Torts Commons^™

Litigation Governance: A Gentle Critique Of The Third Circuit Task Force Report, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The Third Circuit Task Force on the Selection of Class Counsel (the "Task Force") has worked hard, considered everything, and exhaustively summarized the problems associated with class counsel auctions. Its views will undoubtedly resonate with most of the Bench and the vast majority of the Bar-neither of whom were enthusiastic about the prospect of auctions in the first place. Personally, I agree with the Task Force that auctions are not the most promising reform and that they may exacerbate, rather than correct, existing problems. Still, what is missing from the Task Force Report is the candid recognition that the agency …

What's Half A Lung Worth? Civil Jurors' Accounts Of Their Award Decision Making, Nicole L. Mott, Valerie P. Hans, Lindsay Simpson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Jury awards are often criticized as being arbitrary and excessive. This paper speaks to that controversy, reporting data from interviews with civil jurors' accounts of the strategies that juries use and the factors that they consider in arriving at a collective award. Jurors reported difficulty in deciding on awards, describing it as "the hardest part" of jury service and were surprised the court did not provide more guidance to them. Relatively few jurors entered the jury deliberation room with a specified award figure in mind. Once in the deliberation room, however, they reported discussing a variety of relevant factors such …

Intervention In Public Law Litigation: The Environmental Paradigm, Peter A. Appel

Scholarly Works

Litigation which Chayes labeled “public law litigation” grew especially quickly in the decade immediately before Chayes wrote his article. This growth was due, in no small part, to the 1966 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. These amendments introduced a more transactional approach to litigation and made the rules concerning party structure more flexible. In particular, the amendments modified Rule 19, which governs joinder of nonparties by the parties to the suit; Rule 23, which governs class action lawsuits; and Rule 24, which governs intervention by nonparties into ongoing litigation. Using the jurisprudence that has developed concerning intervention …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 1999 and 2000.

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 1999 and 2000.

Aggregation And Settlement Of Mass Torts, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

It is the way of symposia that, after conveners assign topics for discussion, participants interpret those topics to cover subjects that interest themselves. I understand my assignment to be discussion of "nonbankruptcy closure" and "settlement." The Judicial Conference Working Group on Mass Torts suggests possible approaches that might facilitate closure of mass tort claims by litigation or by settlement! This paper will explore two models prepared to illustrate the challenges that confront any approach to fair and efficient closure. The first model is the "All-Encompassing Model," while the second is a draft of settlement-class provisions for Federal Rule of Civil …

Aggregation And Settlement Of Mass Torts, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

The following essay is the pre-editing draft of the introduction to a paper delivered at a Mass Torts conference held at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in November 1999. Thc conference grew out of the work of the ad hoc Mass Torts Working Group that on February 15, 1999, delivered a Report to the Chief Justice of the United States and the judicial Conference of the United States. The Working Group, chaired by Third Circuit Judge Anthony J. Scirica, '65, included members drawn from several Judicial Conference committees, including the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, …

The Bad News About Good Faith For Excess Um Carriers, Robert L. Tucker

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Hindsight Bias And Tort Liability: Avoiding Premature Conclusions, Philip G. Peters Jr.

Faculty Publications

Cognitive psychologists know that judgments made in hindsight are distorted by two cognitive heuristics-hindsight bias and outcome bias. Hindsight bias makes bad outcomes seem more predictable in hindsight than they were ex ante. Outcome bias induces us to assume that people who cause accidents have been careless. Because of these biases, individuals who know that a bad outcome has occurred tend to evaluate prior conduct more harshly than they would if they were unaware of the actual outcome. In negligence actions, defendants are supposed to be judged by the reasonableness of their conduct, not by its outcome. Jurors are asked …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance law in the year 1998-1999.

Civil Procedure: Exclusion Of Injured Or Disfigured Plaintiffs From Trial-- Cary V. Oneok, Inc. --A Solution To The Exclusion Issue Or Bad Precedent?, Kristy Freeman

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deposed Parties: Who Has A Right To Access Depositions In Civil Cases?, Robert L. Tucker

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Measuring The Deterrent Effect Of Punitive Damages, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Professor Viscusi's article differs from the dominant mode of law and economics scholarship on punitive damages. The usual punitive damages article contains purely theoretical considerations about when punitive damages are appropriate and about their optimal level; no effort is made to ascertain whether the existing pattern of punitive awards corresponds with the theory. This is part of a larger problem: the dearth of empirical evidence in law and economics scholarship. Viscusi, on the other hand, provides empirical tests of whether punitive damages accomplish their goals, and he makes creative use of publicly available data sources. For the goal of his …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in years 1998 and 1999.

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance law in the year 1998.

