Addressing The Empty Chair: A Standard For The Sufficiency Notices Of Nonparty Fault,
2022
West Virginia University College of Law
Addressing The Empty Chair: A Standard For The Sufficiency Notices Of Nonparty Fault, Mckenna Meadows
West Virginia Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Anomalous Issue Class,
2022
Fordham University School of Law
The Anomalous Issue Class, Veniamin Privalov
Fordham Law Review Online
The modern class action is a litigation superstar. The device’s potential for opening the courthouse doors to “small people,” holding big business accountable, and enacting sweeping reform is second to none. In recent years, however, the star has waned. Judicial hostility has made it harder for plaintiffs to certify a class while making it easier for defendants to avoid class actionsentirely. Certifying a mass tort class has become nearly impossible. Plaintiff lawyers’ creative attempts to work around these roadblocks have been shut down one after another by the Supreme Court. It is in this scorched mass litigation landscape that ...
Court Mandated Technology-Assisted Review In E-Discovery: Changes In Proportionality, Cost-Shifting, And Spoliation,
2022
Fordham University School of Law
Court Mandated Technology-Assisted Review In E-Discovery: Changes In Proportionality, Cost-Shifting, And Spoliation, Graham Streich
Fordham Law Review Online
Burgeoning advanced technology-assisted review (TAR) methods challenge justifications for requesting parties’ burdens and litigant cooperation in e-discovery. Increasingly accurate and accessible TAR introduces novel issues in e-discovery, including determining the proportionality of discovery requests and managing information in spoliation cases. This Essay recommends reconsidering the judiciary’s role in e-discovery in light of new technology and argues that courts, particularly lower courts, need expert technical guidance to adequately address the issues e-discovery presents.
Recording Virtual Justice: Cameras In The Digital Courtroom,
2022
Fordham University School of Law
Recording Virtual Justice: Cameras In The Digital Courtroom, Matthew Bultman
Fordham Law Review Online
With in-person hearings limited during the COVID-19 pandemic, many courts pivoted to proceedings held over the telephone or on virtual platforms like Zoom. It appears these proceedings are here to stay, with various benefits having been realized from remote access to the courts. Remote hearings have, however, given rise to constitutional questions. This Essay focuses on one emerging issue: courts’ ability to prohibit the press and the public from recording or disseminating these proceedings. While the constitutionality of recording and broadcasting restrictions inside the real-world courtroom is established, little consideration was given to the extension of these rules to the ...
Examination Of Eviction Filings In Lancaster County, Nebraska, 2019–2021,
2022
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Examination Of Eviction Filings In Lancaster County, Nebraska, 2019–2021, Ryan Sullivan
College of Law, Faculty Publications
The study examined and analyzed eviction filings and proceedings in Nebraska, with a specific focus on Lancaster County—the home to the State’s capital, Lincoln. The primary objective of this study is to place eviction proceedings under a microscope to gain a better understanding of the volume of evictions in Nebraska, and whether the statutorily mandated processes are being followed. The study also attempts to capture the impact of certain external factors present during the period examined. Such factors include the COVID-19 pandemic and various eviction moratoria in place during 2020 and 2021, as well as the increased availability ...
The Federal Rules Of Pro Se Procedure,
2022
University of Florida Levin College of Law
The Federal Rules Of Pro Se Procedure, Andrew Hammond
Fordham Law Review
In recent years, more than a quarter of all federal civil cases were filed by people without legal representation. Yet, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure refer to pro se litigants only once, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not considered in over a decade the question of what process is due to unrepresented civil litigants. Many judicial opinions in these cases go unpublished, and many are never appealed. Instead, the task of developing rules for pro se parties has taken place inside our federal district courts, whose piecemeal and largely unnoticed local rulemaking governs thousands of such litigants ...
The Impending Collision Of Smart Contracts And The Automatic Stay,
2022
Candidate for Juris Doctor, Notre Dame Law School 2022
The Impending Collision Of Smart Contracts And The Automatic Stay, Carter D. Wietecha
Notre Dame Law Review
This Note begins by briefly examining the nature and function of smart contracts, including how they have changed over time. Next, it evaluates the relevant language of Code provisions dealing with the automatic stay and discusses decisions treating the interaction of early generation smart contracts with the automatic stay. It concludes with a discussion of how the Supreme Court’s recent decision in City of Chicago v. Fulton has significantly changed the legal landscape for smart contracts and how the automatic stay will likely interact with smart contracts in the near future.
