Civil Procedure Commons^™

Aligning Incentives And Cost Allocation In Discovery, Jonathan R. Nash, Joanna M. Shepherd

Faculty Articles

Recent proposals to revise Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 to incorporate cost allocation of discovery have sparked considerable controversy. Advocates for reform argue that replacing the long-standing “producer-pays” presumption with something more akin to a “requester-pays” rule would better align economic incentives and reduce litigants’ ability to wield discovery as an instrument to force settlement. Opponents argue that such a reform would limit access to justice by saddling requesters with an ex ante burden of funding the opposition’s discovery.

In this Article, we explain that either a rule requiring both parties to share the costs of discovery (“cost-sharing rule”) …

The Scc's Dilemma: What To Do With Interveners?, Richard Haigh

Articles & Book Chapters

At a conference in 2016, Osgoode Hall Law School Dean Lorne Sossin made the following offhand comment: “I think it is possible to tell the most important Supreme Court of Canada cases by the number of interveners that were involved.” I assume what he meant--and granted, it was somewhat tongue in cheek--that the more interveners there are in a case, the more important the case.

The comment intrigued me. Is it true? It is such a simple proposition. Intuitively, it seems right: more parties would wish to involve themselves in those cases that have larger impacts, or that represent more …

Introduction: Reflections On The Future Of Discovery In Civil Cases, Paul W. Grimm

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Common Sense On Standards Of Proof, Kevin M. Clermont

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The law speaks clearly on the standards of proof, but listeners often misunderstand its words. This article tries, with some common sense and a modicum of multivalent logic, to explain how the law expects its standards to be applied, and then to show how the law thereby avoids such complications as the conjunction paradox.

First, in accordance with belief function theory, the factfinder should start at zero belief. Given imperfect evidence, the factfinder will end up retaining a fair amount of uncommitted belief. As evidence comes in, though, the factfinder will form a belief in the truth of the disputed …

Defense Against The Dark Arts Of Copyright Trolling, Matthew Sag, Jake Haskell

Faculty Publications & Other Works

In this Article, we offer both a legal and a pragmatic framework for defending against copyright trolls. Lawsuits alleging online copyright infringement by John Doe defendants have accounted for roughly half of all copyright cases filed in the United States over the past three years. In the typical case, the plaintiff's claims of infringement rely on a poorly substantiated form pleading and are targeted indiscriminately at noninfringers as well as infringers. This practice is a subset of the broader problem of opportunistic litigation, but it persists due to certain unique features of copyright law and the technical complexity of Internet …

Civil Procedure: You've Been Served . . . Or Have You?—Jaeger V. Palladium Holdings, Gus Cochran

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keeping Up With Your Sister Court: Unpublished Memorandums, No-Citation Rules, And The Superior Court Of Pennsylvania, Logan Hetherington

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

As Pennsylvania’s intermediate appellate court of general jurisdiction, the Pennsylvania Superior Court decides thousands of cases each year. The vast majority of those cases are disposed of via unpublished memorandums. These unpublished memorandums are designated as non-precedential and may not be cited by parties before the Superior Court. As a result, litigants and their counsel may not even persuasively cite an unpublished memorandum in briefs or other papers submitted to the Court. Thus, if counsel finds an unpublished memorandum deciding the identical issue of the case at hand and counsel is before the Superior Court judge who authored that opinion, …

Using Electronic Monitoring To Enhance The Protection Offered By Civil Protection Orders In Cases Of Domestic Violence: A New Technology Offers New Protection, Nicole Allaband

Law Student Publications

"Domestic violence is a widespread epidemic in the United States. Each year, between 1.8 and 4 million domestic violence incidents are reported. One in three women will experience some form of domestic violence in her lifetime. Civil protection orders (also known as protection from abuse orders or restraining orders) are a common remedy employed by the courts to prevent future violence and protect survivors of domestic violence. These orders can be tailored to fit the circumstances, but frequently include no contact provisions. However, no contact provisions can be difficult to enforce because the abuser is usually intimately familiar with the …

