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Compassionate release, guided by 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), allows a district court to reduce a previously imposed criminal sentence if "extraordinary and compelling reasons" warrant a reduction. Congress delegated the task of describing what constitutes an extraordinary and compelling reason to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Following the passage of the First Step Act of 2018, most circuit courts held the Commission's policy statement describing extraordinary and compelling reasons inapplicable, and that until the Commission updated its policy statement, courts enjoyed the discretion to determine what circumstances justify compassionate release. Many have celebrated this newfound discretion and its potential to expand individuals' ability to receive compassionate release. However, judicial discretion, though valuable in many ways, inevitably leads to disagreement and disparity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, circuit courts have disagreed on whether certain circumstances could, as a matter of law, justify a grant of compassionate release, causing geographic disparity in individuals' ability to receive compassion. In April 2023, the Commission updated its policy statement and included a catchall provision codifying judicial discretion and, unless the Commission acts, the disparity that discretion invites. This Comment argues that for judicial discretion to improve compassionate release, the Commission must take an active role in overseeing judicial discretion so that compassionate release can enjoy the benefits of that discretion without accepting the disparity discretion often creates. Specifically, it argues the Commission, through its statutory authority to describe what should be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason, can resolve current and future circuit splits over what constitutes an extraordinary and compelling reason by promulgating amended policy statements expressly including, or excluding, the disputed circumstance in its description of extraordinary and compelling reasons. In doing so, the Commission would effectively erase circuit courts' contrary interpretations of extraordinary and compelling reasons and thereby end the regional "droughts of compassion" the current approach to judicial discretion allows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Kevin Spacey's manipulative rhetoric in the YouTube video he posted on Christmas Eve in 2018 when he was facing a felony sexual assault charge in Nantucket District Court in USA. Drawing upon the notion of "double deixis" used for the second-person pronoun, this article questions the extent to which Spacey's use of the first-person pronoun could be called "doubly deictic". The findings show that Spacey's strategic use of deixis allows him to blur identities and conflate fictional and real worlds. Not only is he using deixis in a way that hampers easy interpretation and complicates cognitive projection but he assigns his audience an awkward double positioning (as fans and citizens). The article also tries to elucidate the complex effects of Spacey's manipulation on viewers. It suggests an addition to the notion of "double consciousness" that malfunctions here, as a "third consciousness" seems to be imposed onto the audience. This may explain why certain viewers are likely to experience some "cognitive dissonance" while watching this video that the media has defined as "creepy". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Chinese courts issued a spate of anti-suit injunctions ("ASIs") in licensing disputes between holders of standard-essential patents ("SEPs") and implementers, there have been growing concerns about the weaponization of ASIs in the global SEP licensing battles on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory ("FRAND") terms. This Essay will discuss how the aggressive use of ASIs by Chinese courts, along with their assertion of jurisdiction to set global licensing rates at abnormally low levels, contributes to this concern. It is not helpful, however, to cast the ASIs in purely geopolitical terms. More than anything else, ASIs are being used to gain an advantage in licensing negotiations, and they may perversely play a positive role in facilitating the settlement of FRAND disputes. Instead of trying to curb the use of ASIs per se, more attention needs to be paid to solving the forum shopping problem in global FRAND litigation that leads to the issuance of ASIs in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an original data set of around 70,000 civil rights cases heard by nearly 200 judges, we study the effect of presidential appointments to federal district courts. We provide the first causal estimates of whether lawsuits end differently depending on their assignment to either a Democratic or a Republican appointed judge. We show Republican appointees cause fewer settlements and more dismissals, favoring defendants by around 5 percentage points. We estimate a similarly sized effect for a sample of civil rights appeals heard in the Ninth Circuit, raising questions about the conventional wisdom that politics matters more at higher levels of the judicial hierarchy. We also find that the effect in district courts has increased over time. For cases filed during the Obama presidency, Republican appointees caused pro-defendant outcomes in 7.4% more cases than Democratic appointees. Our results suggest that district courts are an important—although neglected—subject of research for political scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moreover, defendants may claim that a plaintiff should not be entitled to the full measure of its lost profit even where the breach occurred before the onset of the pandemic by attempting to prove that the long-term effects of the pandemic will permanently impair future profitability. To be entitled to lost profits, the loss must have been caused by the underlying breach rather than some other cause or source of harm.[10] Lost profit damages will only be available to a plaintiff if that plaintiff can prove that the lost profits flowed consequentially from the claimed breach. The COVID-19 pandemic initially had a devastating impact on business worldwide, and franchised businesses and franchisors in the United States were not spared. For a claim that accrued during the pandemic, a plaintiff must articulate how the defendant's conduct caused a separate loss of profits distinct from the harms caused by the pandemic. [Extracted from the article]

