-09, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Moot Court Executive Board, Teams And Coaches, 2008-09, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

National Order Of Barristers 2007, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Of Frivolous Litigation And Runaway Juries: A View From The Bench, Thomas A. Eaton

Scholarly Works

The political case for tort reform is based in large measure on the perception that there are too many frivolous law suits and too many excessive jury awards. Where there is considerable empirical evidence casting doubt on both these propositions, they remain the linchpins of the tort reform movement. Scholars, lobbyists, and legislators all have had a voice in the tort reform debates. The viewpoints of trial judges, however, have been largely absent. This is unfortunate because trial judges are the government officials with the closest view of the tort litigation system. They are the ones who see tort litigation …

Reassessing Damages In Securities Fraud Class Actions, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

No coherent doctrinal statement exists for calculating open-market damages for securities fraud class actions. Instead, courts have tried in vain to fashion common-law deceit and misrepresentation remedies to fit open-market fraud. The result is a relatively ineffective system with a hallmark feature: unpredictable damage awards. This poses a significant fraud deterrence problem from both a practical and a theoretical standpoint.

In 2005, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to clarify open-market damage principles and to facilitate earlier dismissal of cases without compensable economic losses. Instead, in Dura Pharmaceuticals v. Broudo, it further confused the damage issue by (1) perpetuating the …

Joseph Henry Lumpkin Inn Of Court Team Members 2007-2008, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Moot Court Executive Board, Teams And Coaches, 2007-08, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Moot Court Teams 2006-2007, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Joseph Henry Lumpkin Inn Of Court Team Members 2006-2007, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

National Order Of Barristers 2006, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Mock Trial Team Members 2006-2007, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Moot Court Executive Board And Teams 2005-2006, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Dramatic Moments In The Pursuit Of Justice, Ronald L. Carlson

Presentations and Speeches

Callaway Chair of Law Emeritus Ronald L. Carlson talks about significant turning points in several high profile cases at the University of Georgia's annual Founders' Day Lecture.

Joseph Henry Lumpkin Inn Of Court Team Members 2005-2006, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Mock Trial Team Members 2005-2006, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Moot Court Executive Board And Teams 2004-2005, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Georgia General Assembly Adopts "Manifest Disregard" As A Ground For Vacating Arbitration Awards: How Will Georgia Courts Treat The New Standard?, John W. Hinchey, Thomas V. Burch

Scholarly Works

Generally, courts may only set aside arbitration awards on the grounds listed in the Federal Arbitration Act or the applicable state arbitration code. However, all federal circuit courts and a few state courts have adopted a non-statutory exception that allows a court to overturn an arbitrator's decision if the arbitrator has exemplified a "manifest disregard" of the law.

In 2002, after several years of tentative lower court decisions, the Georgia Supreme Court, in Progressive Data Systems v. Jefferson Holding Corporation, held that manifest disregard is not a proper ground for vacatur in Georgia. The court emphasized that Georgia's Arbitration Code …

Joseph Henry Lumpkin Inn Of Court Team Members 2004-2005, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Mock Trial Team Members 2004-2005, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

National Order Of Barristers 2004, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Local Government Liability Litigation: Numerical Nuances, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Georgia local government law not only encompasses a forbidding substantive expanse; it occupies a dominating presence before the Georgia appellate courts. Those courts are called to resolve all manner of litigation erupting from citizen exposure to government at its first level. The controversies feature issues both recurring and unique; they represent nothing less than the essence of law in daily life. An annual effort to chronicle those controversies over a good number of years reveals two (among many) distinct facets. First, local government liability has consistently dwarfed all other litigated issues; and second, this pervading characteristic emits no signs of …