Narrative-Erasing Procedure, Anne E. Ralph

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Clash Of Procedural Values, Roger Michalski

Faculty Articles

Should civil litigation be fast, inexpensive or accurate? When these goals clash, which one should prevail? These questions are the subject of countless court opinions, policy arguments, academic debates, and civil procedure exams. Yet discussion of procedural values to date has taken place in the dark, lacking vital information about which procedural values matter to actual litigants. This Article fills that void with empirical analysis. It analyzes an original dataset based on 1200 surveys mailed to a broad range of litigants and judges asking for their views on procedural values. It interprets survey responses by introducing to legal scholarship a …

2017 Survey Of Rhode Island Law: Cases And Public Laws Of Note

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Re Trulia: Revisited And Revitalized, Emma Weiss

Law Student Publications

"After an escalation in deal litigation that culminated with challenges to 95% of $100,000,000 deals, merger objection litigation that ends in disclosure-only settlements has become a topic of great concern. These cases are concerning because it seems implausible that 95% of all mergers are executed carelessly. The problematic cases all follow a similar pattern. When a merger is announced, multiple shareholder plaintiffs challenge the transaction in multiple jurisdictions. Plaintiffs and corporate defendants then quickly agree to a disclosure-only settlement, wherein the plaintiffs receive trivial supplemental disclosures about the transaction. In return, defendants receive a broad release from liability for future …

Preclusion Law As A Model For National Injunctions, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

Waiver, Work Product, And Worry: A Case For Clarifying The Waiver Doctrine In Oklahoma, Mitchell B. Bryant

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Imperfect But Necessary Lawsuit: Why Suing State Judges Is Necessary To Ensure That Statutes Creating A Private Cause Of Action Are Constitutional, Stephen N. Scaife

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Re Trulia: Revisited And Revitalized, Emma Weiss

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federal Legislative Attacks On Class Actions, Joanne Doroshow

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Removal And "Relates To": International Arbitration Disputes And The N.Y. Convention, Holly Wilson

University of Richmond Law Review

Part I explores the historical roots of the Convention,

discusses the evolution of its removal provisions, and explains how

it functions in the district courts today. Part II addresses the arguments

in favor of reverting to the Ruhrgas standard. This article

demonstrates that the current judicial interpretation of the Convention's

removal provisions under Beiser is too broad and that the

stricter construction under Ruhrgas should be re-adopted. Part II

examines three key reasons why the current Beiser standard is unworkable:

the current standard (1) leads to absurd results, (2) disrespects

notions of federalism and strains comity, and (3) in conjunction …

Defining The Limits To Abuse Of Process: Lim Geok Lin Andy V Yap Jin Meng Bryan, Dorcas Quek Anderson

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The abuse of process jurisdiction, which forms part of the doctrine of res judicata, is meant to uphold finality of litigation and prevent abusive litigation. While the jurisdiction has been applied to the original parties of earlier court proceedings, it could also prevent a person who was not part of earlier court proceedings from litigating his claim. In such circumstances, the abuse of process doctrine has to be cognisant of the commercial realities and motivations driving choices to advance separate rather than consolidated proceedings, while also protecting litigants from repeated litigation. A recent Singapore Court of Appeal decision imposed constraints …

A New Guard At The Courthouse Door: Corporate Personal Jurisdiction In Complex Litigation After The Supreme Court’S Decision Quartet, David W. Ichel

Faculty Scholarship

In a quartet of recent decisions, the Supreme Court substantially reshaped the analysis of due process limits for a state's exercise of personal jurisdiction over corporations for the first time since its groundbreaking 1945 decision in International Shoe Co. v. Washington. The Court's decision quartet recasts the International Shoe continuum of corporate contacts for which it would be "reasonable" for the state to exercise jurisdiction based on "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice" into a more rigid bright-line dichotomy between "general" and "specific" jurisdiction: for a state to exercise general (or all-purpose) jurisdiction over any suit, regardless of …