Civil Procedure & Federal Courts Blog

SCOTUS Cert. Grant in Musacchio v. United States

There are some interesting procedural issues in Musacchio v. United States, a case for which the Supreme Court granted certiorari today. It presents two questions:

(1) Whether the law-of-the-case doctrine requires the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case to be measured against the elements described in the jury instructions where those instructions, without objection, require the government to prove additional or more stringent elements than do the statute and indictment; and

(2) Whether a statute-of-limitations defense not raised at or before trial is reviewable on appeal.

You can find all of the cert-stage briefing, and keep track of the merits briefs as they come in, at SCOTUSblog.

 

 

 

Bitcoin and Civil Procedure

Max Raskin, an NYU law student, has posted on SSRN his article Realm of the Coin: Bitcoin and Civil Procedure, published in 20 Fordham J. of Corporate & Financial Law, No. 4 (2015). 

Abstract:

Bitcoin is a private currency issued and governed by a global network of computers. Thus far, the majority of legal cases involving bitcoin have been criminal prosecutions or disputes between bitcoin companies. If bitcoin or some iteration continues to grow, courts will need to craft rules of civil jurisdiction. This paper is the first attempt to apply existing rules of civil procedure to bitcoin.

Bitcoins ought be treated as tangible property for the purposes of jurisdiction. Although they have an incorporeal form, as a practical matter, courts are able to site bitcoins to a single location and thus should do so. This allows courts to apply existing due process and comity jurisprudence.

The Obergefell Aftermath in Alabama

By now readers are surely aware of yesterday’s landmark Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held by a 5-4 vote that the U.S. Constitution does not permit states to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as are accorded to opposite-sex couples. Despite this ruling, it is not yet clear how things will unfold in Alabama—or in other states that have not recognized same-sex marriage but are not directly involved in the Obergefell case (which involves the four states in the Sixth Circuit—Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee).

According to early reports, many Alabama counties began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples shortly after Justice Kennedy announced the Obergefell decision (some of these counties had already done so earlier but stopped after the March 3 ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court). Other Alabama counties are still not issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples or have stopped issuing marriage licenses altogether.

So where do things stand on the Alabama judicial front? Federal judge Callie Granade has already issued a class-wide preliminary injunction against all Alabama probate judges, ordering that they may not enforce Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriage. She stayed that injunction “until the Supreme Court issues its ruling” in Obergefell, but as of this post she has taken no further action.

Meanwhile the Alabama Supreme Court’s mandamus ruling, which orders Alabama probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, remains. The Alabama Supreme Court has yet to rule on a motion filed earlier this month by groups opposing same-sex marriage, which had sought “clarification and reaffirmation” of the mandamus ruling in the wake of Judge Granade’s class-wide injunction. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was in the news once again shortly after Obergefell came down, asserting the decision was “even worse” than Plessy v. Ferguson. 

The upshot is, we’re likely to see more action in both state and federal court before things get resolved. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

House Judiciary Committee Passes "Fairness in Class Action" Bill

The House Judiciary Committee "reported favorably to the House" the so-called "Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2015" this morning, splitting along party lines.  

Under this Act, to obtain class certification, class action plaintiffs "seeking monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss" will have to "affirmatively demonstrate[] that each proposed class member suffered the same type and scope of injury as the named class representative."  

Amendments offered by Democrats all failed.  These failed amendments were to: except Title VII claims; except antitrust claims; strike the words "and scope"; strike the words "or economic loss"; require Judicial Conference approval of the changes; and require the Administrative Office of the US Courts to assess the effect of the bill on litigants and courts.   

Govtrack.us gives this bill a 19% chance of passing.  The US Chamber of Commerce is already reported to be celebrating.

Moore on the Pending Amendments to the FRCP

Forthcoming in the University of Cincinnati Law Review is my article, The Anti-Plaintiff Pending Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Pro-Defendant Composition of the Federal Rulemaking Committees.

Abstract:

In the classical David-and-Goliath lawsuit brought by an individual person against an institutional defendant, the pending amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure hurt David and help Goliath more than any previous round of amendments. The amendments represent corporate defendants' victory in the thirty-year war to limit the scope of discovery by enshrining "proportionality" as part of the definition of, rather than a limitation on, the scope of discovery. The amendments will also make it more difficult for plaintiffs to obtain an adverse inference jury instruction or other sanctions for a defendant’s intentional loss of electronic evidence. For no good reason, the amendments will reduce the length of time within which plaintiffs must effectuate service of process, thereby gifting defendants with a corresponding reduction in the statute of limitations. In addition, the amendments wipe out thirty-six official forms, on the thin excuse that the Advisory Committee wants to "get out of the forms business"; in fact, many interpret the move as a tacit agreement with the heightened pleading standard imposed on plaintiffs by the Supreme Court in Twombly and Iqbal.

