Demand for civil trials and court congestion

This paper examines interactions between how congested courts are, whether potential plaintiffs decide to sue, and whether potential defendants choose to engage in actions that harm potential plaintiffs. We conclude that in the presence of congestion standard delay reduction efforts (higher filing costs, lower damage awards, out-of-court settlement, greater court capacity) may not be effective.     

The Informational Role of the Arbitration Clause

We analyse the role of an arbitration clause as a quality signal. We model a contractual relationship between one buyer and two sellers, one of which offers a high-quality product, the other a low-quality product. With a certain probability, the product is defective. The sellers have the choice of either taking the case to court if the product is defective, or including an arbitration clause in which case an arbitrator determines the indemnity payment. Under some conditions, only the high-quality seller offers an arbitration clause, which then serves as a quality signal.     

An introduction to the law and economics of class action litigation

The consolidation of similar claims for compensation into a single large class of plaintiffs is referred to as “class action litigation.” This practice can have both social costs and social benefits. For an example of the social benefits of consolidating separate claims, if the facts giving rise to the claims are substantially similar, then there may be significant savings in litigation and court administrative costs from presenting those facts once rather a multitude of times. There may, however, be significant social costs to creating a class of litigants and consolidating their claims. For example, this practice may empower those with frivolous negative expected-value claims to wring an unwarranted settlement from the defendant or defendants. The article surveys other sources of social cost and benefit from class-action litigation, reviews the empirical literature on these actions, and examines recent U.S. policy debates about reforming class-action litigation. The article concludes that class-action litigation can have substantial net social benefits but only if courts assiduously oversee the class certification process so as to identify and forestall the social-cost-generating aspects of class-action litigation.     

Who Has to Pay for Periods of Insolvent Insurance in Long-Tail Coverage Claims? New Jersey High Court Changes the Game in Favor of Policyholders

Two new cases have changed the game in New Jersey for allocating defense and indemnity costs in long-tail environmental or toxic tort claims. The high court has established that solvent insurers must absorb insolvent insurers’ share of costs in long-tail claims until all solvent insurance is exhausted, at which time insolvent shares will be borne by the Property-Liability Guaranty Association. In addition, the high court has established that insurers have a right of contribution against other insurers when they pay more than their allocated share of defense or indemnity.     

The Social Organization of Legal Services to Indigent Defendants

This article draws together materials portraying appointed counsel services in a variety of jurisdictions to illustrate the role of court organization in shaping legal services to indigent defendants. Many criminal courts are bifurcated into preliminary hearing and trial courts. Legal representation of indigents is frequently organized to parallel these stages. As a result, indigent defendants receive defense services from a succession of different lawyers at different stages of their cases. This occurs in three ways. First, some defendants legally eligible for appointed counsel at the inception of their cases have counsel appointed for them only at the trial court after initially employing their own counsel at the preliminary hearing. The dual court system encourages such one-stage representation by private lawyers by facilitating their withdrawal between stages of a case. Second, indigents may also have different private lawyers appointed to represent them at different stages because judges, interested in efficiently running their court calls, desire that particular lawyers represent indigents in their courtrooms. Finally, defender offices often assign different lawyers to different stages as a result of both the demands by judges that defenders be assigned exclusively to their courtrooms and the costs of delivering continuous legal services in a tiered judicial system. For indigent defendants the sequential system of representation may adversely affect the quality of case preparation and undermine a sound attorney-client relationship.     

Decision-Making in court: Observing the sentencing of men and women

Abstract

Using systematic observation together with an analysis of the relevant court and criminal records this research examined the processing and sentencing of a small number of male and female defendants in an English magistrates' court. The findings indicate that sentencing was indirectly affected by a defendant's sex and directly affected by at least one aspect of a defendant's demeanour. These results provide support for the view that combining systematic observation with an analysis of court records offers a more effective means of investigating the differential treatment of male and female defendants than either unsystematic observational studies or the analysis of court records alone.     

