Plaintiff Favoritism in Judicial Cost-Shifting Decisions

Keren Weinshall and Ifat Taraboulos

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), 2023, vol. 179, issue 1, 156-189

Abstract: Are judges inclined to favor plaintiffs over defendants? We analyze the relationships between win rates and cost-shifting outcomes in the Israeli loser-pays regime. Though qualitative analysis of semistructured interviews with judges assures us that litigants are equal in the cost-shifting arena, quantitative analysis portrays evidence to the contrary: judges allocate more and higher costs in favor of prevailing plaintiffs than defendants. Results are replicated in three datasets: a sample of all civil cases, small claims between individuals, and claims with matching counterclaims. We discuss explanations for this implicit pro-plaintiff effect in cost-shifting and implications for a possible broader pro-plaintiff bias.

Keywords: judicialbehavior; cost-shifting; judicialbias; civillitigation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K40 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1628/jite-2023-0017

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