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Trial by Jury or Trial by Motion?  Summary Judgment, Iqbal, and Employment Discrimination

Introduction by Arthur S. Leonard

The New York Law School Law Review’s Spring 2012 symposium, Trial by Jury or Trial by Motion? Summary Judgment, Iqbal, and Employment Discrimination, was planned jointly with the Employee Rights Advocacy Institute For Law & Policy (the “Institute”). This collection of articles drawn from the symposium focuses on pretrial motion practice in employment discrimination cases, with particular emphasis on the impact of U.S. Supreme Court decisions making it more likely that cases would be dismissed in response to pretrial motions. Read More…

Summary Judgment in Employment Discrimination Cases: A Judge’s Perspective by Hon. Denny Chin

Is summary judgment being unfairly granted in employment discrimination cases? Scholars and practitioners have put forth this proposition, as they have written about the apparent high failure rates of plaintiffs in opposing dispositive pretrial motions in employment discrimination cases. Read more…

Essay: From the “No Spittin’, No Cussin’ And No Summary Judgment” Days of Employment Discrimination Litigation to the “Defendant’s Summary Judgment Affirmed Without Comment” Days: One Judge’s Four-Decade Perspective by Hon. Mark W. Bennett

I bristle at law clerk applicants who, near the end of their cover letter, almost invariably claim they are “uniquely” qualified to be my next law clerk.  They are nearly always extremely well qualified, some exceptionally so, but “uniquely?” I don’t think so. Read more…

The Jury (or More Accurately the Judge) Is Still Out for Civil Rights and Employment Cases Post-Iqbal by Suzette M. Malveaux

Five years after Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and three years after Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the question regarding the impact these seminal Supreme Court decisions are having on the vitality of employment discrimination and other civil rights cases remains. Read more…

Bringing Back Reasonable Inferences: A Short, Simple Suggestion for Addressing Some Problems at the Intersection of Employment  Discrimination and Summary Judgment by Hon. Bernice B. Donald and J. Eric Pardue

Almost fifty years ago, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. An integral part of that monumental piece of legislation was Title VII, which prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, and sex. Read more…

“Only Procedural”: Thoughts on the Substantive Law Dimensions of Preliminary Procedural Decisions in Employment Discrimination Cases by Elizabeth M. Schneider and Hon. Nancy Gertner

A number of important procedural decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court have had a dramatic impact on plaintiffs’ access to the federal courts, their right to a jury trial, and even the substantive law of employment discrimination. Read more…

Inferences in Employment Law Compared to Other Areas of Law: Turning the Rules Upside Down by David L. Lee and Jennifer C. Weiss

The laws of inference should be the same in employment cases as they are in other civil cases and even in criminal cases. For example, in Desert Palace, Inc. v. Costa, the Supreme Court unanimously and expressly analogized between the adequacy of circumstantial evidence in employment cases and in criminal ones … Read more…

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