These days it seems like nearly every data breach results in a multitude of class action filings. Some of these cases settle quickly with minimal litigation. In such a case, the Eighth Circuit recently reversed an attorneys’...more
A recent Texas Supreme Court decision in a class action caught my eye because it addressed several significant class certification issues, including one that I’ve seen regularly and another that the court analyzed in a new...more
6/3/2024
/ Article III ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Insurance Claims ,
Insurance Litigation ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Standing ,
TX Supreme Court ,
USAA
Suppose that the central issue in a putative class action is a legal issue pending before the Supreme Court. Depending on how the Supreme Court rules, the plaintiffs will recover either nothing or up to $600 million. But...more
5/16/2024
/ Attorney's Fees ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
CAFA ,
Class Action ,
Class Members ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Settlement ,
Statutory Violations ,
TCPA ,
Text Messages
When a class certification decision overlaps with merits issues, can a court of appeals deciding an interlocutory appeal from a class certification order also review an earlier decision on a motion to dismiss if it was...more
Think twice about whether the Class Action Fairness Act’s “local controversy” exception applies to your case. Even if more than two-thirds of the proposed class members are citizens of the forum state, there is a significant...more
When class certification is denied because the named plaintiff’s claim fails for some reason, sometimes an absent class member will try to intervene rather than filing their own separate suit. Their goal is usually to attempt...more
In analyzing class certification issues, courts have said that common issues may predominate in some cases even though damages would have to be determined individually for each class member. But what about where some class...more
Federal courts of appeals have disagreed on whether a named plaintiff in a proposed class action can sue defendants who have not injured that plaintiff but allegedly have injured putative class members. This is not an...more
A recent Ninth Circuit decision illustrates how defendants can use evidence on an individualized defense to potentially defeat class certification.
In Van v. LLR, Inc., — F.4th –, 2023 WL 2469909 (9th Cir. Mar. 13, 2023),...more
Last week the Second Circuit issued a new decision affirming, with one exception, the approval of a $5.6 billion revised class action settlement in the long-running Visa/Mastercard antitrust litigation. (See my blog post on...more
A sometimes-overlooked aspect of class action law is how class certification rules interact with the Rules Enabling Act, which provides that rules of procedure and evidence “shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any...more
1/30/2023
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Federal Rules of Evidence ,
FRCP 23(b)(3) ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Rules Enabling Act
One of the first significant class certification-related decisions of 2023 comes from the Fifth Circuit. While some trial courts hesitate to strike class action allegations on the pleadings, the district court here concluded...more
When negotiating a class action settlement, lawyers on both sides may need to consider whether subgroups within the class need to be separately represented by different counsel. The First Circuit recently reached that...more
A recent Ninth Circuit decision on a class action settlement, In re Apple Inc. Device Performance Litigation, 2022 WL 4492078 (9th Cir. Sept. 28, 2022), received significant attention in the legal media. It addressed several...more
Last week the Eleventh Circuit addressed an issue that many class action practitioners probably haven’t thought much about: whether approval of a class action settlement requires that each class member obtaining relief have...more
8/1/2022
/ Article III ,
CAFA ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
FRCP 23(e) ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Settlement Negotiations ,
Standing ,
TCPA
The Ninth Circuit recently addressed an issue that tends to arise frequently in class certification motion practice: how trial courts should apply the predominance requirement where appellate decisions have said that the need...more
7/11/2022
/ Bellwether Verdicts ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
Comcast v. Behrend ,
Damages ,
Employment Litigation ,
Liability ,
Predominance Requirement ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Unpaid Wages
I used to say that denials of class certification on numerosity grounds were rare and that usually it was futile to oppose class certification on that ground. That’s becoming less true as some circuits, including the Third...more
A recent Sixth Circuit case addressed an issue that tends to arise frequently in various types of class actions, such as property insurance and environmental cases: whether property valuation issues are appropriate for class...more
The Fifth Circuit recently addressed the scope of appellate jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). CAFA allows federal courts of appeals to hear, on a discretionary basis, appeals from “an order of a...more
A recent Sixth Circuit decision caught my eye because it addressed an important issue on which I have not seen any other appellate decisions (and none were cited in the opinion). The plaintiff argued that the Class Action...more
Federal district court orders remanding cases to state court are generally not appealable, as provided by 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). One exception to this is that the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) allows a court of appeals, in...more
A recent Seventh Circuit decision makes an important point about how the principle that a court generally need not resolve the merits to decide class certification is bilateral – it applies to both affirmative claims and...more
A recent Seventh Circuit decision made two rulings on issues arising under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that defendants may find useful in other cases. First, potential punitive damages exceeding a single-digit ratio...more
A recent Eleventh Circuit decision on the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) caught my eye. It involves the kind of question legislators (and their staffs) probably never think about when drafting a statute. Law professors...more
Last week the Fifth Circuit issued a short opinion that made an important point that does not arise often in class certification decisions. Class certification failed because the plaintiffs’ proposed theory of liability would...more