Mental disorder as the cause of a crime

An offender's punishment can be reduced when a court decides that his mental disorder reduces his responsibility for what he did. Courts have sought to establish whether a mentally disordered offender's responsibility is reduced by asking whether his disorder caused the crime. Acceptance of this “causation by mental disorder” criterion has fluctuated, however. This may be because causal explanations are not the types of explanations we are accustomed to offering for the kinds of acts that bring defendants, and psychiatric witnesses, to court. More often, we offer what philosophers have called “possibility” explanations for these acts. The application of psychiatry to possibility explanations has not been widely explored. It offers the potential for the improved use of psychiatric evidence in criminal proceedings.     

The feasibility of a brief evaluation of mental state at the time of the offense

If psychological evaluations of criminal defendants could be performed in the community on an outpatient basis rather than in a distant state hospital on an inpatient basis, substantial savings could result and defendants' rights to speedy trial, bail, and the least restrictive alternative would more likely be respected. The authors thus developed a protocol, the mental state at the time of the offense screening evaluation (MSE), designed to enable outpatient evaluatiors to “screen out,” in the course of a brief interview, those defendants whose alleged criminal conduct clearly was not caused by “significant mental abnormality.” They tested the validity of the MSE by having pairs of mental health professionals use the MSE to evaluate 36 criminal defendants. The professionals' conclusions were then compared with the conclusions of state hospital professionals who performed a comprehensive evaluation of each defendant. They were also compared to court adjudications of the defendant's criminal charges. They found that the MSE screened out a large proportion of defendants (sufficient to suggest an improvement in cost-efficiency) without prejudice to those defendants who might have a valid legal defense.     

Opening Pandora’s Box: How Does Defendant Race Influence Plea Bargaining?

Minority overrepresentation in the criminal justice system has long been an important topic of research and policy debate. In New York City, recent changes in the Rockefeller Drug Laws and the controversy around police stop-and-frisk practices have placed an even greater emphasis on the need for studying the possible impact of defendants’ race and ethnicity on criminal justice outcomes. Relatively little contemporary research, though, examines plea-bargaining outcomes. Using unique data on misdemeanor marijuana cases, this study examines the impact of defendants’ race on prosecutors’ decisions to make (a) plea offers for a lesser charge and (b) sentence offers for non-custodial punishments. Preliminary findings indicated that black defendants were less likely to receive reduced charge offers, and both black and Latino defendants were more likely to receive custodial sentence offers. However, these disparities were largely explained by legal factors, evidence, arrest circumstances, and court actor characteristics, though black defendants were still more likely to receive custodial sentence offers after including these controls. No differences were found between white and Asian defendants. Implications for research and prosecutorial practices are discussed.     

Improving court-appearance rates through court-date reminder phone calls

Without a defendant’s appearance in court, the adjudication of criminal charges cannot proceed. The low defendant court appearance rates of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana were identified as a high priority to address. A pilot project was implemented, in which, Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office (LPSO) Information Officers would call defendants approximately 5–9 days before their pretrial court appearance. This process began in September 2014. LPSO staff attempted to call all non-incarcerated or diverted defendants with known contact information. LPSO staff documented when calls were made and the type of response (spoke to defendant, left a voicemail, no answer, inoperable phone or spoke to friend or family member). Calls were made to defendants with court appearances in arraignment hearings, misdemeanor pretrial and trial, felony pretrial and traffic court. Court appearance rates for all court hearings increased from 48 to 62%.     

