Alternative Models of Appeal Mobilization in Judicial Hierarchies

Atkins, Burton M.

doi:10.2307/2111574

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Looking at judicial institutions beyond the United States, the same may also be true. Previous research already confirms that Galanter's () haves hypothesis often holds in foreign courts (e.g., Haynie ; Flemming and Krutz ), and, as discussed in detail above, Atkins () finds that some English litigants approach appeal mobilization while being mindful of their relative advantages over their opponents. We should therefore expect appeal behavior based on status differentials to find support in other foreign contexts as well.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…The potential appellant's status relative to his opponent's should also play an important role in the appeal decision. While a handful of studies control for litigant status in appeal decisions, or study the decision of one class of litigant to appeal or not (e.g., Hennigar ; Pacelle ; Zorn ; Waltenburg and Swinford ), only Atkins () directly examines the effect of status differentials across a range of litigant types on the decision of litigants to appeal. As he argues, “Appeal mobilization is .…”

Section: A Conditional Theory Of Litigant Status and Appealsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…. a function of which parties lose at a particular level of a judicial system and the kind of party they oppose in a dispute” (Atkins , 782–83). Atkins finds that English governmental bodies take advantage of status differentials and mobilize appeals at high rates against both corporate and individual opponents but that corporate and individual lower court losers are statistically indistinguishable from one another when it comes to rate of appeal.…”

Section: A Conditional Theory Of Litigant Status and Appealsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Waltenburg and Swinford () confirm the presence of this strength in appeal mobilization among state governments. And Atkins () and Hennigar () indicate that these significant advantages held by haves also extend to foreign court appeal decisions. While informative, these appeal‐focused studies leave much unknown about litigant status and appeal mobilization, including whether status advantages at appeal extend beyond governments and, in the United States, beyond high court settings.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Litigant Status and Trial Court Appeal Mobilization

Boyd

2015

Law & Policy

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The advantages held by haves over have nots in litigation have long fascinated scholars, with a long line of research revealing that litigant status often affects litigant resources, experience, and chances of overall success from trial courts to appellate courts. What has received considerably less attention, however, is how this status affects the decision to appeal. Bringing a new perspective to this important area holding implications for the shape and content of the judicial hierarchy, this study analyzes the decision of the losing federal district court litigant to appeal to the US courts of appeals. Utilizing an original database containing a sample of federal district court civil cases decided between 2000 and 2004, the results indicate, as predicted, that litigant status differentials affect whether there will be an appeal. This influence is further magnified when conditioned upon the relative costs of the appeal. These findings provide one of the first detailed examinations of litigant status and appeals coming from US trial courts and, simultaneously, offer the first empirical evidence to date that business litigants, like previously known government parties, are advantaged over individuals when deciding whether to appeal.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Section: A Conditional Theory Of Litigant Status and Appealsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Conditional Theory Of Litigant Status and Appealsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Litigant Status and Trial Court Appeal Mobilization

Boyd

2015

Law & Policy

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“…In many systems, however, the lower courts shape the contours of the terrain on which high courts make their impact on policy. Atkins (1993) suggests that the English Court of Appeal is quite active in this regard, and research on the certiorari process in the U.S. Supreme Court suggests that the justices attend to signals (particularly dissenting opinions) provided by the U.S. courts of appeals (Caldeira et al 1999). But intermediate appellate courts are important in their own right as well.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Judicial Hierarchy: Reversals and the Behavior of Intermediate Appellate Judges

Scott

2006

Law Soc Rev

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One of the central controversies in the judicial behavior literature is the extent to which judges' ability to act according to their ideological preferences is affected by their location in the judicial hierarchy. Judges on intermediate appellate courts have different decisionmaking environments than high court judges. As a result, the goals of lower appellate court judges may differ from those of their superiors: the quest for legal accuracy may compete with the desire to pursue policy preferences. Analysis of the reversal rate of the U.S. circuit courts of appeals offers insight into the extent to which these judges balance the pressures of their own policy preferences with the desire to achieve the legally accurate result in cases they decide. Int eraction between first-level and second-level appellate courts is a subject that has garnered increasing attention over the past several years, but an opportunity to bridge disciplinary divides by integrating recent scholarly work by political scientists and legal academics has largely been missed in the process. Disagreements between the two levels of courts produce reversals of the lower court by the higher court, but the process that drives such reversal is not well-understood given its importance in maintenance of judicial organization. Particularly in systems where review by the second-level appellate court is discretionary, higher courts reverse lower courts in pursuit of making broader policy statements, so the process takes on added importance. Work that assesses decisions by high courts to grant leave important insight into how second-level courts select their cases. But the factors that determine courts' decisions to review each case may not offer a complete pic-

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