Civil Procedure & Federal Courts Blog

2019 AALS Annual Meeting (New Orleans, January 2-6)

The 2019 AALS Annual Meeting is happening in New Orleans next week. Here are a few panels that may be of interest (click the links for full details)…

Thursday, January 3, 2019

12:00 pm - 2:00 pm Federalist Society Annual Faculty Conference Luncheon Debate: Resolved: The Supreme Court Should Overrule Qualified Immunity

1:30 pm - 3:15 pm AALS Hot Topic Program
Partisan Conflict and the Legitimacy of the Supreme Court

3:30 pm - 5:15 pm Federal Courts
Teaching the Federal Courts Class

Friday, January 4, 2019

8:30 am - 10:15 am Conflict of Laws
The Hague Judgements Convention

9:00 am - 12:15 pm AALS Symposium
"Court Debt": Fines, Fees, and Bail, Circa 2020

10:30 am - 12:15 pm Federal Courts
Congressional Structuring of the Judicial Power

1:30 pm - 3:15 pm Litigation, Co-Sponsored by Alternative Dispute Resolution and Technology, Law and Legal Education
Artificial Intelligence and Litigation

Saturday, January 5, 2019

10:30 am - 12:15 pm AALS Program
#MeToo - The Courts, The Academy and Law Firms

3:30 pm - 5:15 pm AALS Open Source Program
Judicial Supremacy

 

Hope to see folks there!

 

 

Parkinson on Behavioral Psychology and Class Actions

Alex Parkinson has published Behavioral Class Action Law, 65 UCLA L. Rev. 1090 (2018). Here’s the abstract:

Behavioral law and economics has been deployed to analyze nearly every field of law. Class action practice and procedure is a notable exception. This Article is the first to supplement stagnating class action debates and the traditional law and economics account of class action law with behavioral psychology. It draws on a litany of behavioral tendencies, biases, and pathologies— ranging from prospect theory, loss aversion, anchoring, and the status quo bias to the availability heuristic, group-attribution error, reactive devaluation, and the endowment effect—and considers their application to class action practice generally and Rule 23 in particular. In addition to this descriptive survey, this Article makes three contributions to class action scholarship. First, it applies behavioral psychology to an unresolved puzzle: how to explain opt-out rights. Traditional law and economics cannot explain why Rule 23 permits absent class members to opt-out of certain class actions, which appears inefficient and dependent on irrational behavior, or why this opt-out right is exercised according to predictably irrational patterns. However, behavioral law and economics fills these analytical gaps. Second, this Article demonstrates the prescriptive power of behavioral law and economics by illustrating how absent class members can be nudged toward class settlement by self-interested choice architects. Finally, this Article crystallizes the judicial role in light of the potency of behavioral psychology, choice architecture, and nudging in class settlement notices.

 

 

 

 

 

Campos on the Bolch Judicial Institute’s Guidelines and Best Practices for Implementing the 2018 Amendments to FRCP 23

Today on the Courts Law section of JOTWELL is Sergio Campos’s essay, Practice Makes Perfect. Sergio reviews Guidelines and Best Practices Implementing 2018 Amendments to Rule 23 Class Action Settlement Provisions, which was published in 2018 by the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School.

 

 

Zambrano on Judicial Mistakes in Discovery Decisions

Diego Zambrano has published Judicial Mistakes in Discovery, 113 Nw. U. L. Rev. 197 (2018). Here’s the abstract:

A recent wave of scholarship argues that judges often fail to comply with binding rules or precedent and sometimes apply overturned laws. Scholars have hypothesized that the cause of this “judicial noncompliance” may be flawed litigant briefing that introduces mistakes into judicial decisions—an idea this Essay calls the “Litigant Hypothesis.” The Essay presents a preliminary study aimed at exploring ways of testing the validity of the Litigant Hypothesis. Employing an empirical analysis that exploits recent amendments to Federal Discovery Rule 26, this Essay finds that the strongest predictor of noncompliance in a dataset of discovery decisions is indeed faulty briefs. This study concludes that the Litigant Hypothesis of noncompliance may have explanatory value.

