Stuart Gerson, a Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Health Care and Life Sciences practices in the Washington, DC, office, was quoted in an article by Nathan Koppel titled "Are Federal Courts Biased in Favor of Big Business?"
Here is an excerpt:
A panel discussion today at the New York University School of Law explored the touchy subject of whether business interests hold too much sway over federal judges. ... the discussion was a veritable who's who of high-wattage thinkers ...
The Supreme Court, for starters, came under fire from some panelists, who cited the Chamber of Commerce's win rate during Chief Justice Roberts's tenure. Doug Kendall, head of the Constitutional Accountability Center, cited statistics his group compiled late last year showing that the Chamber had won 68% of the cases in which it participated from 2006-2010, compared to the Chamber's win rates of 56% in the Rehnquist Court and 43% in the Burger court. ...
Stuart Gerson, a defense attorney with Epstein Becker & Green, questioned the study, suggesting that the Roberts Court is not pro-business, or pro Chamber per se, but rather believes merely that plaintiffs should be held to an appropriately high standard to prevail in litigation, as evidenced by the court's Iqbal and Twombly rulings, which raised pleading standards in cases.
Gerson said that a better way to understand the Roberts Court — including some of the court's liberal bloc — is that it's reluctant to interpret federal regulations expansively in order to facilitate plaintiffs' recoveries.
