Litigation & Procedure eJournal最新文献

{"title":"The Economics of Motions to Dismiss: An Economists View of the Twombly/Iqbal Standard","authors":"Douglas A. Herman, Seth B. Sacher","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2323523","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2323523","url":null,"abstract":"The Bell Atlantic v Twombly and Ashcroft v Iqbal Supreme Court opinions refined the threshold for motions to dismiss claims. In elaborating on these thresholds, the Court discussed the legal interplay of “possibility,” “plausibility,” and “probability.” The Court emphasized that claims must go beyond a recitation of theories or legal standards and rely on some level of factual allegations. Since the Iqbal decision, numerous lower courts have applied the newly articulated Twombly/Iqbal standards. Legal practitioners have argued that there are inconsistencies between courts when evaluating the scope and application of these standards. In order to help resolve this murkiness, this paper suggests a structured methodology that can be employed when arguing a motion to dismiss. A number of tools that can be used to evaluate the likelihood of success are proposed. We posit “strong” and “weak” conditions for meeting the Twombly/Iqbal standards. The “strong” conditions for surviving a motion to dismiss are satisfied if well articulated conditions that meet the logical concept of sufficiency along with supporting facts are presented. If these strong criteria are not met, claims can still survive a motion to dismiss, but will be more likely to survive the closer the claims are to the logical concept of “sufficiency.” Under the “weak criteria,” the more “unlikely” are the claims (and supporting facts) to exist in the absence of a violation, the greater the probability of survival. In other words, the more strongly linked are the underlying claims with the alleged violations, and not other possible explanations, the more likely the claims are to survive the motion being adjudicated.","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130964162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Remedies and Recourses in European Civil Procedure after the Intended Abolition of the Exequatur","authors":"Jorg Sladič","doi":"10.5771/1435-439x-2013-3-329","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5771/1435-439x-2013-3-329","url":null,"abstract":"The European legislature has started building a framework for European civil procedure virtually in every field of private law. The current trend in the legislation is the abolition of the exequatur and direct enforceability of foreign titles. The abolition of exequatur and direct enforcement of foreign judicial decisions are opening questions of compatibility with standards of protection of fundamental rights. They are per se not incompatible with the ECHR. Where the debtor gets the same degree of guarantee of his rights of defence in the enforcement proceedings as he would in the exequatur, the exequatur plainly starts being an obstacle to effective administration of justice. The article then examines the possibility of lodging remedies under the new regime of “abolished” exequatur.","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130775760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Governing the Anticommons in Aggregate Litigation","authors":"D. Rave","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2122877","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2122877","url":null,"abstract":"This Article argues that there is an “anticommons” problem in aggregate litigation. An anticommons occurs when the consent of too many owners is needed to use a resource at its most efficient scale. When many plaintiffs have similar claims against a common defendant, those claims are often worth more if they can be bundled up and sold to the defendant (i.e., settled) as a single package — that is, the defendant may be willing to pay a premium for total peace. But because the rights to control those claims are dispersed among the individual plaintiffs, transaction costs and strategic holdouts can make aggregation difficult, particularly in cases where class actions are impractical. Recently the American Law Institute (“ALI”) proposed modifying long-standing legal ethics rules governing nonclass aggregate settlements to allow plaintiffs to agree in advance to be bound by a supermajority vote on a group settlement offer. By shifting from individual control over settlement decisions to collective decisionmaking, the ALI proposal may offer a way out of the anticommons dynamic and allow the group to capture the peace premium. Critics, however, say that allowing plaintiffs to surrender their autonomy will leave them vulnerable to exploitation by their lawyers and by the majority. Viewed through the lens of the anticommons, these concerns are manageable. Similar anticommons problems arise in many areas of law, ranging from eminent domain to oil and gas to sovereign debt. But instead of slavishly preserving the autonomy of individual rights holders, these areas of law have developed strategies for aggregating rights when doing so will result in joint gains. Drawing from these other contexts, this Article argues that the legitimacy of compelling individuals to participate in a value-generating aggregation depends on the