On September 22, 2020, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13950: Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping. This order stopped federal agencies, federal grant recipients, and government contractors from conducting training in the workplace that involves "stereotyping" or "scapegoating" based on sex or race, specifically banning discussions of critical race theory and white privilege. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction on December 22, 2020, banning the enforcement of the order, and, on January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden, during his first day in office, revoked the order. However, this did not signify the end of Executive Order 13950's importance. While this executive order is atypical because it utilizes government procurement as a vehicle to enact socially conservative policies, it continues the troubling trend of presidents using executive orders to regulate government contractors. This Note will first analyze three problems with the defunct executive order: (1) the executive order was bad policy; (2) it violated the United States Constitution; and (3) most importantly, the executive order itself is the wrong mechanism to enact social change and regulate government contractors. Second, this Note will explain that the rise and fall of Executive Order 13950 exemplifies the turbulent nature of regulating government contractors through executive orders. Instead of relying on such orders, government officials should regulate labor and employment requirements on government contractors through legislation because such measures are longer lasting, give interested parties the opportunity for input, and undergo more deliberate considerations before enactment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the effect of the use of tolling orders by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on the due process rights of aggrieved landowners in natural gas pipeline eminent domain proceedings. Topics discussed include the procedures for the district court preliminary injunctions and approach of the FERC to rehearing applications, tendency of the orders to undermine the legitimacy of the system, and possible solutions of district courts and FERC to the issue.

Town and village justice courts have been the center of municipal law, both civil and criminal, since the mid-nineteenth century. However, in the modern world, they have become corrupt, poorly managed institutions, creating issues involving procedural integrity and civil rights. In order to remedy these failures and modernize the New York State Unified Court System, state legislators must look to the district court model as it currently exists in Nassau and Eastern Suffolk Counties. The district court model offers several benefits, including the imposition of educational and experiential requirements for judges, the creation of internal and external oversight institutions, the expansion of jurisdiction for local judges, and increased transparency in records and court dealings. By creating such a centralized, professionalized system of municipal courts, oversight can be expanded, procedural uniformity can be promoted, and basic civil rights now left unguarded or outright denied by justice courts can be protected. Moreover, to preserve the spirit of democratically elected local judicial offices, the Vermont justice of the peace model may be adopted in New York, creating popularly elected positions responsible for handling key local functions, such as giving oaths of office, solemnizing marriages, and hearing tax appeals. By moving away from the unwieldy, outdated town and village justice court regime, New York can catch up with a growing number of similarly minded states, move forward with its efforts to reform the justice system, and ensure that fair local justice is guaranteed to all New Yorkers--not just those living downstate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study aims to examine the joint effects of defendant race and gender on (1) downward sentencing departures (likelihood and length) and (2) upward sentencing departures (likelihood and length) in federal criminal courts. Using federal criminal cases sentenced between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2016, a series of multivariate logistic and ordinary least squares regression models are used to isolate the effects of defendant race and gender (and their intersections) on departure decisions. Findings indicate that greater punitiveness for minorities in departure decisions are exclusive to Black males. Further, females of all race/ethnic groups examined are consistently advantaged in departure decisions when compared to White men. Findings regarding Hispanics indicate little difference in departure decisions compared to Whites, but where differences exist it is to the advantage of Hispanics. Findings and implications are discussed in light of focal concerns perspective and prior research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many states in the United States have recently implemented voter suppression policies, which make voting more difficult, particularly for members of marginalized populations (e.g. non-white and female voters). In this article, we examine how these policies and other measures of political climate influence criminal sentencing in US district courts. Using 2015 data from the US Sentencing Commission, alongside other district-level measures, we find both direct and conditioning relationships between political climate and extra-legal variables. Specifically, we find that, while voter suppression policies do not directly affect sentence length, racial threat effects are enhanced in districts governed by such policies. Conversely, districts without such policies see larger mitigating effects at high levels of ethnic diversity and gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Circuit's jurisdiction is unique. Unlike the jurisdiction of all other U.S. courts of appeals, the Federal Circuit's jurisdiction is defined not by its geographical boundaries, but rather by the subject matter of the original claims and compulsory counterclaims. The court has appellate jurisdiction over final decisions from all U.S. district courts if a plaintiff's claim or a party's counterclaim arises under the patent laws. From this unusual jurisdictional grant, the Federal Circuit has concluded that, as a policy matter, it should apply and develop its own law only if the legal issue pertains to patent law. For all other legal issues, the Federal Circuit defers to the law of the court of appeals in which the case originated--i.e., it applies the procedural law and the non-patent substantive law of the regional circuits. This Article undertakes a thorough evaluation of the Federal Circuit's choice-of-law rule. It examines how the rule compares against the congressional objectives reflected in the court's enabling statute as well as against possible alternative rules. In addition, it considers how the court's rule causes the court to depart from the trans-substantivity principle of procedural law and a related principle of equity in a nontransparent manner, and, in doing so, engage in substantive lawmaking that may be beyond the court's authority. Finally, this Article contemplates solutions beyond a mere change in the court's choice-of-law rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the applicability of the vertical stare decisis concept of the Appellate Jurisdiction Theory in the decisions of three-judge federal district courts in the U.S.

