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Manufactured finality is an umbrella term for the various ways that federal litigants try to create a final, appealable decision. And it has an uncertain future after the Supreme Court's decision in Microsoft Corp. 73 . Baker. Yet existing studies of manufactured finality have failed to appredate its nuances. Several different varieties of manufactured finality exist. Each applies in different contexts, implicates different interests, and has different prospects for future use after Microsoft. In this Article, I comprehensively detail the variables that go into manufactured finality, create a typology of the various forms of manufactured finality that appear in the courts of appeals, and address Microsoft's impact on each of those forms. In the course of doing so, I raise two larger issues. The first concerns how we define finality. The predominant conception of finality looks to the substance of a district court's decision, asking if that court has actually disposed of all claims in an action. The law of appellate jurisdiction might be improved by shifting the focus to asking simply whether the district court has finished with an action. The second issue concerns the role that litigants play in determining when they can appeal. As things stand, courts have essentially complete control over those matters. Experience with manufactured finality suggests that litigants should have some say in identifying proper opportunities for interlocutory appeals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a novel sample of 83,260 lawsuits filed in US Federal District courts, we extend the results of prior studies investigating market value and reputational losses due to corporate misconduct. We examine alternative explanations for the loss in market value, such as media coverage, the expectation of subsequent litigation, and the defendant's willingness to settle, in addition to previously documented factors. Our results suggest that with the exception of securities litigation, this loss in market value can be attributed to these alternative explanations rather than to reputational consequences. This finding is confirmed by several indirect measures of reputation loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses America's spoliation of evidence doctrine in relation to electronically stored information (ESI), pre-trial discovery processes, and a December 2015 amendment to Rule 37(E) of the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. American electronic discovery (e-discovery) is addressed, along with the nation's district courts and the case Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC which deals with a duty to preserve evidence. Intentional spoliation is assessed.

The article discusses the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the 1938 diversity jurisdiction case Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (Erie) in relation to a debate about whether a U.S. federal district court that is hearing a case under its diversity jurisdiction is required to use the preliminary injunction standard that would be applied by a court of general civil jurisdiction where the federal court is located. American civil procedure, forum shopping, and legal presumptions are assessed.

The article focuses on the decision of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California Mathew Enter., Inc. v. Chrysler Grp. LLC. regarding the antitrust law. It mentions that price discrimination claims against the automobile dealer Chrysler Group LLC. It mentions that the price reductions in violation of Section 2(a) of the Robinson Patman Act (RPA).

This Article undertakes a broad-based empirical review of intellectual property ("IP") litigation in U.S. federal district courts from 1994 to 2014. Unlike the prior literature, this study analyzes federal copyright, patent, and trademark litigation trends as a unified whole. It undertakes a systematic analysis of the records of more than 190,000 cases filed in federal courts and examines the subject matter, geographical, and temporal variation within federal IP litigation over the last two decades. This Article analyzes changes in the distribution of IP litigation over time and their regional distribution. The key findings of this Article stem from an attempt to understand long-term patterns in the filing data as well as short-term deviations from various trends. This data-driven approach has yielded insights in relation to such diverse topics as Internet filesharing litigation, the true impact of patent trolls on the level of patent litigation, and the extent of forum shopping and forum selling patent litigation. Just as importantly, this Article lays the foundation for planning and evaluating future empirical studies of IP litigation with a narrower focus. Many of the results and conclusions herein demonstrate the dangers of basing empirical conclusions on narrow slices of data from selected regions or selected time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case comment analyses the appropriateness of the 60/40 written/oral weighting of the promotional exams challenged by Briscoe. The plaintiff claimed that the oral exam had less disparate impact on African Americans, was a better way to access candidates' ability and hence should be weighted more. The comment shows that when more weight is given to the oral exam, the number of African American promotions 'increases', but the number of Hispanic promotions and the total number of minority promotions 'decreases'. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that for most of the written/oral weightings, including the one advocated by the plaintiff, the number of African Americans who would be promoted to lieutenant remains the same, supporting district court's conclusion that the weighting used by the City did not have disparate impact on African Americans 'as a race'. In addition, the comment illustrates that even though the oral exam had less disparate impact on African Americans, it had 'more' disparity on Hispanics. Considering minority candidates as a whole group, the disparities of the oral and the written exams were about the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Obama's 2013 veto of a US International Trade Commission (ITC) exclusion order, issued to address Apple Inc.'s infringement of a patent owned by Samsung, thrust the ITC's public interest inquiry into the spotlight. Historically, however, these factors rarely weighed against a remedy at the ITC. Likewise, US district courts have rarely declined to issue a permanent injunction after finding a patent valid and infringed due solely to the public interest factor--the last of the four factors that the Supreme Court put in place in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. More recent decisions addressing the public interest in both forums, however, show a willingness by the adjudicators to weigh both traditional public interest issues, such as health and well-being, and non-traditional arguments, such as public reliance and environmental concerns, against a patent owner's right to exclude. In this Article, we examine some of the successful traditional and non-traditional public interest arguments, both at the ITC and in US district courts. From this analysis, the Article outlines how parties involved in high-stakes patent litigation in either forum can craft public interest arguments to combat the threat of a permanent injunction or an ITC exclusion order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several court decisions in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) lawsuits against telemarketers, creditors, and debt collectors. Topics include revocation of consent by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Osorio v. State Farm Bank, cell phone verification issue addressed in Levy v. Receivables Performance Management, LLC, and issues related to the definition of Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS) for the federal district courts.