The amendments' mostly anti-plaintiff effect is evidenced by a stark split in the public reaction, with plaintiffs’ lawyers almost unanimously against most of the amendments and defendants’ lawyers almost unanimously in favor. But the Advisory Committee was astoundingly indifferent to the polarized public reaction to the proposed amendments. One Advisory Committee member dismissed the stories told at the public hearings by plaintiffs' lawyers about their need for discovery as "Queen-For-A-Day issues," a reference to a 50-year-old daytime television show in which women tearfully told their real-life sob stories to vie for prizes.

Remarkably, in evaluating the need for these amendments, the Committee did not rely on very much case law, any government caseload statistics, or any of the ninety-four district court reports on “cost and delay” mandated by the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990. Instead, the Committee commissioned a mound of so-called “empirical studies” which consisted mostly of flawed opinion surveys of self-selected attorneys. The one methodologically sound study, conducted by the Federal Judicial Center, found that discovery worked well and at modest cost in most federal cases. The Committee either ignored or mischaracterized the FJC’s study.

Given the makeup of the Advisory Committee and the Standing Committee, none of this is surprising. The members of both committees are all appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts, and except for a few tokens, they are ideologically predisposed to think like Federalist Society members, demographically predisposed to think like elite white males, and/or experientially predisposed to think like corporate defense lawyers. There is no explicit constitutional, statutory, or rules authority for the Chief Justice’s unbridled appointment power. The Article concludes by forecasting the passage of a default “requester pays discovery costs” rule that is sought by defense interests, unless the mechanism for appointment of federal rules committee members is changed.

The Fusion of Law and Equity in the Field Code

Forthcoming in the Journal of Legal History is an article by Princeton Ph.D. candidate Kellen Funk entitled Equity Without Chancery: The Fusion of Law and Equity in the Field Code of Civil Procedure, New York 1846-76.

Abstract:

The Field Code of Civil Procedure — enacted in New York in 1848 and adopted by a majority of American jurisdictions thereafter — helped develop the modern American trial and influenced law reform in England. Leading accounts of the Code, however, ignore nineteenth-century New York practice which spurred its development, particularly the problems of fusing the separate systems of common law and equity. This Article recovers that context and shows that despite scholarly claims to the contrary, the Code’s drafters mainly sought to extend New York’s equitable procedures to all civil cases. They expected, however, that equitable remedies and procedures could be divorced from the structures of chancery. In the Code, a paradigm of substantive rights and procedural remedies replaced the old division between law and equity. David Dudley Field’s influential theory of fusion thus sought to expand the practice of equity, but without the courts of equity.

Thornburg on Schwartz on Litigation and Organizational Introspection

Now available on the Courts Law section of JOTWELL is an essay by Beth Thornburg entitled Discovery and Self-Improvement. Beth reviews Joanna Schwartz’s recent article, Introspection Through Litigation, 90 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1055 (2015).

 

 

SCOTUS Cert. Grant on Class Actions: Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo

Today the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo (No. 14-1146. The questions presented are:

(I) Whether differences among individual class members may be ignored and a class action certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), or a collective action certified under the Fair Labor Standards Act, where liability and damages will be determined with statistical techniques that presume all class members are identical to the average observed in a sample.

(II) Whether a class action may be certified or maintained under Rule 23(b)(3), or a collective action certified or maintained under the Fair Labor Standards Act, when the class contains hundreds of members who were not injured and have no legal right to any damages.

You can find all of the cert-stage briefing, and keep track of the merits briefs as they come in, at SCOTUSblog.

 

 

 

Moore on the Civil Caseload of the Federal District Courts, Revised and Published

Over a year ago, I reported the posting of a draft of my article, The Civil Caseload of the Federal District Courts.  It has now been revised and published in The University of Illinois Law Review, Vol. 2015, No. 3.  The paper is also posted on SSRN.

Abstract:

This Article responds to changes proposed by Congress and the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules to restrict civil lawsuits by reforming procedure. It argues that while these changes are purported to be based on empirical studies, there is no reference to actual government statistics about whether the civil caseload has grown, whether the median disposition time has increased, or whether the most prevalent types of civil cases have changed. Based on statistics published by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, this Article shows that the civil docket has actually stagnated, not exploded. It first looks at trends in the overall volume and duration of federal civil litigation since 1986, suggests a proper methodology for measurement, and shows that the rate of increase of civil filings is less than the growth in the country’s population and the increase in judicial resources in civil cases, noting that any increase must be attributable to the criminal docket. Next, this Article studies the rates at which cases are terminated by various methods, noting today’s primary method is before pretrial with court action due to dispositive motions and judicial management. Third, this Article tracks and explains changes in the “Big Six” categories of civil litigation. Finally, this Article emphasizes the need to look at the government’s caseload statistics to note that the federal civil caseload has been relatively stable for twenty-five years.