Magistrate judges function as a shadow judiciary, assisting U.S. district court judges--and sometimes standing in their shoes--in managing caseloads, resolving disputes, making law, and choosing winners and losers. Yet we lack basic knowledge about magistrates themselves, the rules that govern their activity, and the ways in which they execute their duties. To fill those gaps, this Article offers a detailed typology of the district-level local rules and standing orders that govern magistrate operations in civil cases. It also describes a case study of ten years of magistrate practice in a single federal district court, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, in resolving summary judgment motions. The case study reveals that the involvement of a magistrate makes a difference to the outcome, and that the way that a magistrate became involved (by automatic operation of court rules, by consent of the parties, or by the discretion of the district judge) matters as well. Further, case characteristics such as claim complexity and plaintiffs' pro se status amplify magistrate judge effects while others weaken it. We also observe the effects of district judges' race, age, and experience on the bench on case referrals and adoptions of magistrates' recommendations. These findings suggest multiple avenues for future research, nationwide, to understand the complexities of the interactions between magistrates and district judges, and the role of magistrates more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights final row of the U.S. District Court, Arizona District, with a legal pad and a draft copy of the calendar, on which judge wrote some comments related to illegal migrants in the U.S.

When duplicative civil suits proceed simultaneously in both state and federal court, a waste of resources is bound to occur. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has maintained that federal courts must typically retain jurisdiction over such concurrent litigation. Under the Colorado River abstention doctrine, only "exceptional circumstances," beyond the mere pendency of a parallel state case, will permit a federal court to relinquish jurisdiction in favor of the state action. How have the lower federal courts responded to this mandate to take jurisdiction, given the inherent waste and confusion engendered by concurrent litigation? And is there a more coherent and efficient way to manage this symptom of our dual federal-state court system? This Note seeks to answer these questions by focusing on the practical application of Colorado River "on the ground" in the lower courts, a subject largely unexplored by the otherwise voluminous scholarship on federal abstention. By surveying decades of cases involving Colorado River abstention in two federal courts of appeals and two district courts, this Note reaches a startling conclusion. Driven by a lack of guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court and a desire to rid their dockets of duplicative suits, the lower courts have taken wildly divergent approaches to Colorado River. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, for example, has applied the doctrine rigidly, demanding that district courts retain jurisdiction in all but the most exceptional circumstances. Under pressure from this circuit precedent, judges in the Southern District of New York have frequently sought to "effectively" abstain via alternative means, simultaneously relinquishing federal jurisdiction and frustrating appellate review. When they instead attempt to proceed to judgement rather than effectively abstain, the result is typically (and unsurprisingly) a significant waste of judicial resources. On the other hand, the Seventh Circuit has taken a highly permissive view of Colorado River abstention, watering down the otherwise restrictive doctrine. Judges in the Northern District of Illinois have taken up this view with alacrity, abstaining pursuant to Colorado River in the vast majority of cases involving parallel state litigation, subject only to limited and deferential appellate review. This inconsistent doctrinal development could hardly be described as desirable--a combination of informal abstention and judicial waste in the Second Circuit compared with virtually unfettered discretion to formally abstain in the Seventh Circuit. Thus, this Note concludes with a comprehensive proposal to bring greater structure and coherency to the doctrine while avoiding both of these negative results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government transparency is a key component of democratic accountability. The U.S. Congress and the president have created multiple legislative avenues to facilitate executive branch transparency with the public. However, when the executive branch withholds requested information from the public, the federal judiciary has the power to determine whether agencies must release documents and information to requestors. When enforcing standards of executive branch transparency, judges must balance concerns of executive autonomy and judicial intrusion into administrative decisionmaking. While much judicial scholarship focuses on the decisionmaking on high courts, in the U.S. context, federal district courts play a key role in adjudicating transparency disputes. In this article, I examine case outcomes in disputes involving agency claims of deliberative process privilege over internal agency documents litigated between 1994 and 2004. I find that U.S. federal district courts largely defer to administrative agencies in transparency disputes. However, factors such as agency structure and the congruence between judicial and administrative agency policy preferences influence whether federal judges require executive branch officials to release requested information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the reasons why Florida's appellate courts have collectively issued few en banc opinions per year since 1982. Topics discussed include a brief history of the U.S. federal and Florida en banc history and several reasons why there are very few en banc opinions including each district court of appeal issuing a large number of per curium affirmed opinions.