presence of governance procedures capable of protecting the interests of the individuals within the collective and ensuring that the gains from cooperation are fairly allocated. Governance is thus the key to legitimizing attempts to defeat the anticommons in mass litigation through aggregation, whether by regulatory means, such as the class action, or contractual precommitment, as in the ALI proposal.","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"74 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113990124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Dutch Perspective on Cross-Border Small Claims Litigation: Guarded Optimism and Pragmatism. A Normative and Empirical Approach","authors":"X. Kramer, E. A. Onţanu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2257729","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2257729","url":null,"abstract":"This paper evaluates the implementation and application of the European Small Claims Procedure in the Netherlands, from both a normative and an empirical perspective. The central question is to what extent does the Regulation meet the objective of providing an EU-wide instrument that enhances access to justice and procedural justice in cross-border small claims litigation. The empirical research shows that the procedure is not used to its full potential, though there has been a slight increase in its application due to litigation in aviation cases. Dutch courts generally take a pragmatic approach, which contributes to access to justice and procedural justice. However, relatively high court fees, defects in the postal service, and the language requirements continue to be obstacles. The paper concludes with recommendations for the European legislator. Summary: As an adversarial European procedure with low thresholds, the European Small Claims Procedure (ESCP) has the potential to significantly improve access to justice in small claims litigation while preserving procedural rights. However, four years after its enactment in 2009, it is clear that in most Member States little use is made of this procedure. This paper evaluates its implementation and application in the Netherlands, both from a normative and an empirical perspective. The central question is to what extent does the Regulation meet the objective of providing an EU-wide instrument that enhances access to justice and procedural justice in cross-border small claims litigation. The Netherlands does not have a genuine national small claims procedure, but has a simplified procedure for cases that fall within the competence of the sub-district court (cantonal division of the District Court). In 2011, the threshold for these cases was raised substantially from €5,000 to €25,000. In the Netherlands, the idea of introducing an ESCP was generally welcomed, though doubt was raised as to its actual impact, among others in view of the low monetary threshold. The ESCP is, where necessary, implemented through a separate Implementation Act. The empirical research, consisting of data collection and interviews at the ECC-NL and at eight of the nineteen competent courts in the Netherlands (the four big courts and four courts in border regions), shows that the ESCP is seldom used. The number of cases in these courts has varied from only four to approximately thirty cases between 2009 and mid-2012. With few exceptions, they concern consumer cases. In the majority of these, the consumer is the claimant, particularly in instances involving long-distance sales contracts and aviation cases. The average time to conclude the procedure is four to five months, which is largely in compliance with the time limits set by the Regulation. In line with the Regulation, only in a few cases were oral hearings requested by the parties or ordered by the court. The interviews made clear that the parties and courts generally do n","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121545014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Future Conduct and the Limits of Class-Action Settlements","authors":"James Grimmelmann","doi":"10.31228/osf.io/k75hu","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31228/osf.io/k75hu","url":null,"abstract":"*** This Article identifies a new and previously unrecognized trend in class-action settlements: releases for the defendant’s future conduct. Such releases, which hold the defendant harmless for wrongs it will commit in the future, are unusually dangerous to class members and to the public. Even more than the “future claims” familiar to class-action scholars, future-conduct releases pose severe informational problems for class members and for courts. Worse, they create moral hazard for the defendant, give it concentrated power, and thrust courts into a prospective planning role they are ill-equipped to handle. Courts should guard against the dangers of future-conduct releases with a standard and a rule. The standard is heightened scrutiny for all settlements containing such releases; the Article describes the warning signs courts must be alert to and the safeguards courts should insist on. The rule is parity of preclusion: a class-action settlement may release future-conduct claims if and only if they could have been lost in litigation. Parity of preclusion elegantly harmonizes a wide range of case law while directly addressing the normative problems