Litigation Commons^™

Parallel Justice: Creating Causes Of Action For Mandatory Mediation, Marie A. Failinger

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The American common law system should adopt court-connected mandatory mediation as a parallel system of justice for some cases that are currently not justiciable, such as wrongs caused by constitutionally protected behavior. As evidence that such a system is practical, this Article describes systemic and ethical parallels between court-connected mediation and the rise of the equity courts in medieval England, demonstrating that there are no insurmountable practical objections to the creation of “mediation-only” causes of action. The Article then explores the constitutional concerns surrounding the idea of “mandatory mediation-only” causes of action, using constitutional hate speech and invasion of privacy …

Ice Cube Bonds: Allocating The Price Of Process In Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Edward J. Janger, M. B. Jacoby

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Standard Essential Patents, Trolls, And The Smartphone Wars: Triangulating The End Game, 119 Penn St. L. Rev. 1 (2014), Daryl Lim

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Few legal issues in recent years have captured the public's attention more powerfully than litigation over standard essential patents (“SEPs”). This Article explains how SEP litigation overlaps with two other major centers of patent litigation--litigation involving smartphones and patent assertion entities (“PAEs”). It observes that attempting to pre-empt patent hold-ups by imposing blanket ex ante disclosure obligations and royalty caps on standard setting organizations (“SSOs”) is misdirected and counterproductive. Instead, the solution lies in clear and balanced rules to determine “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) royalties and injunctive relief. This solution will help parties make more realistic assessments of their …

A Victimless Crime: How The Interplay Of The Demand Requirement And The Government's Fight Against Corruption Is Injuring Shareholders, David Bastian

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Pleading Patterns And The Role Of Litigation As A Driver Of Federal Climate Change Legislation, Juscelino F. Colares, Kosta Ristovski

Faculty Publications

Based on a variant of the Elliott-Ackerman-Millian theory that variable, potentially inconsistent and costly litigation outcomes induce industry to seek federal preemptive legislation to reign in such costs, we collect data on climate change-related litigation to determine whether litigation might motivate major greenhouse gas emitters to accept a preemptive, though possibly carbon-restricting, legislative compromise. We conduct a spectral cluster analysis on 178 initial federal and state judicial filings to reveal the most relevant groupings among climate change-related suits and their underlying pleading patterns. Besides exposing the general content and structure of climate change-related filings, this study identifies major specific pleading …

Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments In U.S. Courts: Problems And Possibilities, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

The United States is currently facing a period of intense interest in transnational litigation. Not only has the U.S. Supreme Court become increasingly active in this field, but the American Law Institute (ALI) is also in the process of revising and drafting a number of Restatements concerning international law. The United States also recently signed The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements (COCA), although the instrument has not yet been ratified.

The United States can and should reconsider U.S. law concerning the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments immediately and unilaterally. Although this may appear to be a daunting …

Affordable Care Act, Remedy, And Litigation Reform, The, Brendan Maher

Faculty Articles and Papers

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“ACA”) rewrote the law of private health insurance. How the ACA rewrote the law of civil remedies, however, is — to date — a question largely unexamined by scholars. Courts everywhere, including the United States Supreme Court, will soon confront this important issue. This Article offers a foundational treatment of the ACA on remedy. It predicts a series of flashpoints over which litigation reform battles will be fought. It identifies several themes that will animate those conflicts and trigger others. It explains how judicial construction of the statute’s functional predecessor, the …

Class Action In The Age Of Twitter: A Dispute Systems Approach, Jeremy Mcclane

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Reform Litigation: Strategic Intervention In Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban, 47 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1181 (2014), Jean Stefancic

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Seeing Is Believing: The Anti-Inference Bias, Eyal Zamir Prof., Ilana Ritov, Doron Teichman

Indiana Law Journal

A large body of studies suggests that people are reluctant to impose liability on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone, even when this evidence is more reliable than direct evidence. Current explanations for this pattern of behavior focus on factors such as the tendency of fact finders to assign low subjective probabilities to circumstantial evidence, the statistical nature of such evidence, and the fact that direct evidence can rule out with greater ease any competing factual theory regarding liability. This Article describes a set of four new experiments demonstrating that even when these factors are controlled for, the disinclination to …