Conflicts Consent And Allocation After Amchem Products – Or Why Attorneys Still Need Consent To Give Away Their Clients' Money, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

If it was the goal of Silver and Baker to write a provocative article, they have succeeded. They ask probing questions; they are appropriately scornful of superficial answers; and they seek to relate their view of legal ethics to what they perceive to be the prevailing standards in the legal marketplace. All this is good. They also usefully focus on an underappreciated dichotomy: the ethical rules governing aggregated settlements in consensual litigation versus the rules applicable in aggregated nonconsensual litigation (i.e., class actions). Essentially, they argue that the rules in both contexts should be the same or very similar, the …

Industrial Espionage As Unfair Competition, Robert L. Tucker

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Oregon Trial Practice, Oregon Law Institute, William Gaylord, Robert A. Shlachter, Janet Lee Hoffman, Robert J. Neuberger, Billy M. Sime, Gregory R. Mowe, David B. Markowitz, Bruce C. Hamlin

Oregon Law Institute, 1997

Course Materials from the April 11, 1997 Program in Portland

Class Action Chaos? The Theory Of The Core And An Analysis Of Opt-Out Rights In Mass Tort Class Actions, Michael A. Perino

Faculty Publications

From breast implants to cigarettes, mass tort class actions are a prominent and controversial part of the contemporary litigation landscape. A critical component of these actions is the ability of class members to “opt out” and thereby exclude themselves from the effect of any class judgment. The tension between individual autonomy and the desire for global resolution of mass controversies has led to an intense debate concerning the circumstances under which opt-out rights should be constrained, if at all.

This Article makes five distinct contributions to the class action literature. First, the Article applies the game theoretic concept of the …

"And The Truth Shall Make You Free": Truth As A First Amendment Defense In Tortious Interference With Contract Cases, Robert L. Tucker

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Local Government Land Use Law: Tort And Mandamus Issues, Oregon Law Institute, David A. Ernst, Michael C. Robinson, Timothy V. Ramis, James H. Van Dyke, Michael A. Holstun, Richard Whitman, Edward J. Sullivan, Jeffrey G. Condit, James R. Herald, Wendie L. Kellington, John H. Nelson

Oregon Law Institute, 1996

Course Materials from the March 8, 1996 Program in Portland

Jane Doe, On Behalf Of Herself And All Others Similarly Situated: Radovan Karadzic In United States District Court, Susan L. Ronn

Seattle University Law Review

In perhaps the only method available to respond with power to the horrors of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Muslim women turned to a United States court for redress under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) The district court denied jurisdiction. This Article examines the opinion of the United States District Court in Doe v. Karadzic and concludes that Jane Doe and all others similarly situated should find redress in the courts of the United States for the brutalities inflicted upon them. Federal courts should not interpret the ATCA and the TVPA so narrowly …

The Flexible Doctrine Of Spoliation Of Evidence; Cause Of Action, Defense, Evidentiary Presumption And Discovery Sanction, Robert L. Tucker

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Vexatious Litigation As Unfair Competition And The Applicability Of The Noerr-Pennington Doctrine, Robert L. Tucker

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Individualized Justice, Mass Torts, And "Settlement Class Actions": An Introduction, Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Corruption Of The Class Action: The New Technology Of Collusion, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Coffee's article, an oral version of which was given at the Cornell Mass Torts conference, is appearing in the Columbia Law Review. However, because commentators in this volume have responded to it, he has authorized the following summary of his views.

In Re Vtwm And Other Similarly Situated Youth, 94-Ap-24 (Blkft. Tr. Ct. App., Oct. 27, 1994), Blackfeet Appellate Court

Blackfeet Tribe

In the Blackfeet Tribal Court of Appeals, the Court granted a Writ of Habeas Corpus, on behalf of several incarcerated youth. The Court reasoned that resolution 254-93 did not repeal Ch. 7 of the Blackfeet Law and Order Code nor did the resolution enact a new Juvenile Code as law. Under the then Juvenile Code, detention of juveniles beyond their initial order of detainment, without a properly filed petition for further detainment, was unlawful. The Juveniles rights were violated by not holding a hearing each time detention order was granted.

Perceptions Of Civil Justice: The Litigation Crisis Attitudes Of Civil Jurors, Valerie P. Hans, William S. Lofquist

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Public perceptions that the civil justice system is in crisis are apparently widespread, but little is known about the causes or correlates of such views. This article analyzes the litigation crisis attitudes of a sample of civil jurors. Like the public, jurors endorsed a number of statements suggesting that there is a litigation crisis. Factor analysis identified two independent components: general concern over excessive litigation, and criticism of the civil jury. Litigation crisis views were found in all demographic and attitudinal subgroups. However, attitudes about the civil justice system were related to the respondent's political efficacy, claims consciousness, belief in …

Joinder Of Tort Claims In Divorce Actions, Barbara Glesner Fines

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Looking Out For Mary Carter: Collusive Settlement Agreements In Washington Tort Litigation, J. Michael Philips

Washington Law Review

Courts and commentators disagree as to the propriety of Mary Carter agreements, pseudo-settlement devices used in multiparty litigation that unite the interests of a plaintiff and a cooperating defendant, and maintain that defendant's presence at trial. Most courts tolerate these arrangements provided that they are disclosed, while a distinct minority render them void. Washington courts have not espoused a definite position, although recent decisions suggest a tolerant stance. This Comment argues that the use of Mary Carters is inconsistent with Washington tort law, and that Washington courts should therefore prohibit them entirely. This may be accomplished by treating all Mary …