One of the greatest challenges facing patent holders is the enforcement of their rights against foreign (non-US) infringers. Jurisdictional rules can prevent patent holders from filing patent infringement suits where they have the greatest likelihood of success in enforcement, such as where the infringer is located, has its seat, or holds its assets. Instead, patent holders must file lawsuits in the country where the infringed patent was issued. But filing a patent lawsuit in a US court against a non-US infringer may be subject to various difficulties associated with the fact that US substantive patent law (particularly as regards its territorial scope) and conflict of laws rules are not always compatible and interoperable with the conflict of laws rules of other countries. Such insufficient compatibility and interoperability can lead to US judgments not being enforceable outside the United States. In the Hague Conference's Judgments Project, which the Conference relaunched in 2012, the United States has an opportunity to negotiate internationally-uniform conflict of laws rules to improve cross-border litigation, including cross-border patent litigation. This Article provides data on cross-border patent litigation that can be used to show the extent of the cross-border patent litigation problem and assist in assessing the appropriate degree of US involvement in the Judgments Project. The Article updates the author's earlier research on cross-border aspects of patent litigation, contributes to the rapidly growing body of empirical literature on patent litigation (including the literature on the "patent troll" phenomenon), and enriches the literature on foreign litigants in patent disputes and on transnational litigation in general (both of which suffer from a dearth of statistical data). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological standards allow manufacturers and consumers to rely upon these agreed-upon basic systems to facilitate sales and further invention. However, where these standards involved patented technology, the process of standard-setting raises many concerns at the intersection of antitrust and patent law. As patent holders advocate for their patents to become part of technological standards, how should courts police this activity to prevent patent holdup and other anti-competitive practices? This Note explores the differing approaches to remedies employed by the United States International Trade Commission and the United States District Courts where standard-essential patents are infringed. This Note further proposes that both adjudicative bodies should utilize the public policy prongs of their respective analyses to deny injunctive relief where an entity has previously pledged to license its standard-essential patent and fails to undergo appropriate negotiations prior to bringing a patent infringement suit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the connection between copyright law and tattoos, an art form that has not commonly been thought of as a highly protected type of intellectual property under the Copyright Act of 1976 (Copyright A ct). The issue of existence and control of tattoo intellectual property has started to make its appearance in multiple federal district courtrooms across the United States; however, thus far all cases have settled before proceeding to trial. As a result, legal precedent informing potential litigants about the merits of their cases has yet to be firmly established. This article attempts to fully explain the applicability of the Copyright Act to the tattoo industry by highlighting the claims and affirmative defenses that the respective parties may assert in litigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the purpose of Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA) and Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA) by discussing two U.S. court cases. Topics discussed include supreme court case Chadbourne & Parke LLP v. Troice where the court held that SLUSA did not apply to the plaintiffs' claims, Hidalgo-Velez v. San Juan Asset Management Inc. where district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss.