 

 

 

 

Joseph Seiner on The Discrimination Presumption

Joseph Seiner (South Carolina) has posted a new article on SSRN: The Discrimination Presumption, 94 Notre Dame L. Rev. __ (2019) (Forthcoming).  This piece offers a new approach to pleading employment discrimination cases given recent social science research in the area. 

Here is the abstract:

Employment discrimination is a fact in our society. Scientific studies continue to show that employer misconduct in the workplace is pervasive. This social science research is further supported by governmental data and litigation statistics. Even in the face of this evidence, however, it has never been more difficult to successfully bring a claim of employment discrimination. After the Supreme Court’s controversial decisions in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), all civil litigants must sufficiently plead enough facts to give rise to a plausible claim. Empirical studies show that this plausibility test has been rigidly applied in the employment context, creating a heightened pleading standard for workplace plaintiffs. This paper argues that Twombly and Iqbal are largely irrelevant for employment discrimination claims. As employment discrimination is a fact, most allegations of workplace misconduct are plausible on their face, rendering these Supreme Court cases meaningless for this subset of claims. This Article summarizes the overwhelming number of social science studies which demonstrate the fact of employment discrimination, and this paper also synthesizes the governmental data and litigation in this field. This Article offers a model framework that the courts and litigants can use to evaluate workplace claims, taking into consideration the widespread scientific research in this area. This proposed model navigates the Supreme Court decisions and federal rules and provides a new approach to pleading employment claims, where the fact of discrimination is presumed. This Article concludes by situating the proposed framework in the context of the broader academic scholarship.

Erbsen on Wayfair and Nicastro

Allan Erbsen has posted on SSRN a draft of his essay, Wayfair Undermines Nicastro: The Constitutional Connection Between State Tax Authority and Personal Jurisdiction, 128 Yale L.J. F. __ (forthcoming 2019). Here’s the abstract:

This Essay exposes connections between two controversial cases that unsettled two ostensibly distinct areas of constitutional law. The Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair held that the Commerce Clause permits enforcement of sales taxes against online retailers with no physical presence in the taxing state. In contrast, the Court’s 2011 decision in J. McIntyre Machinery v. Nicastro held that the Due Process Clause prevents states from exercising personal jurisdiction over nonresident manufacturers who did not target the forum. Wayfair and Nicastro address conceptually similar questions about extraterritorial enforcement of state law yet rely on inconsistent assumptions. A close reading of Wayfair illuminates normative and practical insights that warrant narrowing or overruling Nicastro. More generally, this Essay highlights how situating doctrinal problems in the broader context of horizontal federalism can improve constitutional analysis.

 

 

 

 

Perry on Crowdfunding Civil Litigation

Ronen Perry has published Crowdfunding Civil Justice, 59 B.C. L. Rev. 1357 (2018). Here’s the abstract:

The Article provides a systematic law and economics analysis of civil litigation crowdfunding. It first distinguishes between investment-based and non-investment-based crowdfunding models. Investment-based litigation crowdfunding is generally a welcome phenomenon, because it enables parties to pursue meritorious claims and defenses without generating a significant risk of frivolous litigation. Thus, it should be minimally regulated by securing disclosure of relevant information to potential investors. Non-investment-based crowdfunding of process costs should be subject to professional vetting, which will inhibit frivolous claims and defenses that waste scarce administrative resources and do not further the underlying goals of civil law. Non-investment-based crowdfunding of outcome costs should be prohibited when it undermines the primary objectives of substantive law.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoffheimer on Personal Jurisdiction

Mike Hoffheimer has published The Stealth Revolution in Personal Jurisdiction, 70 Fla. L. Rev. 499 (2018). Here’s the abstract:

Since 2011 the Roberts Court has decided six personal jurisdiction cases that impose significant new constitutional restrictions on the power of courts and limit plaintiffs’ access to justice. But the Court’s opinions explaining those decisions have repeatedly denied that the Court is altering settled law.

