Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:18:06.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Rule of Law and the Litigation Process: The Paradox of Losing by Winning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Catherine Albiston
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article expands upon the idea that repeat players influence the development of law by settling cases they are likely to lose and litigating cases they are likely to win. Through empirical analysis of judicial opinions interpreting the Family and Medical Leave Act, it shows how the rule-making opportunities in the litigation process affect the development of law and the judicial determination of statutory rights. In addition, the article explains how early judicial opinions might influence later judicial interpretations of the law. Although individuals may successfully mobilize the law to gain benefits in their disputes, that success often removes their experiences from the judicial determination of rights, limiting law's capacity to produce social change. This paradox of losing by winning separates the dispute resolution function of courts from their lawmaking function and raises questions about the legitimacy of law.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 33 , Issue 4: Do the “Haves” Still Come Out Ahead? , 1999 , pp. 869 - 910
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Law and Society Association

Footnotes

I wish to thank Lauren Edelman, Kristin Luker, Marianne Constable, Howard Erlanger, David Lieberman, Gary Gold, Laura Beth Nielsen, Kaaryn Gustafson, Tom Scanlon, Marc Melnick, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments.

References

References

ABA Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law (1998) “Study Finds Employers Win Most ADA Title I Judicial and Administrative Complaints,” Mental & Physical Disabilities Law Reporter, May-June, p. 403.Google Scholar
Black, Donald (1973) “The Mobilization of Law,” 2 J. of Legal Studies 125–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1987) “The Force of Law: Toward a Sociology of the Juridical Field,” 38 Hastings Law J. 805–53.Google Scholar
Bumiller, Kristin (1988) The Civil Rights Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Bureau of National Affairs (1998) “Department of Labor Summary of Outreach, Compliance Activity under the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act,” Daily Labor Report, p. E1.Google Scholar
Burstein, Paul (1991) “Legal Mobilization as a Social Movement Tactic: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity,” 96 American J. of Sociology 1201–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burstein, Paul, & Monaghan, Kathleen (1986) “Equal Employment Opportunity and the Mobilization of Law,” 20 Law & Society Rev. 355–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chayes, Abram (1976) “The Role of the Judge in Public Law Litigation,” 89 Harvard Law Rev. 1281–1316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooter, Robert, & Kornhauser, Lewis (1980) “Can Litigation Improve the Law without the Help of Judges?” 9 J. of Legal Studies 139–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooter, Robert D. (1996) “Decentralized Law for a Complex Economy: The Structural Approach to Adjudicating the New Law Merchant,” 144 Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Rev. 1643–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Erlanger, Howard S., & Lande, John (1993) “Internal Dispute Resolution: The Transformation of Civil Rights in the Workplace,” 27 Law & Society Rev. 497–534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellickson, Robert C. (1991) Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engel, David M., & Munger, Frank W. (1996) “Rights, Remembrance, and the Reconciliation of Difference,” 30 Law & Society Rev. 7–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erlanger, Howard S., Chambliss, Elizabeth, & Melli, Marygold S. (1987) “Participation and Flexibility in Informal Processes: Cautions from the Divorce Context,” 21 Law & Society Rev. 585–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, & Silbey, Susan (1992) “Conformity, Contestation, and Resistance: An Account of Legal Consciousness,” 26 New England Law Rev. 731–49.Google Scholar
Felstiner, William L. F., Abel, Richard L., & Sarat, Austin (1981) “The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming ...,” 15 Law & Society Rev. 631–54.Google Scholar
Fiss, Owen M. (1984) “Against Settlement,” 93 Yale Law J. 1073–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flaherty, Kelly, & Heller, Emily (1998) “Workers Face Tough Odds in Disability Suits, ABA Study Finds,” Fulton County Daily Report, 30 June. Available on LEXIS LEGNEW library, ALLNWS file.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M. (1975) The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Fuller, Lon L. (1964) The Morality of Law. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1974). “Why the ”Haves “Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change,” 9 Law & Society Rev. 95–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1975) “Afterword: Explaining Litigation,” 9 Law & Society Rev. 347–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1983) “The Radiating Effects of Courts,” in Boyum, K. & Mather, L., eds., Empirical Theories about Courts. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Gross, Samuel R., & Syverud, Kent D. (1991) “Getting to No: A Study of Settlement Negotiations and the Selection of Cases for Trial,” 90 Michigan Law Rev. 319–93.Google Scholar
Hadfield, Gillian K. (1992) “Bias in the Evolution of Legal Rules,” 80 Georgetown Law J. 583–616.Google Scholar
Handler, Joel F. (1978) Social Movements and the Legal System: A Theory of Law Reform and Social Change. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1961) The Concept of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hendley, Kathryn (1996) Trying to Make Law Matter: Legal Reform and Labor Law in the Soviet Union. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. (1970) Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Oliver Wendell (1923) The Common Law. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Judicial Conference of the United States (1995) Report of the Proceedings of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Washington, DC: Administrative Office of the United States Courts.Google Scholar