行政赔偿诉讼标的再认识——对最高人民法院《关于审理行政赔偿案件若干问题的规定》第28条的再论证

在附带提起的行政赔偿诉讼中 ,事实上存在两个不同的诉讼标的 ,一是具体行政行为 ,① 一是民事法律关系 ,二者性质不同。因此 ,当事人在提起行政诉讼的同时一并提出行政赔偿请求的 ,应当分别立案 ,以保障审判公正。同时 ,应考虑赔偿之诉的特殊性 ,对其撤诉区别对待 ,原告在撤诉后再次起诉的 ,法院应予受理。     

行政诉讼被告三题

现行立法对确定行政委托被告的规定不尽合理。应在立法上将行政委托和行政代理相区别;在审理行政代理案件时,应将代理机关和被代理机关列为共同被告。对复议维持决定应进一步区分真伪,对真复议维持决定应明确以原行政机关为被告。在原告起诉多个被告,其中有不适格的被告时,法院应先予释明,如原告坚持原诉时,应裁定驳回其起诉,而不应拆分原告的起诉,分别下判。     

ROCK‐PAPER‐SCISSORS: PLAYING THE ODDS WITH THE LAW OF CHILD RELOCATION

This article offers for inspection the proposition that the adversarial evidence‐based litigation process is unsuitable for resolving custody cases in general and relocation cases in particular. It analyzes the leading cases from New York, Massachusetts, California, England, Canada, and Australia. It reaches a conclusion that no jurisdiction has devised a legal standard or formula that enables a judge to predict the future best interest of a child if that child is allowed to relocate with one parent away from the other. For this reason, the court has a duty to offer as sophisticated and friendly a settlement process and atmosphere as possible. However, knowing that judges will still be required to resolve these difficult cases because they often seem impervious to settlement, the article offers thirty‐six factors that a court should consider in all move‐away cases. By relying on each of these factors that is relevant to the case, the parents will have an understanding of why the decision was made the way it was and it will also allow for effective appellate review.     

Medicare program; prospective payment system for hospital outpatient services--HCFA. Proposed rule

As required by sections 4521, 4522, and 4523 of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, this proposed rule would eliminate the formula-driven overpayment for certain outpatient hospital services, extend reductions in payment for costs of hospital outpatient services, and establish in regulations a prospective payment system for hospital outpatient services (and for Medicare Part B services furnished to inpatients who have no Part A coverage). The prospective payment system would simplify our current payment system and apply to all hospitals, including those that are excluded from the inpatient prospective payment system. The Balanced Budget Act provides for implementation of the prospective payment system effective January 1, 1999, but delays application of the system to cancer hospitals until January 1, 2000. The hospital outpatient prospective payment system would also apply to partial hospitalization services furnished by community mental health centers. Although the statutory effective date for the outpatient prospective payment system is January 1, 1999, implementation of the new system will have to be delayed because of year 2000 systems concerns. The demands on intermediary bill processing systems and HCFA internal systems to become compliant for the year 2000 preclude making the major systems changes that are required to implement the prospective payment system. The outpatient prospective payment system will be implemented for all hospitals and community mental health centers as soon as possible after January 1, 2000, and a notice of the anticipated implementation date will be published in the Federal Register at least 90 days in advance. This document also proposes new requirements for provider departments and provider-based entities. These proposed changes, as revised based on our consideration of public comments, will be effective 30 days after publication of a final rule. This proposed rule would also implement section 9343(c) of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986, which prohibits Medicare payment for nonphysician services furnished to a hospital outpatient by a provider or supplier other than a hospital, unless the services are furnished under an arrangement with the hospital. This section also authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General to impose a civil money penalty, not to exceed $10,000, against any individual or entity who knowingly and willfully presents a bill for nonphysician or other bundled services not provided directly or under such an arrangement. This proposed rule also addresses the requirements for designating certain entities as provider-based or as a department of a hospital.     

Court Order No, 4, USSR Supreme Court Plenum,March 18, 1963

A review of the practice in recovering court expenditures [raskhody] in civil cases and court costs [izderzhki] in criminal cases has demonstrated that courts do not always observe the laws in effect with regard to this matter, that they commit significant errors. Frequently, in accepting the filing of suits and appeals in civil cases, courts do not exact payment of the state fee provided by law, or else they determine it inaccurately. They do not always take into consideration the fact that expenditures caused the court in connection with the trial and the state fee, from which a plaintiff has been exempted, are to be recovered from the respondent for the state in proportion to the satisfied portion of the claim in the suit. In violation of Article 45 of the RSFSR Code of Civil Procedure and the corresponding articles of the civil procedural codes of the other union republics, many courts do not demand that the parties make advance payment of the sums needed to meet the costs of calling witnesses and experts, as well as the expenditures involved in on-site examinations.     