The boundaries of federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) are blurring, as district courts seek innovative ways tofacilitate global settlements to resolve multijurisdictional, multidimensional, national mass torts. The techniques emerging from the district courts have mostly evaded appellate review and received little scholarly attention, but they raise important challenges to traditional understandings of the nature of MDL and complex litigation. This Article argues that factually similar cases proceeding in multiple court systems in mass tort disputes create a "federalism problem" for global settlements: global settlements typically benefit from oversight by a single judge, but often there is no single judge who can exercise control over all the parties who might participate in such a settlement. This Article identifies a trend emerging in MDL settlements that attempts to solve the federalism problem by extending the MDL court's authority. In the settlement phase, some MDL judges have begun experimenting with the exercise of power over state litigants (and even individuals who made private claims but never filed suit in any court), in order to facilitate global settlements. In this situation, the "case" appears to encompass the national mass tort settlement itself. This Article concludes that the aggregative trend toward transjurisdictional settlement authority in MDL has no basis in the MDL statute. The emerging practice submerges the federalism problem into the settlement agreement without regard to the inherent limitations on the federal court's structural power, but the federalism problem remains unsolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon and the dispersal of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 generated a mass of litigation. To organize and manage this complex mass, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana created "pleading bundles," which consolidated similar cases, and provided that each bundle must file a single complaint on behalf of the entire group. In Center for Biological Diversity v. BP America Production Co., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of most of the Center for Biological Diversity's claims on the grounds of mootness, and further concluded that the district court was within its discretion when placing the Center's case into a pleading bundle that did not recognize all of the Center's claims. This Comment argues that the district court's consolidation technique prejudiced the Center and was inappropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On March 14, 2013, in Stewart v. Waco Independent School District, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the plaintiff was not required to administratively exhaust her Rehabilitation Act claim under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In doing so, the Fifth Circuit created a precedent that could potentially flood court dockets and that does not make use of the administrative safeguards statutorily in place. This Comment argues that, on remand, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas should apply a relief-centered approach to ultimately find that the plaintiff was required to exhaust her administrative remedies under the IDEA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia's analysis and holdings of the three major issues in the court case Al Shimari v. CACI International Inc. and the use of the Ohio choice of law provisions and the court's improper analysis of Iraqi law.

The article discusses the U.S. district court's case Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola, Inc. regarding the condition that patent owners would charge licensees reasonable and nondiscriminatory (RAND) royalties for standards-essential patents (SEPs). Topics include use of RAND in resolving the breach of contract claim, determination of RAND rates for other patents required for the Wi-Fi standard, and adoption of the standard by deterring hold-up and royalty stacking.

The article discusses the U.S. common law doctrine of stare decisis and its role in U.S. federal courts and at the agency the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). According to the article, stare decisis does not apply to agencies such as the ITC. It examines why U.S. government agencies can ignore precedents, how U.S. appeals courts review such decisions, and discusses several ITC decisions, including Amgen, Inc. v. U.S. Int'l Trade Comm'n.

