An Empirical Analysis of Bankruptcy Certiorari
34 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2013
Date Written: 1997
Abstract
This article analyzes data from every certiorari petition involving either a bankruptcy case or an issue of bankruptcy law since the Bankruptcy Code's 1978 enactment. In bankruptcy cases, the certiorari process has favored governmental and institutional litigants. The statistical result is extremely robust and significant when subjected to regression analysis. For state governments and institutional litigants, no satisfactory, neutral explanation can be offered for this apparent bias. These results were consistent with other scholarship that demonstrated the increased likelihood of a governmental petitioner being granted cert. The finding for institutional litigants is new. We were not able to duplicate results showing that the presence of a governmental respondent made certiorari more likely.
Keywords: bankruptcy
JEL Classification: K00
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation