Cases Without Controversies: Uncontested Adjudication in Article III Courts

This book offers a new account of the power of federal courts in the United States to hear and determine uncontested applications to assert or register a claim of right. Familiar to lawyers in civil law countries as forms of voluntary or non-contentious jurisdiction, these uncontested applications fit uneasily with the commitment to adversary legalism in the United States. Indeed, modern accounts of federal judicial power often urge that the language of the Article III of the U.S. Constitution limits federal courts to the adjudication of concrete disputes between adverse parties, thereby ruling out all forms of non-contentious jurisdiction. Said to rest on the so-called

Table of Contents:
Foreword Introduction Part One: Thesis: Uncontested Adjudication in the Federal Courts 1. Chapter One: The Origins of Uncontested Adjudication 2. Chapter Two: Uncontested Proceedings on Federal Dockets in the Early Republic 3. Chapter Three: Probate and Domestic Relations Proceedings 4. Chapter Four: The Nineteenth-Century Perspective on Federal Judicial Power Part Two: Antithesis: The Progressive Restatement of an Emerging Case-or-Controversy Requirement 5. Chapter Five: The Judicial Response to the Administrative State 6. Chapter Six: The Progressive Response to Lochner: Limiting Justiciability 7. Chapter Seven: The New Adverse-Party Rule Confronts Judicial Practice Part Three: Synthesis: Cases, Controversies, and Litigable Interests 8. Chapter Eight: Uncontested Adjudication and the Modern Case-or-Controversy Rule 9. Chapter Nine: Evaluating Defenses of a Requirement of Adverse Interests 10. Chapter Ten: Uncontested Adjudication and Standing to Sue 11. Chapter Eleven: A Practical Guide to Uncontested Adjudication 12. Chapter Twelve: Toward a Constructive Constitutional History Part Four: Conclusion

About the Author :
James Pfander, author of dozens of articles and books, has served as the Owen L. Coon Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law for more than a decade. Pfander's scholarship explores the nature of federal judicial power, the law of government accountability in modern America, and the history of the federal judicial system. A member of the American Law Institute, Pfander recently concluded his work as reporter/consultant to the Federal-State Jurisdiction Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He has served as chair of both the federal courts and civil procedure sections of the Association of American Law Schools.

Review :
Overall, Jim Pfander's book is legal history at its finest. He has done thorough research, drawn reasonable conclusions from the primary sources, fairly acknowledged possible competing interpretations, and explained complex legal and historical ideas clearly. No one has a better understanding of the historical meaning of Article III.