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3 - Speedy Adjudication in Hard Cases and Low Settlement Rates in Easy Cases

An Empirical Analysis of Taiwanese Courts with Comparison to US Federal Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2019

By
Yun-chien Chang  and
William H. J. Hubbard
Edited by
Yun-chien Chang
Yun-chien Chang
Affiliation:
Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
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Summary

This book chapter compares civil litigation in the courts of first and second instances in Taiwan in 2010–2015 with that in U.S. federal courts in 2010–2013. The two judicial systems, as expected, are different in many ways. Settlement rates in Taiwan, even broadly defined, were below 25%; in U.S. federal court, they exceed 70%. In Taiwan, summary judgments were basically non-existent; in U.S. federal court, they represent nearly a third of merits judgments. Rates of appeal in Taiwan are nearly 10 times higher (27% versus 3%) than in the U.S. federal courts. And yet judges in Taiwan, at least those in the court of first instance, handled cases more quickly than their colleagues in the U.S. federal courts—indeed, twice as fast. Yet, the two judicial systems respond similarly when encountering simple debt collection cases. These cases, large in number in both systems, fail to settle as standard theories would predict. Instead, these disputes are frequently resolved through default judgments. This chapter provides cautionary lessons for future empirical comparative civil procedure studies.

Keywords

Summary judgmentdefault judgmentsettlementappealspeeddebt collectionhigh stakestrialhard casesdiversity cases
Type
Chapter
Information
Selection and Decision in Judicial Process around the World
Empirical Inquires
 , pp. 73 - 109
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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