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ("Federal Circuit") has long relied on active appellate review to bring uniformity and clarity to patent law. It initially treated the PTO the same as the federal district courts, reviewing its factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Following reversal by the Supreme Court in Dickinson v. Zurko, the Federal Circuit began giving greater deference to PTO factual findings. But it continued to review the PTO's legal conclusions de novo, while coding an expansive list of disputed issues in patent cases as legal conclusions, even when they rest on subsidiary factfinding. Congress expanded the role of the PTO in adjudicating challenges to patent validity in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 ("AIA"), authorizing new adjudicatory proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB") as an alternative to federal district court litigation. The AIA provides for Federal Circuit review of PTAB decisions, without specifying standards of review. The scope of review could determine the success of these proceedings as a quicker, cheaper, and more expert alternative to district court litigation of patent challenges. The Federal Circuit applies the same standards of review to PTAB decisions in AIA proceedings that it applies to other PTO rulings, reviewing legal conclusions de novo and factual findings for substantial evidence. It also follows the same characterizations of issues as legal or factual that it has long used in the context of court/court review. In the past, by maximizing the scope of appellate review, these characterizations allowed the Federal Circuit to exercise greater quality control over generalist trial courts with limited competence to resolve patent matters. The net benefits are more dubious as applied to decisions of expert PTAB panels in AIA adjudications. Yet reversal rates at the Federal Circuit are essentially the same for PTAB decisions as for decisions of district courts in patent cases, threatening to frustrate a system designed to improve patent quality while limiting litigation costs. This Essay reconsiders the proper scope of judicial review of PTAB rulings on two issues that the Federal Circuit codes as legal conclusions with factual underpinnings: nonobviousness and claim interpretation. Drawing on a functional approach to judicial review of mixed questions of law and fact, it argues for more deferential review of PTAB rulings on nonobviousness and claim interpretation given the expertise of the administrative tribunal and the case-specificity of the rulings. The Federal Circuit would do better to confine de novo review to generalizable legal rulings that provide guidance in future matters rather than replicating the work of the PTAB from the appellate bench on routine case-specific rulings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of forum non conveniens was developed as a pragmatic response to an evolving judicial economy. This sense of pragmatism has continued to define application of the doctrine in the United States. Yet, in the international context, the Supreme Court last outlined the contours offorum non conveniens analysis in 1981 but, in the decades since, technological advancement has significantly altered the litigation playing field. For example, discovery is less burdensome now that documents are digitally transferable. And, even if relevant evidence isn't digitizable, shipping costs have decreased significantly. Echoing these facts, critics argue forum non conveniens has lost the pragmatism that once defined the doctrine. The doctrine of forum non conveniens was developed as a pragmatic response to an evolving judicial economy. This sense of pragmatism has continued to define application of the doctrine in the United States. Yet, in the international context, the Supreme Court last outlined the contours offorum non conveniens analysis in 1981 but, in the decades since, technological advancement has significantly altered the litigation playing field. For example, discovery is less burdensome now that documents are digitally transferable. And, even if relevant evidence isn't digitizable, shipping costs have decreased significantly. Echoing these facts, critics argue forum non conveniens has lost the pragmatism that once defined the doctrine. This Comment examines how United States district courts make forum non conveniens decisions in cases involving foreign plaintiffs and domestic defendants. Specifically, by examining published forum non conveniens opinions, this comment hopes to shed light on the importance of globalization when courts make a forum non conveniens ruling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a state utility wishes to cross land located within a Native American reservation, but the landowners refuse to allow it, the utility in most circumstances may exercise eminent domain over the land. Under the authority of a federal statute, 25 USC §357, states may generally condemn allotments, plots owned by individuals that lie within the sovereign boundaries of a tribal reservation. Courts have long recognized that the state authority to condemn these allotments under § 357 arises from the principle that individually owned allotments are no longer "tribal" land and, as a result, they are not protected by tribal sovereignty. Congress's failure to transition away from the allotment system has resulted in an ownership structure for certain plots of reservation land that it did not anticipate when it enacted § 357. Today, not all allotments are held entirely by individuals, and many now contain fractional, undivided interests that belong to tribes themselves. This status of joint ownership between individuals and tribes, which this Comment refers to as "partially tribal," leads to considerable complications with respect to the scope of § 357. Courts have routinely held that land owned by a sovereign Native American tribe is not subject to state condemnation and that this principle protects tribal interests in allotments. Unresolved, however, is whether a tribal interest in an allotment-which can be as small as a fraction of 1 percent-should immunize even the nontribal interest in the plot from state condemnation proceedings. In other words, should a fractional tribal interest place an entire parcel out of the state's reach? This Comment argues that it should. The courts that have attempted to allow condemnations to proceed against partially tribal allotments run into the problem that all ownership interests in an allotment are undivided; each owner holds an undivided share of the whole parcel. This means there is no way to divide the tribal interests from the nontribal ones without effecting some kind of incursion on a tribal land interest without the tribe's or Congress's consent, a result that principles of tribal sovereignty squarely reject. This Comment recognizes that Congress's intent when it passed § 357 was to eliminate tribal landholdings, but it argues that Congress has since changed course such that courts should disregard that original intent. This Comment also concedes that diminishing eminent domain power may lead to holdout problems, though it argues that protecting tribal sovereignty is the more important interest. Consistent with the principle that states may not diminish any tribal sovereignty without Congress's consent, this Comment concludes that a state utility has multiple avenues for seeking access to a partially tribal allotment, including opportunities for negotiation with the tribe and the federal government. Courts should not permit states to use § 357 unilaterally to divest a nonconsenting tribe from its interest in land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author discusses the key role played by career clerks or term clerks in judicial decision making, as well as how U.S. district court judges choose their staff by carefully analyzing the pros and cons of employing term and career clerks. Other topics include the workload of district court judges, a comparison by Chief Justice John Roberts of the responsibilities of judges and baseball umpires, as well as the role of the courts in constitutional democracy.

