Through the years debate has raged over whether the Supreme Court’s summary judgment trilogy and Twombly-Iqbal pleading decisions had significant practical effects. To address that question, this article introduces a new empirical measure: the difference between the pretrial-adjudication judgment rates for the defendant and for the plaintiff. Plotting that rates’ difference over time suggests that the cases on summary judgment and pleading, which were far and away the two most major alterations of pretrial disposition during the last three decades, had a markedly anti-plaintiff impact.

* * *

If the Supreme Court wanted to help out defendants through its summary judgment trilogy and Twombly-Iqbal pleading decisions, the data indicate that the Court has succeeded. Whether its moves were wise ones, however, remains an open question.

Related Posts