Dora Surowitz, a seamstress and a widow, was a Polish immigrant with very little English. In 1957, she bought about $2,000 of Hilton stock, on the advice of her son-in-law, Mr. Brilliant. (Yes, his real name. Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia, Harvard Law School. But really, with that name, could he have done anything else?)

In July 1969, General Telephone Company of the Southwest hired Mariano Falcon, a Mexican-American, as part of minority recruitment effort. Falcon maintained a good employment record until, “[i]n October 1972 he applied for the job of field inspector; his application was denied even though the promotion was granted several white employees with less seniority.” Dissatisfied

 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

 In Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, the Supreme Court recognized a rebuttable presumption of fraud on the market for securities-fraud cases. That presumption allowed for certification of a number of securities class actions. Plaintiffs since have taken that presumption and tried to apply it to various other sets of facts, most notably tobacco (although

In re Hydrogen Peroxide was an antitrust class action. Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical that is often used a bleach for pulp and paper. In this case, the plaintiffs, all purchasers of hydrogen peroxide and other chemicals, sued their suppliers, alleging that the defendants had sold them more expensive chemical grades when less expensive ones