{"id":1580,"date":"2012-09-29T20:03:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T00:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hlpr\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:22:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:22:31","slug":"confidence-and-the-justice-system-and-outcomes-for-discrimination-plaintiffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2012\/09\/29\/confidence-and-the-justice-system-and-outcomes-for-discrimination-plaintiffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Confidence and the Justice System and Outcomes for Discrimination Plaintiffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anne King<\/p>\n

<\/em>DRI \u2013 The Voice of the Defense Bar\u00a0recently released survey results\u00a0<\/a>indicating that many Americans have little confidence in the fairness of the civil justice system.<\/p>\n

A few interesting\u00a0highlights<\/a>: \u201c41% of Americans are not confident that the civil law system is fair and just. Only 9% are very confident.\u201d \u201cConfidence in the courts is higher among liberals than conservatives.\u201d \u201c83% say that the side with the most money for lawyers usually wins,\u201d a result that remains consistent across all political parties and identifications. Despite this perception, \u201c[i]n a suit pitting a corporation against an individual, 54% would favor individuals.\u201d
\n
\nI encountered the DRI survey results (via the\u00a0Blog of Legal Times<\/a>) not long after reading Katie Eyer\u2019s\u00a0That\u2019s Not Discrimination: American Beliefs and the Limits of Anti- Discrimination Law<\/a>, recently published in the\u00a0Minnesota Law Review<\/a>. Eyer collects and summarizes a number of empirical studies finding that discrimination plaintiffs, especially employment discrimination plaintiffs, face extremely challenging odds in litigation. Specifically, \u201cless than 5% of all discrimination plaintiffs will ever achieve any form of litigated relief.\u201d Dismissal on a motions to dismiss or summary judgment \u201caccount[] for a full 86% of litigated outcomes.\u201d\u00a0 Eyer draws on psychological research to offer an explanation for discrimination plaintiffs\u2019 low success rates.<\/p>\n

Eyer\u2019s article makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the DRI survey results.\u00a0 Perhaps low win rates for discrimination plaintiffs contribute to low confidence in the civil justice system.\u00a0 Also, given that many survey participants reported generally favoring individuals above corporations, perhaps discrimination plaintiffs would fare better, on average, if more had an opportunity to try their cases before a jury.\u00a0 (Or maybe not \u2013 discrimination plaintiffs have a high loss rate at trial and on appeal.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anne King DRI \u2013 The Voice of the Defense Bar\u00a0recently released survey results\u00a0indicating that many Americans have little confidence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-pu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}