Civil Procedure Commons^™

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 …

Labor And The Origins Of Civil Procedure, Luke P. Norris

Law Faculty Publications

A series of changes within civil procedure over the past few decades—including the rise of private arbitration, the accompanying decline of public adjudication, and the erection of barriers to class actions—have diminished the economic power of workers, consumers, and diffuse economic actors. This Article demonstrates that avoiding these economic consequences was a central goal of those who crafted American federal civil procedure in the first place. Driven to action by the procedural issues involved in labor injunction cases, leading procedural reformers behind the modern regime strove to make American federal civil procedure sensitive to questions of political economy and designed …

Taking A Second Look At Mdl Product Liability Settlements: Somebody Needs To Do It, Christopher B. Mueller

Publications

This Article examines the forces that lead to the settlement of product liability cases gathered under the MDL statute for pretrial. The MDL procedure is ill-suited to this use, and does not envision the gathering of the underlying cases as a means of finally resolving them. Motivational factors affecting judges and lawyers have produced these settlements, and the conditions out of which they arise do not give confidence that they are fair or adequate. This Article concedes that MDL settlements are likely here to stay, and argues that we need a mechanism to check such settlements for fairness and adequacy. …

The Modern Class Action Rule: Its Civil Rights Roots And Relevance Today, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

The modern class action rule recently turned fifty years old — a golden anniversary. However, this milestone is marred by an increase in hate crimes, violence and discrimination. Ironically, the rule is marking its anniversary within a similarly tumultuous environment as its birth — the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. This irony calls into question whether this critical aggregation device is functioning as the drafters intended. This article makes three contributions.

First, the article unearths the rule’s rich history, revealing how the rule was designed in 1966 to enable structural reform and broad injunctive relief in civil rights cases. …

Class Actions, Civil Rights, And The National Injunction, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

This essay is a response to Professor Samuel Bray’s article proposing a blanket prohibition against injunctions that enjoin a defendant’s conduct with respect to nonparties. He argues that national injunctions are illegitimate under Article III and traditional equity and result in a number of difficulties.

This Response argues, from a normative lens, that Bray’s proposed ban on national injunctions should be rejected. Such a bright-line rule against national injunctions is too blunt an instrument to address the complexity of our tripartite system of government, our pluralistic society and our democracy. Although national injunctions may be imperfect and crude forms of …

The Impact Of Wal-Mart V. Dukes On Employment Discrimination Class Actions Five Years Out: A Forecast That Suggests More Of A Wave Than A Tsunami, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Prescription For Overcoming Gender Inequity In Complex Litigation: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

Class Action-Barring Mandatory Pre-Dispute Consumer Arbitration Clauses: An Example Of (And Opportunity For) Dispute System Design?, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

Ultimately, this essay will conclude that a private, ad hoc dispute system design process did lead to the insertion of class action waivers in mandatory pre-dispute consumer arbitration clauses. In-house and outside counsel certainly played key roles in initiating this process, but it is unclear that any individual lawyers could claim credit or responsibility as "designers." The representatives of dispute resolution organizations, meanwhile, played supporting roles-as providers of information and as amici in Supreme Court litigation. The essay will consider whether dispute resolution professionals could have managed their role in the process differently-and if so, why they would have managed …

Civil Procedure: Notifying Justice: "Reasonable Actual Notice" In Service Of Process—Decook V. Olmsted Medical Center, Inc., Paul Fling

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Opening A Can Of Worms And Viruses: The Impact Of E-Service On E-Mail Users Everywhere, Jeffrey Wolber

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Choice Is (Not) Yours: Why The Sec Must Further Amend Its Rules Of Practice To Increase Fairness In Administrative Proceedings, Madeline Ilibassi

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays an extremely important role within the securities industry—it oversees the financial markets, protects consumers, and maintains market efficiency. One of the most important (and recently one of most criticized) responsibilities of the SEC is its duty to enforce the securities laws and punish violators. During the past two decades, and especially after the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, the SEC’s Division of Enforcement has grown substantially and has utilized administrative enforcement proceedings at an increasing rate. However; this utilization has been occurring without any substantial …

Defining “Accidents” In The Air: Why Tort Law Principles Are Essential To Interpret The Montreal Convention’S “Accident” Requirement, Alexa West

