Allocation Rules and the Stability of Mass Tort Class Actions

This paper studies the effects of allocation rules on the stability of mass tort class actions. I analyze a two-stage model in which a defendant faces multiple plaintiffs with heterogeneous damage claims. In stage 1, the plaintiffs play a noncooperative coalition formation game. In stage 2, the class action and any individual actions by opt-out plaintiffs are litigated or settled. I examine how the method for allocating the class recovery interacts with other factors---the shape of the damage claims distribution, the scale benefits of the class action, and the plaintiffs\u27 probability of prevailing at trial and bargaining power in settlement negotiations---to determine the asymptotic stability of the global class. My results suggest criteria to attorneys and courts for structuring and approving efficient allocations plans in mass tort class actions and for evaluating the requirements for class certification in mass tort cases

Asymmetric Empirical Similarity

The paper offers a formal model of analogical legal reasoning and takes the model to data. Under the model, the outcome of a new case is a weighted average of the outcomes of prior cases. The weights capture precedential influence and depend on fact similarity (distance in fact space) and precedential authority (position in the judicial hierarchy). The empirical analysis suggests that the model is a plausible model for the time series of U.S. maritime salvage cases. Moreover, the results evince that prior cases decided by inferior courts have less influence than prior cases decided by superior courts

U(g)-finite locally analytic representations

In this paper we continue the study of locally analytic representations of a $p$-adic Lie group $G$ in vector spaces over a spherically complete non-archimedean field $K$, building on the algebraic approach to such representations introduced in our paper "Locally analytic distributions and p-adic representation theory, with applications to GL_2." In that paper we associated to a representation $V$ a module $M$ over the ring $D(G,K)$ of locally analytic distributions on $G$ and described an admissibility condition on $V$ in terms of algebraic properties of $M$. In this paper we determine the relationship between our admissibility condition on locally analytic modules and the traditional admissibility of Langlands theory. We then analyze the class of locally analytic representations with the property that their associated modules are annihilated by an ideal of finite codimension in the universal enveloping algebra of G, showing under some hypotheses on G that they are sums of representations of the form $X\otimes Y$, with X finite dimensional and Y smooth. The irreducible representations of this type are obtained when X and Y are irreducible. We conclude by analyzing the reducible members of the locally analytic principal series of SL_2(\Qp)

Frequency shift keyed demodulator Patent

Frequency shift keyed demodulator - circuit diagram