Last week, there were two appellate opinions, one from the Seventh Circuit and one from the Tenth, that are worth some attention. They’re worth discussing together as well, because while only one is really helpful for defendants, both discuss different conceptions of how to argue comity in class actions.

The first is Smentek v. Dart

 I hope everyone had a good Martin Luther King Day. Given the holiday, it seemed appropriate to highlight another classic case: Hansberry v. Lee

Oddly, given its importance to class actions litigation, Hansberry is not a class action itself. The case arose out of a restrictive covenant barring African-Americans from buying land in certain