The article discusses the methods used in the selection and appointment of members of the magistrate judge bench in the U.S., as well as the efforts to increase the diversity of the court. Other topics include the efforts by various U.S. presidents like Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush to appoint minority judges, a relative diversity comparison of district court bench and magistrate judge bench, as well as the effect of diversity on judgment quality in the courts.

This essay examines the demographics of federal district court judges in the 10th Circuit. Consistent with the literature regarding the glass-ceiling effect in positions of power and influence in the legal profession, the study finds that women judges are under-represented on the 10th Circuit bench compared with their numbers as lawyers in the jurisdictions of the Circuit. However, the study finds that ethnic minority judges are over-represented in the Circuit. The essay next explores the relationship between under-representation, over-representation, discrimination and judicial "catch up": addressing historical and contemporary under-representation by means of temporary over-representation of qualified under-represented groups on the bench. It argues that under-representation that cannot be explained in terms of merit criteria or informed opting out strongly suggests the lingering effects of past discrimination, as well as the current effects of implicit bias. Such past explicit and present implicit discrimination ought to shift the burden of addressing under-representation to the institutional players involved in the judicial commission process, who should temporarily deploy over-representation to break through the glass-ceiling and catch up the disparity. The feasibility of such a judicial catch up is evidenced by the over-representation of ethnic minority judges in the 10th Circuit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Minnesota Supreme Court's adoption of a rule governing the recognition and enforcement of tribal court orders and judgments in the state's district courts, and it mentions judicial deference and the sovereignty and jurisdiction of tribal courts. According to the article, state legislatures in America should amend their state constitutions to give full faith and credit to tribal court orders.