In Capitol Records v. ReDigi, the District Court for the Southern District ofNew York ruled that the first sale doctrine does not apply when consumers resell copyrighted goods by digital distribution, even if they use 'forward-and-delete" software that ensures that the seller's copy is deleted during the transaction. This ruling hinged on the court's interpretation of the word "particular" in § 109 of the Copyright Act. The court reasoned that when copyrighted music is downloaded, the specific location on the disk to which it is downloaded is a "phonorecord". According to the court, a digital copy is made anywhere else constitutes a reproduction for the purposes of copyright infringement. Because it is impossible for that physical piece of the disk to be transferred via digital transmission, and every digital transmission thus necessarily requires a reproduction, there can be no first sale protection for the distribution of digital goods. Because of the metaphysical differences between physical and digital media, this comment argues that the fair use doctrine cannot be applied in a media-neutral fashion. Digital goods cannot be moved from place to place in the same way that physical goods can be moved, even though the use of forward-and-delete technology (such as the kind ReDigi utilizes) can cause the functional result to be the same: one copy before the transmission, one copy after the transmission. The court's strict demand that the physical substrate where a copyrighted work is fixed must remain identical in order to be considered the same "particular"c opy (and thus eligible for first sale protection) is at odds with earlier courts' rulings that repaired and restored works are eligible for first sale protection. The court's demand is also at odds with its own conclusion that iPods and other mobile devices containing music can be legally resold. These inconsistencies demonstrate that the phrase "particular copy or phonorecord" in 17 U.S.C. § 109 (which codifes the first sale doctrine) makes the statute unable to account for digital media and thus unable to apply in a media-neutralf ashion. A specific carve-out for digital media is necessary for the law to keep up with the development of technology. Such a change is preferable because media-neutral application of the first sale doctrine permits a secondary market for digital goods to exist, which better serves both ends of copyright-the instrumental goal of rewarding authors and the ultimate goal of providing the public access to creative works by promoting economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the court case Apple v. Samsung in which a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that electronic products firm Samsung infringed on numerous patents of consumer electronics maker and ordered the foreign company to pay the damages. Topics include the idea of blue ribbon jury panels not immune from criticism and the implementation of a system that precludes the use of a jury stated to raise a constitutional issue.

In the wake of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the federal district courts split over whether to apply Twombly's plausibility standard to the pleading of affirmative defenses. Initially, a majority of district courts extended Twombly to defense pleadings, but recently the courts that have declined to extend the plausibility standard have gained majority status. This Note provides a comprehensive analysis of each side of the plausibility split, identifying several hidden assumptions motivating the district courts' decisions. Drawing from its analysis of the two opposing positions, this Note responds to the courts that have applied plausibility pleading to affirmative defenses by identifying several fundamental flaws in their appeals to tradition, policy, and the text of Rule 8. Due to misguided reliance on historical pleading practices, an imprecise reading of Twombly, and an overestimation of the availability of discovery for unpled or stricken affirmative defenses, these courts fail to recognize that extending plausibility pleading beyond the complaint imposes an asymmetrical and unfairly onerous burden on defendants. This Note concludes that the courts that extend Twombly to affirmative defenses do so in violation of both the canons of statutory construction and the principles of the Rules Enabling Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case People v. Diaz filed in the Supreme Court of New York in Bronx County, New York regarding admissibility of hospital records in court cases and the defendant's right to confrontation. Topics discussed include dismissal of habeas corpus petition by defendant Enrique Diaz by the District Court and 440 motion on Sixth Amendment, claim made by Diaz regarding falsification of hospital records and admissibility of records under business records exception.

The article discusses the American media's treatment of sexual harassment claims as of December 2012, focusing on social science research, charge data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and federal district court complaints which were filed at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board's "Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace" survey is mentioned, along with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The article presents a court case of In re Adoption of Baby E.Z. wherein the baby Emma was taken by strangers to Utah after her birth in Virginia. The baby was adopted based on the Utah law. The real father filed motions to intervene the adoption proceeding in the Utah district court. The father further appealed to Utah Supreme Court based on the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act. A focus is on the arguments in the courts of Utah and Virginia based on this case.

The article discusses concerns relating to in-sourcing decisions before the U.S. district courts and reflects the tensions that exist in potential forums for resolving such disputes. It focuses on the jurisdictional tension between the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act's (ADRA) modification of the Tucker Act. It recommends that decisions to in-source should be reviewable, and suggests a possible strategy for challenging such decisions.

The article discusses the legal rights of American prisoners and an empirical study of non-capital habeas corpus cases after appellate review in U.S. courts as of April 2012. Grants of relief by American district courts are addressed, along with an examination of the number of prisoner-filed non-capital habeas corpus lawsuits that reach the appellate court level in the U.S. Several legal cases are assessed, including the U.S. Supreme Court case Day v. McDonough.