Kairys, David (1982) The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Kelly, Erin, & Dobbin, Frank (1999) “Civil Rights Law at Work: Sex Discrimination and the Rise of Maternity Leave Policies,” 105 American J. of Sociology 455–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kritzer, Herbert M. (1986) “Adjudication to Settlement: Shading in the Gray,” 70 Judicature 161–65.Google Scholar
Landes, William M., & Posner, Richard A. (1979) “Adjudication as a Private Good,” 8 J. of Legal Studies 235–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macaulay, Stewart (1963) “Non-Contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study,” 28 American Sociological Rev. 55–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maccoby, Eleanor, & Mnookin, Robert (1990) Dividing the Child. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael (1994) Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Richard E., & Sarat, Austin (1981). “Grievances, Claims, and Disputes: Assessing the Adversary Culture,” 15 Law & Society Rev. 525–65.Google Scholar
Mnookin, Robert, & Kornhauser, L. (1979) “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: The Case of Divorce,” 88 Yale Law J. 950–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Susan M. (1992) “Studying Federal District Courts through Published Cases: A Research Note,” 15 Justice System J. 782–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Priest, George L., & Klein, Benjamin (1984) “The Selection of Disputes for Litigation,” 13 J. of Legal Studies 1–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purcell, Daniel (1997) “The Public Right to Precedent: A Theory and Rejection of Vacatur,” 85 California Law Rev. 867–917.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N. (1991) The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring about Social Change? Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rubin, Edward, & Feeley, Malcolm (1996) “Creating Legal Doctrine,” 69 Southern California Law Rev. 1989–2037.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, & Kearns, Thomas S. (1993). “Beyond the Great Divide: Forms of Legal Scholarship and Everyday Life,” in Sarat, A. and Kearns, T. S., eds., Law in Everyday Life. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart A. (1974) The Politics of Rights. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., & Spaeth, Harold J. (1996) “The Influence of Stare Decisis on the Votes of the United States Supreme Court Justices,” 40 American J. of Political Science 971–1003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegelman, Peter, & Donohue, John J. (1990) “Studying the Iceberg from Its Tip: A Comparison of Published and Unpublished Employment Discrimination Cases,” 24 Law & Society Rev. 1133–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Martin (1981) Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silbey, Susan, & Sarat, Austin (1989). “Dispute Processing in Law and Legal Scholarship: From Institutional Critique to the Reconstruction of the Juridical Subject,” 66 Denver Univ. Law Rev. 437.Google Scholar
Slavitt, Howard (1995) “Selling the Integrity of the System of Precedent: Selective Publication, Depublication, and Vacatur,” 30 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Rev. 109–42.Google Scholar
Songer, Donald R., & Sheehan, Reginald S. (1992) “Who Wins on Appeal? Upperdogs and Underdogs in the United States Courts of Appeals,” 36 American J. of Political Science 235–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songer, Donald R.Jeffrey A. Segal, & Cameron, Charles M. (1994) “The Hierarchy of Justice: Testing a Principle-Agent Model of Supreme Court-Circuit Court Interactions,” 38 American J. of Political Science 673–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songer, Donald R., Smith, Danna, & Sheehan, Reginald S. (1989) “Nonpublication in the Eleventh Circuit: An Empirical Analysis,” 16 Florida State Univ. Law Rev. 963–84.Google Scholar
Spaeth, Harold J., & Segal, Jeffrey A. (1999) Majority Rule or Minority Will. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trubek, David M., Sarat, Austin, Felstiner, William L. F., Kritzer, Herbert M., & Grossman, Joel B. (1983) “The Costs of Ordinary Litigation,” 31 UCLA Law Rev. 72–127.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom (1990) Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Unger, Roberto (1976) Law in Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1997) Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1997. 117th Ed. Washington, DC: GPO.Google Scholar
Walsh, David J. (1997) “On the Meaning and Pattern of Legal Citations: Evidence from State Wrongful Discharge Precedent Cases,” 31 Law & Society Rev. 337–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wanner, Craig (1975) “The Public Ordering of Private Relations Part Two: Winning Civil Court Cases,” 9 Law & Society Rev. 293–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max (1954) On Law in Economy and Society. Edited by Max Rheinstein. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Stanton, Cartwright, Bliss, Ragan, Robert A., & Friedman, Lawrence M. (1987) “Do the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead? Winning and Losing in State Supreme Courts, 1870–1970,” 21 Law & Society Rev. 403–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Patricia (1991) The Alchemy of Race and Rights. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Yngvesson, Barbara (1988) “Making Law at the Doorway: The Clerk, the Court, and the Construction of Community in a New England Town,” 22 Law & Society Rev. 409–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zemans, Frances Kahn (1983) “Legal Mobilization: The Neglected Role of the Law in the Political System,” 77 American Political Science Rev. 690–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Cases Cited