Blind or Biased? Justitia's Susceptibility to Anchoring Effects in the Courtroom Based on Given Numerical Representations

This article presents an integrative review of recent research on anchoring effects in the courtroom as one example for the strong impact of representation norms on sentencing decisions. Anchoring effects – the assimilation of numerical judgments to a given standard – have been demonstrated in many judgmental domains. Even sentencing decisions are subject to anchoring effects. In court proceedings this gives disproportionate weight to the prosecutor, whose sentencing demand serves as an anchor. The prosecution's sentencing demand even affects defense attorneys, who assimilate their own sentencing recommendation to it. This influence seems to remain outside of defense attorneys' awareness. Expertise does not attenuate this bias. Accordingly, defendants might be better off if defense attorneys could make their final case prior to the prosecutor's case.     

CUMULATIVE DISADVANTAGE: EXAMINING RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITY IN PROSECUTION AND SENTENCING

Current research on criminal case processing typically examines a single decision‐making point, so drawing reliable conclusions about the impact that factors such as defendants’ race or ethnicity exert across successive stages of the justice system is difficult. Using data from the New York County District Attorney's Office that tracks 185,275 diverse criminal cases, this study assesses racial and ethnic disparity for multiple discretionary points of prosecution and sentencing. Findings from multivariate logistic regression analyses demonstrate that the effects of race and ethnicity vary by discretionary point and offense category. Black and Latino defendants were more likely than White defendants to be detained, to receive a custodial plea offer, and to be incarcerated—and they received especially punitive outcomes for person offenses—but were more likely to benefit from case dismissals. The findings for Asian defendants were less consistent but suggest they were the least likely to be detained, to receive custodial offers, and to be incarcerated. These findings are discussed in the context of contemporary theoretical perspectives on racial bias and cumulative disadvantage in the justice system.     

数字人民币的竞争减损与规制补充

数字人民币自2020年4月试验性发行以来受到了国内外的共同关注。数字人民币具有降低货币发行成本、简化金融市场架构、提升支付效率、加强人民币国际化等优势。同时,我国为数字人民币设置的二元发行模式及100%存款准备金制度也在较大程度上避免了金融机构“脱媒”及银行挤兑加速的负面效果。但数字人民币在与数字化实体人民币的竞争中无法完全避免狭义银行问题,在与其他电子支付工具的竞争中缺乏独有竞争优势,市场前景堪忧。未来的货币规制应当考虑数字人民币的特性,为之确立有限的法偿性、不同的基准利率以及零支付手续费等配套措施。     

中国行政诉讼制度发展的新路向

我国现行的行政诉讼制度存在诸多缺陷,导致行政诉讼的功能未能充分发挥,有必要通过制度变革加以完善。应该设立行政法院,切实保证行政审判的独立公正;将行政机关之外行政诉讼被告的表述,从"法律、法规授权的组织"变更为"其他承担行政任务的主体";将部分行政规范纳入行政诉讼的受案范围;强化法院对行政裁量与行政解释的审查力度。     

工伤救济先行给付与代位求偿制度探微——兼评《社会保险法》工伤保险基金先行支付制度的得与失

先行给付与代位求偿是保险法上的通例,《社会保险法》第41、42条涉及该通例并规定为工伤保险基金先行支付制度。先行支付制度包括垫付性先行支付和保险性先行支付,也称为用人单位未依法缴纳工伤保险费型先行支付和由于第三人的原因造成工伤型先行支付。在社保强制性不足的背景下,该制度设计有着明显的缺陷,鉴于其积极的人本价值和宽容的制度理性,不宜弱化先行支付制度之实施,应当通过完善社保强制性、加大违法成本、强化惩戒措施来保证该制度的有效实施。