The US Supreme Court and the Modern Common Law Approach

This book studies the US Supreme Court and its current common law approach to judicial decision making from a national and transnational perspective. The Supreme Court's approach appears detached from and inconsistent with the underlying fundamental principles that ought to guide it, which often leads to unfair and inefficient results. This book suggests the adoption of a judicial decision-making model that proceeds from principles and rules, using them as premises for developing consistent unitary theories to meet current social conditions. This model requires that judicial opinions be informed by a wide range of considerations, including established legal standards, the insights derived from deductive and inductive reasoning, the lessons learned from history and custom, and an examination of the social and economic consequences of the decision.

1. The US Supreme Court's decision-making process: deciding when and what to decide; 2. Personal jurisdiction; 3. Forum non conveniens; 4. Personal jurisdiction and forum non conveniens in a transnational context; 5. Subject matter jurisdiction; 6. A look abroad: is the US Supreme Court's decision-making process unique?; 7. Concluding remarks.

Simona Grossi is a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. She worked for the UN from 2000 to 2002, and then she went into private practice and worked for Clifford Chance LLP and Bonelli Erede Pappalardo doing national and transnational litigation from 2002 to 2008. She worked for Judge Charles Breyer at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in 2010. She is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI). Her scholarship focuses on civil procedure and transnational litigation. She is the author of the Commentary to the Italian Code of Civil Procedure (2010).