Voltaire said "perfection is the enemy of the good". The Texas Supreme Court disagrees.
Blawgletter recalls our horror, on a fall day in 1981, when the civil procedure professor revealed that appellate courts could — in fact usually must — delay correcting egregious trial court errors until after final judgment. But why, we wanted
Tubular, man!
The Sixth Circuit yesterday upheld an $11.5 million jury award to a class of Northeastern Ohio scrap metal "generators". The generators alleged that scrap "processors" conspired not to compete with each other on bids for the ferrous and non-ferrous stuff the generators generated. The result? Lower prices for their scrap. About, oh
The ebb and flow of law fascinates Blawgletter. Every week brings new surprises.
We hold special fondness for the hard and messy work of presiding over trials. We admire even more the jurors who recreate democracy with each verdict they render.
And yet every day we see court of appeals decisions that uphold shortcuts and
Yesterday, Blawgletter rhapsodized on The Value of Class Actions to consumers. Today we speak of their riskiness to class counsel. The Fifth Circuit will help us illustrate the point.
Last Friday, the court affirmed summary judgment against a class of pension plan participants and beneficiaries. In Kirschbaum v. Reliant Energy, Inc., No. 06-20157 (5th
A question of leverage. Chief Justice John G. Roberts volunteered the other day, at a moot court competition, that "a class action is a dramatic departure from the normal rules of litigation." He went on to suggest that the device serves merely to increase plaintiffs’ leverage in settlement talks.
Hmmm. True, aggregating small claims
On this springy Friday, when the world looks new and everything again seems possible, Blawgletter offers a second installment to a thingy we’ve undertaken to pen for the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas in its new Hot Topics for Trial Lawyers:
Let’s take another stroll down memory lane, shall we? Back
An ancient doctrine. A new twist on the good old cy pres doctrine lets judges redirect money that a defendant presumptively owes to a group of people — often members of a class in a class action — to other deserving folks. That doesn’t sound good. Why on Earth should a court divert funds
Blawgletter argued a few weeks ago to a bench that few practicing lawyers know much about — the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.
Repeat appearers call it simply "the Panel" or "the MDL Panel". Its website defines its mission thus:
Origin and Purposes
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, known informally as the
Here Blawgletter sits on a Super 80 jetliner. The flight crew will soon — if the FAA doesn’t order a new inspection of the wire harnesses in the landing gear well — close the door and order us passengers to switch off of all electronic devices, including our laptop.
But before that happens we wanted
Last week, the Institute for Legal Reform — an arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — released results of a survey it commissioned on voters’ attitudes towards arbitration. It summarized the findings thus: