JEL Classification O34, K41, G24, M41, M42. A survey of patent litigation in the Taiwan electronics industry between 2010 and 2015 provides insight into the causes and economic consequences of patent litigation. This survey had three key what were the findings of this study? First, companies with patents for new inventions are more likely to file plaintiff-initiated lawsuits and less likely to ...

Despite claims of a judicial funding crisis, there exists little direct evidence linking judicial budgets to court utilization. Using data on thousands of auto injuries covering a 15-year period, we measure the relationship between state-level court expenditures and the propensity of injured parties to pursue litigation. Controlling for state and plaintiff characteristics and accounting for the...

Decisions on litigation spending can be viewed as constituting an iterated nonzero sum game, and thus as conducive to cooperation aimed at reducing spending. At the same time, though, litigants may engage in aggressive spending for various reasons, including a belief that they can outsmart the other party. This article uses a litigation simulation to consider how litigation spending is affected...

We study disclosure dynamics when the firm value evolves stochastically over time. The presence of litigation risk, arising from the failure to disclose unfavorable information, crowds out positive disclosures. Litigation risk mitigates firms’ tendency to use inefficient disclosure policies. From a policy perspective, we show that a stricter legal environment may be an efficient way to stimulat...

Institutional litigation, in which courts are requested to oversee the operation of large public institutions, has been frequently attacked as a departure from the traditional model of litigation. In this Article, Professors Eisenberg and Yeazell argue that the procedures and remedies employed in institutional litigation are not unprecedented but have analogues in older judicial traditions. Nor...

This article discusses a simple proposal that could reduce litigation costs in the country by about half, yet without compromising the functioning of the liability system in a significant way. Under the proposal (1) only half the cases brought before a court would be randomly chosen for litigation, and (2) damages would be doubled in cases accepted for litigation. The first element of the propo...

PART 1: PUBLIC HEALTH 551 How Litigation Can Promote Product Safety Jon S. Vernick, Jason W. Sapsin, Stephen P. Teret, and Julie Samia Mair Injuries are an important public health problem in the United States. Litigation against manufacturers or sellers of dangerous products can reduce the risk of future product-related injuries. A framework is presented to describe the mechanism for the succes...

This Article focuses on two separate issues deriving from the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause. Specifically, it discusses classic conditions of confinement litigation and sentencing proportionality litigation. Confinement litigation includes cases challenging the lived experiences of prisoners such as overcrowding, excessive force, failure to provide adequate medical ca...