The Mother Of Exiles Is Abandoning Her Children: The Systemic Failure To Protect Unaccompanied Minors Arriving At Our Borders,
2022
St. Mary's University School of Law
The Mother Of Exiles Is Abandoning Her Children: The Systemic Failure To Protect Unaccompanied Minors Arriving At Our Borders, Rosa M. Peterson
The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice
Unaccompanied minors arrive at the United States border every day. Many brought by the hope of finding a life lived without fear, a luxury many United States citizens take for granted. Their truths become the barriers and shackles which keep them in detention centers and unaccompanied minor facilities throughout the United States; children find their very words wielded as weapons against them in immigration court. Words often spoken to therapists in perceived confidence, during counseling sessions. This practice is a systemic failure to protect unaccompanied minors arriving at our borders who are seeking protection and help. The United States was ...
Confidentiality, Warning And Aids: A Proposal To Protect Patients, Third Parties And Physicians,
2022
Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
Confidentiality, Warning And Aids: A Proposal To Protect Patients, Third Parties And Physicians
Touro Law Review
No abstract provided.
Presuit Civil Protective Orders On Discovery,
2022
northern illinois university college of law
Presuit Civil Protective Orders On Discovery, Jeffrey A. Parness
Georgia State University Law Review
There are few civil procedure laws broadly authorizing trial courts in the United States to consider presuit requests seeking protection from discovery sanctions or spoliation claims in later civil actions. There should be more laws on presuit protective orders addressing information maintenance, preservation, and production.
New presuit protective order laws are most apt where there have been demands by potential adversaries involving alleged information preservation duties under civil discovery laws or under substantive spoliation laws; where the recipients have strong reasons to secure early judicial clarifications; and where the availability and use of presuit protective orders will serve both private ...
Service By Publication: A Modern Alternative,
2022
Mercer University School of Law
Service By Publication: A Modern Alternative, Darrell L. Sutton, Samuel M. Lyon
Mercer Law Review
Service is perhaps the most basic practice of law imaginable. All plaintiffs must serve, and all defendants must be served, for a case to proceed forward. Without service, there is no case to settle—no legal battle to wage.
According to the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law[.]” Colloquially known as the Due Process Clause, this phrase has significant implications for the pendency of actions against defendants, and in particular, how those defendants are served. While “traditional” service methods, such as personal service ...
Acid Rain: Detoxifying Diversity Jurisdiction’S Poisonous Cycle,
2022
Brigham Young University
Acid Rain: Detoxifying Diversity Jurisdiction’S Poisonous Cycle, Baerett Nelson, Gavyn Roedel
Brigham Young University Prelaw Review
Diversity jurisdiction authorizes federal courts to act as impartial tribunals over certain matters of state law. To preserve states' judicial sovereignty, the US Supreme Court has prohibited diversity courts from directly interpreting state law, holding that federal courts must "predict" the legal outcome as if a state court had adjudicated. However, litigant abuse hinders consistency in legal outcomes. Discrepancies between courts spur forum shopping, which cyclically generates more legal incongruence. This paper identifies a "toxic cycle" plaguing diversity jurisdiction and offers five prescriptions which courts and Congress must use to reverse it.
How Class Action Fees Work In The Eleventh Circuit,
2022
Mercer University School of Law
How Class Action Fees Work In The Eleventh Circuit, Jeffrey G. Casurella
Mercer Law Review
Litigating the reasonableness of attorney’s fees in a Federal Rule 23 class action is no picnic. Usually, payment of legal fees is set from a contractual arrangement between attorney and client. That is often quick and easy. Conversely, payment of class action legal fees is set by a district court. That process can be drawn out and labor intensive. In this latter situation, a district court must be persuaded, ultimately, that the amount of the award is reasonable. But what does “reasonable” mean? It is a tricky question—class action math always is—and litigating it can become contact ...
Substituted Service And The Hague Service Convention,
2022
William & Mary Law School
Substituted Service And The Hague Service Convention, William S. Dodge
William & Mary Law Review
State law plays a surprisingly large role in transnational litigation, and how it defines the applicability of the Hague Service Convention is an important example. In Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Schlunk, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Convention does not apply when, under state law, service of process is made within the United States. In Schlunk, Illinois law permitted substituted service on the U.S. subsidiary of a foreign parent company, so the Convention did not apply. This Article looks at substituted service under state law today and when it permits avoidance of the Hague Convention. The Article focuses ...