The article discusses the court case U.S. ex rel. Anti-Discrimination Center v. Westchester County. It mentions that the plaintiff alleged violations of the federal False Claims Act. It includes that the U.S. District Court of Southern District of New York denied the defendant's motion to dismiss the case on both jurisdictional and substantive grounds. It adds that the Court held that the County had made false certifications on seven annual Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing certifications.

Class action litigation has become increasingly prominent within the last decade. Observing this reality, this Note explores an emerging trend at the district court level--specifically, that federal courts appear to be scrutinizing the standing of class representatives to decrease litigation abuses. But is this the best way to go about it ? This Note takes the position that such "standing scrutiny" is not the best tool to quell abusive or unruly class actions and that "joinder scrutiny" (i.e., scrutinizing the propriety of permissively joining defendants to a class action) is the better way for district courts to proceed. In so doing, this Note briefly reviews the tenets of the standing and permissive joinder doctrines. Furthermore, it provides a comparative analysis of both approaches, looking at the legal and policy implications of each. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court announced a new plausibility standard for a plaintiff's allegations. The decisions may have even broader implications, however, as many federal district courts have already applied this pleading standard to a defendant's affirmative defenses. This Article makes sense of Twombly and Iqbal in the context of the affirmative defense. This Article addresses the two possible readings of Twombly and Iqbal: first, that the decisions are limited to a plaintiff's civil complaint, and second, that a defendant must also comply with the Supreme Court's plausibility standard by pleading enough facts to sufficiently state an affirmative defense. This Article explains why a close textual review of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, combined with numerous policy and practical considerations, support the broader second reading of the Supreme Court's decisions. What it actually means to plausibly plead an affirmative defense is a much more complicated question. This Article closely examines this issue through the lens of one of the most complex and important defenses in all civil case law—the affirmative defense to a claim of sexual harassment. By way of this example, this Article explains how the plausibility standard would apply more broadly to defendants in all civil cases. The question whether the plausibility standard should apply to defendants—and if so, how it should apply—is likely to create significant controversy in the coming years. This Article establishes a foundation for that discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing a year's worth of debate over the 2009 Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, this Article provides a novel explanation for the decision and presents it as radical indeed, but in a way previously unremarked by commentators. The sharp divisions in the responses to Iqbal have masked a deeper consensus and have blocked wide awareness of the decision's constructive potential for diverse interest groups. This consensus is based on a simplified account of the ideal function of pleading in our system of civil litigation, one that first took hold in the early twentieth century. What unsettles many observers about Iqbal is its suggestion that district court judges must interpret a civil complaint in order to decide whether it states a claim. As this Article explains, however, pleading scrutiny always has involved interpretation; if we find that suggestion troubling, it is only because the vocabulary we have long used to discuss the role and treatment of civil pleadings represses this fact. The Article describes the ways this vocabulary has shaped the debate over Iqbal and the contingent historical reasons for its dominance. Looking forward, it shows how Iqbal makes possible a new agenda for procedural scholarship that draws from work on other types of legal interpretation, and it suggests some of the specific ways in which this perspective can guide implementation of Iqbal and clarification of its requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews selective assault on sentencing discretion in the Eleventh Circuit decision in U.S. v. Irey. It explores the mistakes in Irey and attempts to locate each within the broader context of the Eleventh Circuit's sentencing jurisprudence. According to the article, the Eleventh Court decision represents a serious and unlawful encroachment on district court's sentencing discretion, based on misguided notion of culpability which renders lasting impact on district courts to sentence defendants more harshly particularly for sexual offense.

In this article the author discusses the arguments concerning the right to wear the niqab in the U.S. courtrooms. The author mentions the lawsuit filed by Ginnah Muhammad in federal district court against Judge Paul J. Paruk alleging that the latter had violated the right of the former to exercise the religion freely and access the courts. He says that the individuals who refuse to remove the religious headgear are excluded from courtrooms across the U.S.