Punishment scholars acknowledge the fundamental importance of both prosecutorial discretion and jurisdictional variation in punishment; yet, little is known about the extent to which charging practices vary across court contexts. This is especially true in the federal criminal justice system. This research investigates this issue by linking four years of charging data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) to corresponding data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC). It incorporates unique information on district court contexts from a variety of sources to investigate jurisdictional variation in charge reductions. Findings provide evidence that federal charging practices vary across district courts. In particular, several structural court characteristics are significantly related to the likelihood of charge reduction for similarly-situated defendants. Results from this study are interpreted through the lens of contemporary legal perspectives on court communities and suggest several fruitful directions for additional research on the social contexts of criminal prosecution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the jurisdiction of district courts in some offenses committed by juvenile delinquents in Utah. Topics discussed include the general rule for the jurisdiction of juvenile courts under state law, ways for prosecutors to transfer jurisdiction from juvenile to district court, and the state's failure to set a minimum age for delinquency.

The article focuses on disjointed application and discussion regarding patent injunction decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case in eBay v. MercExchange. It mentions analysis of grant rates based on patentee status showed that post-eBay patent assertion entity (PAE) injunction grants and differences in injunction decision outcomes between district courts and the Federal Circuit. It also mentions patent infringement and validity have been adjudged.

The article focuses on the challenges of multidistrict litigation (MDL) proceedings in the U.S. It informs on growth of and challenges posed by MDLs in federal district courts; enactment of Multidistrict Litigation Act of 1968 for addressing the same; and Professor Alexandra D. Lahav's research focusing on procedural justice and the limits of due process in aggregate litigation.

There has been a significant increase in the use of a controversial, dramatic remedy known as the nationwide injunction. This development is worrisome because it risks substantial harm to the judiciary by encouraging forum shopping, freezing the "percolation" of legal issues among the circuits, and undermining the comity between the federal courts. But a complete ban on nationwide injunctions is both impractical and undesirable. This Note proposes a solution to limit the abuse of nationwide injunctions without banning them outright. When fashioning remedies, courts should simplify the sheer number of relevant factors by focusing on three main meta-factors, or categories, that should be used as a balancing test: the identity of the parties before the court, the nature of the claim being litigated, and the effect the remedy would have on the courts where the claim is being litigated--"who," "what," and "where," respectively. The balancing of these three meta-factors will enable district courts to weigh more clearly whether nationwide injunctions are proper and will also give appellate courts a framework for reviewing whether district courts have abused their discretion by issuing this type of relief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the decision by the Florida First District Court of Appeal in Arena Football League v. Bishop. The case addressed the eligibility of a player named Bryon Bishop to receive workers' compensation for an injury he sustained during a team tryout. The court examined the validity of an employment contract existed between the player and the Arena Football League (AFL).

Certifying a class is the first and most important step in bringing a claim as a class action. For certain plaintiffs, especially those suing on the basis of a contract like royalty owners of oil and gas leases, the class action is the only practical means of bringing a claim against the oil and gas production companies. In the past few years, the Supreme Court has raised the standard for Rule 23 class certification requirements. Over the same timeframe, circuits like the Fifth Circuit have reversed numerous orders certifying classes. Royalty owners are especially susceptible to unfavorable review because a reviewing court can point to minute differences within leases as the reason why the class fails to satisfy Rule 23. Rather than focus on the requirements of Rule 23, this Note examines the relationship between the circuit and district courts and the standard of review that should govern the circuit courts' review of a certification order. There is a consensus that the abuse-of-discretion standard applies to review of certification orders, but the ambiguous definition of abuse of discretion has allowed circuit courts free reign when reviewing classes. To maintain the class action as a managerial tool for the district court, this Note proposes two solutions. First, the Note explains that codifying the abuse-of-discretion standard in Rule 23 will prevent circuit courts from circumventing the standard and push circuit courts to treat abuse of discretion as an independent standard. Second, the Note argues that each issue within the certification order falls somewhere along the abuse-of-discretion spectrum, and the Note provides examples from royalty litigation to illustrate how the spectrum should operate. These steps remedy the current imbalance of power between circuit and district courts regarding the decision to certify a class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]