In what is rapidly becoming a trend, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in yet another class action (this time Martin v. Blessing, but one Justice wrote an accompanying opinion to signal where the Court may come out should the issue arise again.
Martin is one of several cases in which SDNY Judge Harold Baer…
Plaintiff and defense lawyers tend to talk past each other a lot when discussing the legal theories underlying the class action. Plaintiffs talk of deterrence, and the need for easier certification requirements. Defendants talk about potential abuses of the device, and the need for due process. Plaintiffs prefer the "entity theory" of class actions. Defendants…
Going through bankruptcy is traumatic enough; doing so and still having your credit report still list your discharged debts as "delinquent" is enough to drive some people to litigation. And that’s how several credit agencies found themselves on the receiving end of a series of Fair Credit Reporting Act class actions.
In this case, the…
In 1998, the class action plaintiffs’ firm Milberg Weiss filed sued Computer Associates for violating the federal securities laws by lying about its revenues in order to increase its stock price. In a perfectly unremarkable development, it was appointed co-lead counsel of the consolidated class. (Various firms had filed a total of eleven complaints.) …
Northside Chiropractic doctor Michael Dubick made the mistake of–after a cold call from salesmen–buying advertising space in Yellowbook. He negotiated for a certain kind of advertisement, but the published ad looked nothing like what he had asked for, and lacked even basic information about his business (like his name). So he sued, and added class…
This was a busy year for class-action jurisprudence. Clearly, most of the Supreme Court cases had some effect on class action practice. But the district and appellate courts also rendered a host of rulings this year that significantly affect class-action practice. Despite what a number of academics and plaintiffs’ lawyers have claimed, the class action…
Today’s piece of "classic" scholarship is by Linda Mullenix, Professor of Law at the University of Texas. Published in 2004, Taking Adequacy Seriously: The Inadequate Assessment of Adequacy in Litigation & Settlement Classes, 57 Vand. L. Rev. 1687 (2004), took an in-depth look at the routine under-enforcement of Rule 23(a)(4)’s adequacy requirement.…
Over the last ten days, Judge Baer issued a followup order in the Gildan Activewear case and gave an interview to the New York Law Journal discussing his reasoning. The order–which found both plaintiffs’ firms to be adequate, and stressed that it was not criticizing their hiring practices–was pretty much a non-event. But Judge Baer’s…
A number of courts have held that Rule 23(a)(4)’s adequacy requirement mandates two inquiries:
(1) whether there are irreconcilable conflicts of interest between the class representative and the absent class members, and
(2) willingness and ability of the representative to take an active role in and control the litigation and to protect the interests of
…
With the exception of Supreme Court rulings or groundbreaking appellate opinions, there is little that counts as "breaking news" in the class-action world. But a lead-counsel appointment in the Southern District of New York has drawn so much coverage in the last twenty-four hours that it seems worth at least a brief discussion on…