Bauer v. Varity Dayton-Walther Corp., 118 F.3d 1109 (6th Cir. 1997).Google Scholar
Benevides v. Jackson Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 820 F. Supp. 1284 (D. Colo. 1993).Google Scholar
Cahill v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 80 F.3d 336 (9th Cir. 1996).Google Scholar
Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 (1957).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463 (1978).Google Scholar
Diaz v. Fort Wayne Foundry Corp., 131 F.3d 711 (7th Cir. 1997).Google Scholar
Eastus v. Blue Bell Creameries, L.P., 97 F.3d 100 (5th Cir. 1996).Google Scholar
Evans v. Jeff D., 475 U.S. 717 (1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178 (1962).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kariotis v. Navistar Int'l Transp. Corp., 131 F.3d 672 (7th Cir. 1997).Google Scholar
Manuel v. Westlake Polymers Corp., 66 F.3d 758 (5th Cir. 1995).Google Scholar
Murphy v. FDIC, 38 F.3d 1490 (9th Cir. 1994).Google Scholar
Taxman v. Board of Educ, 91 F.3d 1547 (3rd Cir. 1996).Google Scholar
U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, 513 U.S. 18 (1994).Google Scholar
Victorelli v. Shadyside Hosp., 128 F.3d 183 (3rd Cir. 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren v. City of Carlsbad, 58 F.3d 439 (9th Cir. 1995).Google Scholar

Statutes Cited

28 U.S.C. 1292(b)..Google Scholar
28 U.S.C. 1441 et seq..Google Scholar
29 U.S.C. 2611(4)..Google Scholar
29 U.S.C. 2612(a)..Google Scholar
29 U.S.C. 2614..Google Scholar
29 U.S.C. 2617..Google Scholar
Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)..Google Scholar
Fed. R. Civ. P. 15..Google Scholar
29 C.F.R. 825.220(c)..Google Scholar