Scholars have theorized that resource‐rich litigants known as the “haves” tend to succeed disproportionately in litigation when the adverse party is a “have‐not.” The traditional theory suggests that haves are able to use their wealth to secure better attorney representation and can use their frequent experience in litigation to tip the scales of justice in their favor, particularly when faced with “one‐shotters” whose involvement in litigation is infrequent. A remaining question, however, is whether some haves fare better than other similarly situated haves. Specifically, this article posits that the litigation strategy used by the defendant may also play a role in litigation outcomes. Companies that tenaciously fight claims that, in the short term, would be cheaper to settle might discourage otherwise valid claims in the future from being filed out of fear that the litigation will be a protracted battle. This article examines Wal‐Mart Stores, Inc. (Wal‐Mart)—the largest revenue‐generating company in the United States—to explore whether it fares better than other resource‐rich defendants. Wal‐Mart in particular has a reputation against settling cases and thus is an excellent vehicle to investigate this hypothesis. Appellate cases in an eleven‐year period involving slip‐and‐fall litigation were compiled, and the results show that Wal‐Mart did win at a higher rate than other defendants. Although more research is needed to explore fully the effect of litigation strategy on win–loss rates, this sample of cases demonstrates that Wal‐Mart is a more effective and victorious litigant.

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所有人最大的“拥有”：沃尔玛及其在滑倒案件中的诉讼结果

学者们认为，当对方是“没有”时，被称为“拥有”的资源丰富的诉讼往往会在诉讼中取得不成比例的成功。传统理论认为，拥有者能够利用自己的财富来确保获得更好的律师代表，并可以利用其在诉讼中的丰富经验来向自己倾斜司法规模，特别是在面对很少参与诉讼的“单打独斗者”的情况下。但是，还有一个问题是，有些票价是否比其他类似位置的票价要好。具体而言，本文认为，被告使用的诉讼策略也可能在诉讼结果中发挥作用。顽强拼搏的公司声称，在短期内，这样做会更便宜，可能会因为担心诉讼将是一场旷日持久的战斗而使将来提出的其他有效主张受到阻碍。本文研究了美国最大的创收公司沃尔玛（Wal-Mart Stores，Inc.）（Wal-Mart），以探讨其表现是否比其他资源丰富的被告更好。沃尔玛尤其以解决案件而闻名，因此是研究这一假设的绝佳工具。在11年的时间里，涉及滑倒诉讼的上诉案件得到了汇编，结果表明，沃尔玛的获胜率确实高于其他被告。尽管需要更多的研究来充分探讨诉讼策略对双赢率的影响，但本案例研究表明，沃尔玛是一个更为有效和胜利的诉讼人。