Personal Jurisdiction in the Fifth Circuit’s Commercial Opinions: 2012-13
November 11, 2013

Introduction: The Supreme Court in 2011 In 2011, the Supreme Court revisited two thorny personal jurisdiction concepts – general jurisdiction, on which it had only written two previous opinions, and specific jurisdiction based on a “stream of commerce” theory. The Court had previously found general jurisdiction when a company had its headquarters in the forum state, Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining, 342 U.S. 437 (1952), and rejected general jurisdiction based on a company’s pattern of purchases...

Proving the Negative in Discovery Productions
October 3, 2013

A requesting party has a very difficult problem when a producing party has made a very small production that the requesting party believes is deficient. This situation quickly turns into the requesting party trying to prove a negative to the Court that a production is inadequate, without any evidence to support the argument. However, just because a requesting party cannot prove a production is inadequate, does not mean the production is adequate. A Court was faced with this issue in Am....

Strategic Citations to Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court
May 23, 2013

Common law evolves not only through the outcomes of cases but also through the reasoning and citations to precedent employed in judicial opinions. We focus on citations to precedent by the U.S. Supreme Court. We demonstrate how strategic interaction between justices during the Court's bargaining process affects citations to precedent in the Court's opinion. We find that the majority opinion writer relies more heavily on precedent when the Court's decision is accompanied by separate opinions. We also...

Supreme Court Issues Two Key Securities Law Decisions
February 28, 2013

The Supreme Court issued two important securities litigation decisions yesterday. First, in a 6-3 decision, the Court held...