The United States district courts disagree as to whether the plausibility pleading standard for claims first described by the United States Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly also extends to affirmative defenses pled by defendants in federal courts. The divergent opinions result from conflicting interpretations of the language of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, standards of preferred practice, and notions o f fairness. This Note examines the district courts' arguments in deciding whether the Twombly standard extends to affirmative defenses. It identifies the quiddities of the courts' reasoning through an analysis of their decisions and, based upon this review, argues that the courts should not extend the Twombly standard to affirmative defenses. This Note shows how this conclusion adheres to the text and intention of the Federal Rules, as well as the holding and public policy considerations of Twombly itself. Moreover, it acknowledges that simple injustice would befall defendants on account of an extension of the Twombly standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the responsibilities of lead attorneys and judges in multidistrict litigations (MDLs) in the U.S. It says that an MDL is made when related cases pending in diverse federal district courts are transferred by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to a designated forum for consolidated pretrial motions and discovery. According to the author, an agent is required by the fiduciary duty to solely act for the benefit of a principal when acting on the behalf of a principal. The differences between class counsel and ordinary attorneys are also discussed.

The article discusses a court case Commerce Energy Inc. v. Levin, wherein plaintiffs, in-state and out-of-state retail natural gas suppliers, sued Ohio's Tax Commissioner, Richard Levin alleging that Ohio's tax scheme is discriminatory and thus unconstitutional under either the Commerce Clause or Equal Protection Clause. The trial court in the U.S. dismissed the plaintiff's suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. It also looks at other cases including Hibbs v. Winn.

The article analyzes pre-service removal under the plain language of the forum defendant rule that prohibits removal based on diversity jurisdiction. It addresses the split among the district courts of the U.S. regarding different interpretations of the forum defendant rule and examines the general removal doctrine, general principles of statutory interpretation, and the history of the absurd-result principle of court regarding forum defendant rule. It discusses why plain language argument in favor of pre-service removal is the appropriate resolution of the district court split.

This article looks at some practices of the U.S. relating to international law. It discusses the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the application of key provisions of the securities laws to a private suit involving a so-called foreign cubed securities case. It also explains a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissing a habeas corpus petition brought by a Guantanamo detainee. In addition, the article discusses an amendment to the state constitution of Oklahoma to bar state courts from applying international or Sharia law.

The article discusses a court case wherein the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts approved a class action settlement between plaintiffs, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and several blind persons, and defendants, Cardtronics Inc. and Cardtronics USA Inc. It discusses why they agreed on a proposed remediation plan. The settlement demands the improvement of voice-guided scripts for Cardtronics-owned automated teller machines (ATMs).

The lawfare critique offers a provocative challenge to the use of law and legal process in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has been used to question the legitimacy of numerous lawsuits filed by individuals harmed in the conflict. The lawfare critique is misguided, however, because it fails to recognize that the purpose of any legal system is to offer a viable alternative to the use of force. In addition, the lawfare critique runs counter to the right to a remedy, a firmly established principle of international law. Legal for a should remain accessible to victims, who should have the right to seek redress for their injuries. The rule of law offers a powerful mechanism for ending violence. We should be wary of any efforts to limit its use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the terms of contract between American lawyer Peter Zeidenberg and ProCD Inc. in the U.S. It discusses the lawsuit filed by ProCD against Zeidenberg for breach of contract. It states that Zeidenberg bought a product from ProCD where the box did not clearly stated the terms for the use of the product. It reveals that the district court ruled that Zeidenberg is not bound by the terms since he was not able to see them when he bought the product.

The article offers information on several court cases related to district court discretion and appellate review problems. It states that the case of Gall against the U.S. reveals Gall's rejection over the rule adopted by circuit courts which require justifications for non-Guidelines sentences. It mentions that the presumptions in the case Rita v. U.S. enable the court to sacrifice its ordinary practice. Moreover, the case Kimbrough v. U.S. shows the tension between uniformity and discretion.

The article discusses the conflict of the decision made by the district court concerning the lawsuit of firefighters against the City of New Haven, Connecticut. The district court held that Title VII, the Equal Protection Clause and disparate treatment prohibition, was controlling and dismissed the equal protection claim. However, the Supreme Court reversed the decision stating that the action of the City presumptively violated the disparate treatment prohibition of Title VII.

The article discusses a court case wherein the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused businessman Thomas Talbot of violating the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by trading on material, nonpublic, information. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded the decision of the district court.