The Feasibility Of Litigation Markets, Jonathan T. Molot

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Doomed Steamers And Merged Fires: The Problem Of Preempted Innocent Threats In Torts, Anthony M. Dillof

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

It's Not Over 'Til It's Over: Mandating Federal Pretrial Jurisdiction And Oversight In Mass Torts, Tanya Pierce

Faculty Scholarship

In 2004, just five years after introducing the drug, Vioxx, pharmaceutical company, Merck, voluntarily withdrew the prescription pain-killer after a clinical study suggested that the drug increased the risk of heart attack and stroke. But in that relatively short time, an estimated 20 million Americans had already taken the drug. By late 2007, Merck announced it would pay $4.85 billion — the largest drug settlement ever — in “global settlements” for Vioxx-related claims. These settlements ultimately included roughly 47,000 individual lawsuits and about 265 potential class actions, but the Vioxx settlements were far from global.

In 2012, a purported parallel …

Tsilhqot'in Nation V. Bc: Reconfiguring Aboriginal Title In The Name Of Reconciliation, Constance Macintosh

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In the text that follows, I start by explaining how Canada's behaviour in the Tsilhqot'in litigation undercuts, rather than fosters, the potential for a relationship of trust, which is foundational for reconciliation. In particular, I argue that Canada's behaviour suggests federal disregard for the state roles and responsibilities that the Supreme Court of Canada has found are mandated by the recognition and affirmation of Aboriginal and treaty rights in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. I then focus on the judgment of the Court of Appeal. As discussed below, the Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decision, but …

The Ethical Obligations Of Defence Counsel In Sexual Assault Cases, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The treatment of sexual assault complainants by defence counsel has been the site of significant debate for legal ethicists. Even those with the strongest commitment to the ethics of zealous advocacy struggle with how to approach the cross-examination of sexual assault complainants. One of the most contentious issues in this debate pertains to the use of bias, stereotype and discriminatory tactics to advance one’s client’s position. This paper focuses on the professional responsibilities defence lawyers bear in sexual assault cases. Its central claim is as follows: Defence counsel are ethically obligated to restrict their carriage of a sexual assault case …

Uncovering The Silent Victims Of The American Medical Liability System, Joanna Shepherd

Faculty Articles

A frequently overlooked problem with the current medical liability system is the vast number of medical errors that go uncompensated. Although studies indicate that 1% of hospital patients are victims of medical negligence, fewer than 2% of these injured patients file claims. In this Article, I explain that many victims of medical malpractice do not file claims because they are unable to find attorneys willing to take their cases.

I conducted the first national survey of attorneys to explore medical malpractice victims' access to the civil justice system. The results from the survey indicate that the economic reality of litigation …

How Congress Should Fix Personal Jurisdiction, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

Personal jurisdiction is a mess, and only Congress can fix it. The field is a morass, filled with buzzwords of nebulous origin and application. Courts have sought a single doctrine that simultaneously guarantees convenience for plaintiffs, fairness for defendants, and legitimate authority for the tribunal. Caught between these goals, we've let each new fact pattern pull precedent in a different direction, robbing litigants of certainty and blunting the force of our substantive law.

Solving the problem starts with reframing it. Rather than ask where a case may be heard, we should ask who may hear it. If the parties are …

A Continuing War With Asbestos: The Stalemate Among State Courts On Liability For Take-Home Asbestos Exposure, Meghan E. Flinn

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Asbestos Wars: In Three Parts, David Partlett

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Realigning Parties, Debra Lyn Bassett, Rex R. Perschbacher

Utah Law Review

The doctrine of realignment—which permits a federal court to change a party’s litigating position from plaintiff to defendant or vice versa—has been virtually ignored in federal procedure scholarship. This stark neglect is genuinely astonishing because the federal circuit courts are split as to the appropriate standard. The source of the standard—and the circuit courts’ confusion—is a 1941 U.S. Supreme Court decision, City of Indianapolis v. Chase National Bank. In that decision, rather than focusing on realignment’s purpose, the Supreme Court focused unduly on the specific context in which the realignment issue arose. The result was a muddled articulation of the …