Issacharoff on How Last Term’s SCOTUS Cases Fit Together

Samuel Issacharoff (NYU) has posted an article entitled Private Claims, Aggregate Rights on SSRN.  The article does a great job of tying the three procedural cases from last term with larger complex litigation issues. And, like all of Issacharoff’s work, is extraordinarily well written. The abstract is below:

In an odd set of procedure opinions last Term, the Supreme Court founditself confronted with the inadequacy of the federal rules for dealingwith the sprawling array of aggregate disputes that currently engagethe courts. Taken on their own terms, the three cases – SprintCommunications Co., L.P. v APCC Services, Inc, Republic of thePhilippines v Pimentel, and Taylor v Sturgell – broke little newground. Even the topics presented – real parties in interest, requiredparties, and non-party preclusion – are hardly the stuff of futuredebates over potential Supreme Court nominees.

Nonetheless, each of these cases presented privately heldlegal claims that could not be litigated to resolution absentaggregation with the claims of other parties. In each case, the formalworkings of the procedural system were inadequate to the task. ThisArticle contrasts the formalism of federal court procedural doctrinesto the flexibility of bankruptcy workouts for asbestos claims andcourt-supervised private settlements, as in the recent Vioxxsettlement. In the latter examples, courts have used more flexibleprinciples of equity to oversee privately-ordered mass settlements. Thearticle explores both the benefits and the limits of such privateordering in order to highlight the limitations on court-administrationof mass harm litigation.

ADL