This Article argues that the Court is engaged in a stealth revolution, a process of radically changing existing law while claiming to follow controlling precedent. By claiming to rely on precedent, the Court avoids the need to offer a clear rule of decision, fails to explain the policies that motivate its changing approach to personal jurisdiction, and fosters a narrative of lower court lawlessness that both devalues the work of the lower courts and erodes public confidence in the judiciary.

This Article urges the Court to acknowledge that it is reforming the law of personal jurisdiction, to provide reasons for its new restrictions on the power of courts that are grounded on constitutional principle and sound policy, and to construct a narrative that relates its programmatic reform of personal jurisdiction to the history and purpose of the Due Process Clause or to some other appropriate constitutional authority.

 

 

Malveaux on Trammell on National Injunctions

Today on the Courts Law section of JOTWELL is Suzette Malveaux’s essay, Preclusion Law as a Model for National Injunctions. Suzette reviews Alan Trammell’s article, Demystifying Nationwide Injunctions.

 

 

Beske on Nonprecedential Opinions

Elizabeth Beske has published Rethinking the Nonprecedential Opinion, 65 UCLA L. Rev. 808 (2018). Here’s the abstract:

Nearly 90 percent of the opinions issued by the federal courts of appeal are unpublished and lack precedential effect, and where these cases lay out new legal rules, this phenomenon cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s settled retroactivity jurisprudence. Harper v. Virginia Board of Taxation and Griffith v. Kentucky, both moored in Article III, require that any case’s new rule apply not only to future litigants but also to those whose cases are pending. A nonprecedential case by definition has no application beyond its litigants. This raises no problem where a case adds nothing new, as other litigants already have access to the precedents on which it relies. However, the majority of circuits allow nonprecedential opinions to break new ground, and these nonprecedential opinions frequently make law, command dissents, create or deepen circuit splits, and go up on certiorari to the Supreme Court.

Many commentators have debated the practical and legal implications of nonprecedential opinions, but this Article is the first to identify the inconsistency between groundbreaking nonprecedential opinions and settled principles of adjudicative retroactivity. This Article concludes that permitting nonprecedential opinions as an exception to adjudicative retroactivity threatens to drain Harper and Griffith of all but symbolic significance. Although a handful of circuits have guidelines for when an opinion must have precedential effect, this Article proposes use of the “new rule” construct, already familiar and well-developed in the context of habeas corpus and official immunity, as a mechanism for differentiating those opinions that may be designated nonprecedential from those that—under settled doctrine—may not.

 

 

 

 

 

Bell on Congressional Oversight of the Federal Judiciary

Lauren Bell has published Monitoring or Meddling? Congressional Oversight of the Judicial Branch, 64 Wayne L. Rev. 23 (2018). It concludes:

This Article has taken steps to remedy the disconnect between the literature on congressional oversight of the executive branch and oversight of the judicial branch. It has demonstrated that several of the theories that explain congressional oversight in the executive branch context also explain Congress’ interactions with the judicial branch. Moreover, this article has demonstrated that while Congress may be challenged in its capacity to provide effective oversight of the executive branch, it is able to effectively curb the courts. While traditional oversight activities, such as hearings and requests for information are likely to be more limited in the judicial context, when Congress turns its sights on the courts, it brings significant constitutional, statutory, and institutional authority to bear on reviewing judicial actions and offering correction.

In sum, if congressional oversight of the executive branch is political control of the bureaucracy, then it is hard not to view the totality of Congress’ efforts at monitoring and influencing the judicial branch chronicled here as attempts at political control of the judiciary. For this reason, it is unfortunate that the literature on congressional oversight continues to ignore almost completely Congress’ role in shaping the federal courts. Bringing the courts into the oversight literature will provide additional insights into the ways in which Congress approaches its oversight responsibilities, while allowing a fuller understanding of the impact of congressional oversight on the judicial branch.

 

 

2018 FRCP Amendments Now In Effect

As of today, the 2018 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are in full effect.

Update your copies of Rules 5, 23, 62, and 65.1 accordingly.