Fordham Law Review

This Note examines the history of, and the reasons for, the Montreal Convention, which in part forces airlines to indemnify passengers for injuries resulting from “accidents”—a term undefined in the treaty. The Montreal Convention and the subsequent case law interpreting it demonstrate how, to qualify as an “accident,” the injury-producing incident must be causally connected to the plane’s operation. Importantly, the causal connection’s adequacy should be evaluated according to American tort jurisprudence even though the accident requirement itself is an exception to general tort law. This Note focuses on a particular type of injury-producing event, a copassenger tort, because of …

Is The Supreme Court Disabling The Enabling Act, Or Is Shady Grove Just Another Bad Opera?, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

After seventy years of trying, the Supreme Court has yet to agree on whether the Rules Enabling Act articulates a one or two part standard for determining the validity of a Federal Rule. Is it enough that a Federal Rule regulates “practice and procedure,” or must it also not “abridge substantive rights”? The Enabling Act seems to require both, but the Court is not so sure, and the costs of its uncertainty are real. Among other things, litigants must guess whether the decision to apply a Federal Rule in a given case will depend upon predictable ritual, judicial power grab, …

Civil Practice And Procedure, Christopher S. Dadak

Law Student Publications

Continuing in the rich vein of prior Annual Surveys, this article examines developments in Virginia civil procedure and practice in the past year. The survey includes a discussion of the relevant decisions from the Supreme Court of Virginia, changes to applicable rules of practice or procedure, and new legislation, which will likely affect the practice of a civil practitioner in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Civil Practice And Procedure, Christopher S. Dadak

University of Richmond Law Review

This article examines developments in Virginia civil procedure and practice in the past year. The survey includes a discussion of the relevant decisions from the Supreme Court of Virginia, changes to applicable rules of practice or procedure, and new legislation, which will likely affect the practice of a civil practitioner in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Voluntary Dismissal Of Time-Barred Claims, Danielle Calamari

Fordham Law Review

Both state and federal courts have procedural rules that allow a plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss a claim without prejudice and then to refile it within the applicable statute-of-limitations period. However , a plaintiff’ s right to this procedural avenue is not absolute, and courts maintain broad discretion in deciding whether to dismiss a claim with or without prejudice. If a court allows a plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss a time-barred claim without prejudice, the plaintiff may be able to refile the claim in a jurisdiction with a longer statute of limitations. As a result, the defendant loses the ability to assert …

The Dormant Commerce Clause As A Limit On Personal Jurisdiction, John F. Preis

Law Faculty Publications

For over 70 years, the Due Process Clause has defined the law of personal jurisdiction. This makes sense, because being forced to stand trial in a far-off state will sometimes be fundamentally unfair. What does not make sense, however, is the Dormant Commerce Clause’s apparent irrelevance to personal jurisdiction. The Dormant Commerce Clause addresses state laws affecting interstate commerce, and a plaintiff’s choice of forum is often a commercially driven choice between different state courts. So why isn’t the Dormant Commerce Clause part of personal jurisdiction doctrine?

This Article makes the case for its relevance, and demonstrates how the Dormant …

"Arising From" Villanova Law Review: Villanova Law Review's Analysis Of Personal Jurisdiction, Teressa E. Ravenell

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Class Actions Removability And The Changing Business Of The Supreme Court: Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co. V. Owens, Stephen Carr

Florida Law Review

This Comment seeks to explain the strange turn of events leading to these unusual alliances and to suggest that Dart provides an important window into the way the Court manipulates its certiorari jurisdiction to achieve substantive policy ends. It is not surprising that the Court stretched its certiorari jurisdiction (or at least failed to do its due diligence) in granting certiorari in a decision denying federal court access to a class action. The Court has gone out of its way in recent years to expand federal jurisdiction over class actions while simultaneously trying to defang the class action device. Although …

Intervention In The Tax Court And The Appellate Review Of Tax Court Procedural Decisions, Cole Barnett, Christopher Weeg

Florida Law Review

Part I of this Comment briefly summarizes the pertinent facts of Huff. Part II surveys the current circuit split on intervention in Tax Court proceedings. Part III analyzes the proper standard for review of the USVI’s motion to intervene under FRCP 24(a)(2), as well as the proper standard regarding all appellate review of Tax Court procedural decisions—a discussion that is largely absent from both scholarly works and court opinions. This Comment concludes in Part III with a critique of the Huff court’s FRCP 24(a)(2) analysis.