The House Judiciary Committee Hearing on the Class Action Fairness Act, continued

I reported earlier that the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on February 27, 2015 on “The State of Class Actions Ten Years After the Enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act,” at which I testified as the only minority witness.  The transcript is now online.

Questions for the record were submitted to me after the hearing.  I submitted my response to the questions for the record on May 11, 2015.  My response does not appear to have been posted on the website for the hearing, but I posted it on SSRN.  

Abstract:

This is Professor Moore’s response to questions for the record submitted to her after the hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, U.S. House of Representatives, on "The State of Class Actions Ten Years After the Enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act" on February 27, 2015. The questions submitted to her asked whether, when determining the requirements of class certification, Congress should limit a class to those individuals "with the same or similar injuries" or those individuals whose damages or injuries have been sustained due to "the same or similar proximate cause" or "the same product or activity."

The response begins by noting that the wording of the questions appeared designed to eliminate what the majority witnesses at the hearing termed "no-injury class actions." The response argues that the term "no-injury class action" is a recently-invented term without roots in the law of class actions, and that the term is misleading when applied indiscriminately to all class actions. The substantive law, whether federal or state, determines when a person is "injured," and the majority witnesses’ assertion that certain class members have suffered "no injury" contravenes the governing substantive law.

The response then more specifically addresses the suggested language in the questions submitted. The suggested limitations, if passed by Congress, would restrict class actions. First, it is unclear how the broad-brush language would be applied to class actions for injunctive relief, such as civil rights cases. Second, the language sounds like existing law, but those seeking to eliminate so-called "no-injury class actions" intend that the language should be interpreted in a new and more radical way so to make it much more difficult to obtain class certification than under existing law. Third, the language would in essence require a class, at certification, to include only class members who could prove their case on the merits. That would constitute an impermissible "fail-safe" class allowing any class member who did not prove her case on the merits to escape being bound by the class judgment. Fourth, the existing certification requirements of commonality, typicality, and predominance provide sufficient tools for federal judges to rigorously apply the standards to unique factual situations.

The response also notes that the Civil Rules Advisory Committee is currently considering numerous changes to Rule 23, so that legislation is premature. Finally, the response calls for Congress to require the public release of data on federal class actions.

Professor Nathenson Posts New Civil Procedure Resources For the Bar Exam

Know anyone studying for the bar exam who needs help in Civil Procedure?  My esteemed colleague, Professor Ira Nathenson (a member of the Executive Committee of the AALS Section of Civil Procedure, as well as its webmaster and co-manager of the CivProMentor listserv), has recently posted some fine resources on his website. 

Professor Nathenson’s site includes a Resources page for Civil Procedure on the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE).  The resources include numerous Civil Procedure YouTube videos as well as problem sets, explanations, flowcharts, and handouts.  (If you thought that the Erie doctrine could not be reduced to a flow chart, check out his Coggle flowchart here.) 

The substantive materials are grouped by topic (such as subject-matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, joinder, and much more), allowing you to zero in on Civ Pro issues of interest. Many of the YouTube videos are annotated, pointing you to related resources. The site also includes an overview of which Civ Pro topics topics are more likely to be tested. 

As most people in the US legal world know by now, federal Civil Procedure was added to the Multistate Bar Examination only recently.  It was first tested on the MBE during the February 2015 administration.  Professor Nathenson's excellent materials should help to ease the panic for some new graduates preparing for the bar. 

Alabama Same-Sex Marriage Litigation: Back to the Alabama Supreme Court?

Two weeks ago, federal district judge Callie Granade certified a class action in the Strawser case and issued a class-wide injunction forbidding enforcement of Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriage. She stayed the injunction, however, until the U.S. Supreme Court issues its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which is expected later this month.

In the meantime, two groups opposed to same-sex marriage have returned to the Alabama Supreme Court, seeking “clarification and reaffirmation” of that court’s earlier mandamus ruling ordering Alabama probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Yesterday’s motion asks the Alabama Supreme Court “to enter an order clarifying and reaffirming the continued effectiveness of the Mandamus Order despite entry of the conflicting Strawser Class Injunction.”

Stay tuned.

 

 

House Bill to Amend Rule 11 Reported Out of Committee

H.R. 758, the so-called “Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act of 2015,” was reported out by the House Judiciary Committee on May 14, 2015.  

The bill would return to the pre-1993 era by:

• Making sanctions for a Rule 11 violation mandatory instead of discretionary.
• Eliminating the 21-day “safe harbor” provision.
• Replacing deterrence with compensation as the primary purpose of sanctions. 

The bill also claims that it is not intended to impede the assertion or development of new claims.

A committee hearing was held on the bill on March 17, 2015.  A similar Senate bill, S. 401, is still in committee.

Republicans have been attempting to pass this bill since at least 2011. See Professor Lonny Hoffman's article, The Case Against the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act of 2011.