Paul Karlsgodt of Classactionblawg.com got there first (in a post that should win "Title of the Month" hands-down), but Judge Posner’s opinion yesterday denying rehearing (and announcing there will be no en banc rehearing) in Thorogood v. Sears Roebuck & Co. is still worth an extra post.  Not just because Judge Posner discusses the results of an informal poll of the panel’s wives, not just because he cites a YouTube link of Simon Cowell, and not just because the ever-irreverent Above the Law is likely to feature the opinion as a classic benchslap.    

The primary reason to read the opinion is because it so thoroughly documents both the strategic choices plaintiffs’ counsel may make, and the strategic incentives they face.  Some of this discussion is all the more credible because it comes from counsel’s inadvertent disclosures:

Krislov says that “Sears’ resort to this Circuit for the preclusive shot is transparent forum shopping, looking for this Court’s derisory view of the claim to influence it into binding all class  members nationwide, because the Ninth Circuit’s standards are decidedly more favorable to plaintiffs’ claims.” This is what is known as chutzpah, since Krislov brought his copycat suit in California because, as he says unguardedly, “the Ninth Circuit’s standards are decidedly more favorable to plaintiffs claims.”

And some of the discussion is just the result of Judge Posner’s typically prodigious research:

Krislov is concerned with harsh language in our opinion, but overstates the case when he decries “characterization of plaintiff class action lawyers as inherently corrupt and motivated primarily to sell out the class in order to gain large fees.” What we said was that the structure of class actions under Rule 23 of the federal rules gives class action lawyers an incentive to negotiate settlements that enrich themselves but give scant reward to class members, while at the same time the burden of responding to class plaintiffs’ discovery demands gives defendants an incentive to agree to early settlement that may treat the class action lawyers better than the class. Class action attorneys have an “inherent motivation” to enrich themselves at the expense of the class (and with the connivance of defendants), but motivation is not a synonym for action; any actual corruption or selling out is gauged case by case. The Boling letter is some indication that the present case is such a case. 

The criticisms in our opinion of the tactics employed by some class action lawyers are not criticisms made by judges alone, let alone by judges of the Seventh Circuit alone or members of this panel alone.

(Extensive citations omitted.)  I’ll leave you with one further quote from the opinion, which comes after the extensive string cite I cut: 

Want more?  There is plenty more …

Go, read the opinion.  It’s a perfect starting point for understanding the strategic incentives plaintiffs’ lawyers face.