Jury Nullification As A Spectrum,
2022
Pepperdine University
Jury Nullification As A Spectrum, Richard Lorren Jolly
Pepperdine Law Review
Jury nullification traditionally refers to the jury’s power to deliver a verdict that is deliberately contrary to the law’s clearly dictated outcome. A spirited scholarship is built around this conception, with some painting nullification as democratic and others as anarchic. But this debate is largely unmoored from experience. In practice, courts have formally eliminated the jury’s authority to review the law and have established procedures that make it easier to prevent and overturn seemingly nullificatory verdicts. Thus, outside of a jury’s verdict acquitting a criminal defendant, jury nullification as traditionally understood does not exist. In no ...
Class Action Boundaries,
2022
University of Chicago Law School
Class Action Boundaries, Daniel Wilf-Townsend
Fordham Law Review
In recent years, some judges have begun doubting—and at times denying— their jurisdiction in class actions whose membership crosses state lines. This doubt has followed from the U.S. Supreme Court’s significant tightening of personal jurisdiction doctrine, which has led many to argue that courts no longer have jurisdiction over the claims of unnamed class members unless those claims have some independent relationship with the forum state. Such an argument raises foundational questions about due process and federalism, and has significant implications for the size, location, and feasibility of many class actions. This Article argues that what it ...
State Spoliation Claims In Federal District Courts,
2022
Northern Illinois University College of Law
State Spoliation Claims In Federal District Courts, Jeffrey A. Parness
Catholic University Law Review
The increasing amounts of electronically stored information (ESI) relevant to civil litigation, and the ease of their loss, caused federal lawmakers explicitly to address the possible consequences of certain pre-suit or post-suit ESI losses. These lawmakers acted in both 2006 and 2015 through Federal Civil Procedure (FRCP) 37(e). But they acted only on certain ESI. Their actions have prompted increasing attention to the significant risks of pre-suit and post-suit losses of all ESI, and of non-ESI, otherwise discoverable in civil actions. In addition, their actions have spurred increasing attention to the availability of substantive law claims involving spoliation of ...
Reply Or Perish: The Federal Rule
83(A)(1) Problem With Local Rules
Requiring Responses To 12(B)(6) Motions,
2022
Fordham University School of Law
Reply Or Perish: The Federal Rule 83(A)(1) Problem With Local Rules Requiring Responses To 12(B)(6) Motions, Alexis Pawlowski
Fordham Law Review
The federal courts of appeals are divided over whether district courts have the legal authority to grant Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss solely for lack of reply pursuant to local rules requiring responses to motions. Seven circuits hold that district courts must always consider the merits of an unopposed Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. However, the First and D.C. Circuits allow district courts to dismiss Rule 12(b)(6) motions for lack of response pursuant to local rules in certain circumstances. The majority view is that the use of these local ...
Clouded Precedent: Tandon V. Newsom And Its Implications For The Shadow Docket,
2022
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
Clouded Precedent: Tandon V. Newsom And Its Implications For The Shadow Docket, Alexander Gouzoules
Buffalo Law Review
The Supreme Court’s “shadow docket”—the decisions issued outside its procedures for deciding cases on the merits—has drawn increasing attention and criticism from scholars, commentators, and elected representatives. Shadow docket decisions have been criticized on the grounds that they are made without the benefit of full briefing and argument, and because their abbreviated, per curiam opinions can be difficult for lower courts to interpret.
A spate of shadow docket decisions in the context of free-exercise challenges to COVID-19 public health orders culminated in Tandon v. Newsom, a potentially groundbreaking decision that may upend longstanding doctrines governing claims brought ...
Rethinking The Process Of Service Of Process,
2022
St. Mary's University School of Law
Rethinking The Process Of Service Of Process, Mary K. Bonilla
St. Mary's Law Journal
Even as technology evolves, Federal Rule 4, remains stagnate without a mechanism directly providing for electronic service of process in federal courts. Federal Rule 4(e)(1) allows service through the use of state law—consequently permitting any state-approved electronic service methods—so long as the federal court where proceedings will occur, or the place where service is made, is located within the state supplying the law. Accordingly, this Comment explains that presently Federal Rule 4 indirectly permits electronic service of process in some states, but not others, despite all fifty states utilizing the same federal court system. With states ...