with futureconduct releases. The Article concludes by applying its recommendations to seven actual future-conduct settlements, in each case yielding a better result or clearer explanation than the court was able to provide.","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114981573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"על האפקטיביות של צו מרתיע - Game on(Game On – On the Effectiveness of Astreinte Proceedings)","authors":"Osnat Jacobi","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2209747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2209747","url":null,"abstract":"תקציר בעברית: מאמר זה עוסק בצו מרתיע. הצו המרתיע הוא תרופה חדשה בהצעת חוק דיני ממונות; קנס יומי שאותו יכול בית המשפט להטיל על המפר שלא מקיים את צו האכיפה. המאמר בוחן את האפקטיביות של הצו המרתיע ביצירת הרתעה מפני הפרת צווי אכיפה. מסקנות הניתוח הן שהרווח שמפיק המפר מהפרת צו האכיפה ניתן לחישוב אריתמטי אך ספק אם בית המשפט יוכל לחשב את הרווח הזה בכדי לקבוע את גובה הקנס. כשביצוע החוזה לא יעיל, המפר מרוויח מסיכול צו האכיפה את דחיית תשלום הפיצוי שהיה הנפגע מסכים לקבל בכדי לתת את הסכמתו להפסקת החוזה. בחוזים שיעיל לדחות את ביצועם לתקופה מאוחרת, המפר מרוויח משיהוי צו האכיפה לכל התקופה שלה הוא זקוק בכדי להנמיך את עלויות הביצוע שלו ו/או לשפר את מצבו הפיננסי. בשני המקרים, הרווח הגלובלי שמפיקים מפרים מהפרת הצו מורכב ממידע פרטי המצוי ברשותם על ההוצאות אותן הם דוחים ועל ערך הזמן שהם מפיקים מדחיית התשלום או הביצוע ומידע זה לא ניתן להוכחה בבית המשפט. בנוסף, בכדי לחשב את הקנס היומי שימחק את הרווח היומי מהפרת הצו, בית המשפט צריך לדעת את אורך התקופה שבה מתכוון המפר לסכל את הצו. בחוזים לא יעילים, אורך תקופת הדחייה שלה זקוק המפר היא עד שהנפגע יתייאש מצו האכיפה ויחליף את דרישתו בתביעת פיצוים ומידע זה לא קיים בשעה שבית המשפט צריך לקבל את ההחלטה על גובה הקנס היומי. אם בית המשפט טועה והקנס שייקבע לא יהיה גבוה מספיק, המפר עדיין יוכל להרוויח מהפרת הצו. בניגוד למחשבה המקובלת לפיה פקודת בזיון בית המשפט נכשלה ליצור הרתעה מספקת מפני הפרות צווים כיוון שהנפגע לא היה זכאי לכספי הקנס, סביר שהסיבה לכישלון היא שבתי המשפט לא ידעו לחשב את הרווח שמפיק המפר מהפרת הצו, מה שגרם לנפגעים מהפרת צווים לא לבקש להפעילה. בחלקו האחרון של המאמר אציע מנגנון חלופי לצו המרתיע שלא סובל מהחסרונות של המנגנונים הקודמים. בהתאם להצעה זו, בית המשפט יצווה על המפר להפקיד ערובה לקיום הצו. סכום זה יישא הפרשי הצמדה וריבית עד להפקדתו בפועל בקופת בית המשפט. בית המשפט יצווה על השבת הסכום בערכו הנומינלי למפר (ללא הפרשי הצמדה וריבית) לאחר שהמפר ימציא הוכחות לכך שביצע את הצו או כשהצדדים יודיעו לבית המשפט שהגיעו ביניהם להסדר ולאחר שיחזיק בסכום הערובה תקופה נוספת העולה כדי מספר הימים מיום מתן פסק הדין ועד להפקדת הערובה. אם הנפגע יודיע לבית המשפט כי המפר לא מקיים את הצו וחלפו 60 יום ממתן הצו, בית המשפט יחלט את הערובה. פירות ההפקדה או חילוט הערובה הם לטובת אוצר המדינה. אראה כי מנגנון זה מוחק לחלוטין את הרווח שמצפה המפר להרוויח מסיכול/עיכוב צו האכיפה מבלי שבית המשפט יצטרך לוודא נתונים שאין ביכולתו לוודא.English Abstract: This article considers Astreinte proceedings (\"Tzav Martia\" in Hebrew). An astreinte is a new remedy under the Project of Civil Code in Israel; it entails a daily fine which courts can impose on a breaching party who does not perform a specific performance order issued against her. The article examines the effectiveness of this remedy in preventing breach of specific performance injunctions. The bottom line is that, while the required fine can be arithmetically calculated, it is unlikely that the courts have sufficient information to verify the components required to carry out such a calculation.In the case of an inefficient contract, the gain to a breaching party from not complying with an injunction lies in","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131499082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Two Faces of Materiality","authors":"R. Booth","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2196913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2196913","url":null,"abstract":"To make out a claim for securities fraud under federal law, a plaintiff must plead and prove the misrepresentation of a material fact. The Supreme Court has repeatedly defined a material fact as one that would be important to a reasonable investor in deciding how to act in that it would change the total mix of information — although it need not necessarily change the ultimate decision of the investor as to how to vote or whether to trade. The courts have also defined a material fact as one that would affect market price — which clearly implies that it must have changed the decisions of some investors. Although these two definitions of materiality appear to conflict, they can be reconciled as alternative expressions of the same standard, the former referring to individual investors and the latter referring to investors in the aggregate. Indeed, the Supreme Court has held a fact cannot be material if it cannot matter to the ultimate outcome, suggesting that a fact cannot be material if it does not affect the behavior of a number of investors sufficient to move the market. Arguably, it would be appropriate to consider price impact in connection with the decision to certify a securities fraud action as a class action under the fraud on the market (FOTM) theory since a class action involves the claims of investors in the aggregate and since price impact need not be dispositive as to the merits of the individual claim of the lead plaintiff who