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The Appeals Process and Incentives to Settle

Author

Listed:
  • Wohlschlegel, Ansgar
Abstract
This paper analyzes asymmetrically informed litigants' incentives to settle when they anticipate the possibility of appeals. It identifies a strategic effect, which induces a litigant to negotiate pretrial so as to optimize her posttrial bargaining position, and an information effect, which means that litigants will take into account pretrial how the information revealed by the trial court's verdict will translate into posttrial equilibrium payoffs. The paper's main contribution is twofold: First, it establishes a workhorse model of settlement and litigation in the shadow of appeals which may be used in future research to analyze specific issues of litigation and legal reform. Second, the importance of including the possibility of appeals in the litigation model is highlighted by an example in which some results contradict the immediate intuition: It is shown that (i) more accurate trial courts may actually attract less cases and (ii) cases may go to trial court with a larger ex-ante probability for higher legal costs in the appeals stage.

Suggested Citation

  • Wohlschlegel, Ansgar, 2014. "The Appeals Process and Incentives to Settle," MPRA Paper 59424, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:59424
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    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/59424/1/MPRA_paper_59424.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven Shavell, 2010. "On the Design of the Appeals Process: The Optimal Use of Discretionary Review versus Direct Appeal," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 63-108, January.
    2. Spier, Kathryn E, 1994. "Settlement Bargaining and the Design of Damage Awards," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 84-95, April.
    3. Shavell, Steven, 1999. "The level of litigation: private versus social optimality of suit and of settlement," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 99-115, March.
    4. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter, 2001. "Information aggregation in debate: who should speak first?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 393-421, September.
    5. Claudia M. Landeo & Maxim Nikitin & Scott Baker, 2007. "Deterrence, Lawsuits, and Litigation Outcomes Under Court Errors," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 57-97, April.
    6. Alex Robson & Stergios Skaperdas, 2008. "Costly enforcement of property rights and the Coase theorem," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 36(1), pages 109-128, July.
    7. Butler, Monika & Hauser, Heinz, 2000. "The WTO Dispute Settlement System: First Assessment from an Economic Perspective," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 503-533, October.
    8. Steven Shavell, 2007. "Optimal Discretion in the Application of Rules," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 9(1), pages 175-194.
    9. Kathryn E. Spier, 1992. "The Dynamics of Pretrial Negotiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 93-108.
    10. Shavell, Steven, 1995. "The Appeals Process as a Means of Error Correction," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(2), pages 379-426, June.
    11. Barry Nalebuff, 1987. "Credible Pretrial Negotiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(2), pages 198-210, Summer.
    12. Hylton, Keith N., 2002. "An asymmetric-information model of litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 153-175, August.
    13. Elisabetta Iossa & Giuliana Palumbo, 2007. "Information Provision and Monitoring of the Decision-Maker in the Presence of an Appeal Process," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(4), pages 657-682, December.
    14. Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 1984. "Litigation and Settlement under Imperfect Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(3), pages 404-415, Autumn.
    15. Oliver Hart, 1989. "Bargaining and Strikes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 25-43.
    16. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2000. "Appealing Judgments," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(3), pages 502-526, Autumn.
    17. Steven Shavell, 2006. "The Appeals Process and Adjudicator Incentives," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 1-29, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Cited by:

    1. At Christian & Friehe Tim & Gabuthy Yannick, 2019. "On Lawyer Compensation When Appeals Are Possible," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-11, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Litigation; settlement; appeals; sequential bargaining; asymmetric information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

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