may be able to recover under the individual investor standard. The Supreme Court foreclosed that option in its Amgen decision, possibly for fear that failure to determine materiality in the context of a class action might lead to a multiplicity of lawsuits. Nevertheless, the Amgen Court stated that determination of the question may be appropriate on summary judgment even though earlier decisions have emphasized that materiality is a matter of fact that should not be decided by any bright line test. Moreover, in focusing on materiality as a matter of merit, Amgen says nothing about when a court should consider other grounds for rebutting the FOTM presumption of reliance based on the likelihood that the plaintiff class includes significant numbers of atypical investors who may have been indifferent to company-specific market prices and thus may not be adequately represented in a class action.","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116376777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Banks, Agency and Misrepresentation","authors":"Kelry Chit Fai Loi","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2255276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2255276","url":null,"abstract":"A plaintiff-investor has been induced by pre-contractual misrepresentations to enter into an investment contract with a defendant-bank. This article discusses some of the issues which must be addressed in such cases. Although triggered by recent litigation between investors and banks, the discussion draws on basic commercial law principles which are of general application. Apart from the novel doctrine of ‘contractual estoppel’, there are alternative orthodox tools of the trade readily deployable by a commercial lawyer. These alternative means of reasoning include basic and well-established contract law principles of misrepresentation and traditional agency principles of authority, which have been overlooked because they have been overshadowed by contractual estoppel in current discourse. The point of this article is simply to take us back to basics by bringing these alternate analyses back into focus.","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128217268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rent-Seeking and Litigation: The Hidden Virtues of the Loser-Pays Rule","authors":"Emanuela Carbonara, F. Parisi","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2144800","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2144800","url":null,"abstract":"In the past couple of decades, scholars have predominantly employed rent-seeking models to analyze litigation problems. In this paper, we build on the existing literature to show how alternative fee-shifting arrangements (i.e., the American rule and modified English rule) affect parties' litigation expenditures and their decisions to litigate. Contrary to the prevailing opinion, we discover some interrelated advantages of the English rule over the American rule, including the reduction of litigation rates and reduction of expected litigation expenditures. Our results unveil a hidden virtue of the English rule, showing that an increase in fee-shifting may have the effect of reducing total litigation costs and lead to a desirable sorting of socially valuable litigation.","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"70 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125946846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Economic Analysis of Punitive Damages: Theory, Empirics, and Doctrine","authors":"C. Sharkey","doi":"10.4337/9781781006177.00030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/9781781006177.00030","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter — to be included in Research Handbook on the Economics of Torts (Arlen ed., Kluwer, forthcoming 2012) — assesses economic rationales for punitive damages in light of contemporary empirics and doctrine. The primary economic rationale for supra-compensatory damages is optimal deterrence (or loss internalization): when compensatory damages alone will not induce an actor to take cost-justified safety precautions, then supra-compensatory damages are necessary to force the actor to internalize the full scope of the harms caused by his actions. Alternative economic rationales — disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and enforcement of property rights — have been proposed to align the theory with the historical and conventional focus of punitive damages on intentionally wrongful behavior. Notwithstanding its academic prominence, the economic deterrence rationale has not dominated doctrine. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has all but rejected economic deterrence, by instead placing increasing emphasis on a competing retributive punishment rationale. But, since punitive damages lie squarely within the purview of state law, state legislatures and courts possess a degree of freedom to articulate state-based goals of punitive damages — such as economic deterrence — even in the face of heavy-handed federal constitutional review imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court.","PeriodicalId":113747,"journal":{"name":"Litigation & Procedure eJournal","volume":"1 9-10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116872743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}