Certification

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As we were drafting this blog post, each of us was sitting in our home offices self-quarantined from the outside world doing our part to flatten-the-curve and keep COVID-19 germs at bay. The news about the coronavirus is changing by the second and along with it closings and edicts the likes of which most of…

McGuireWoods Fintech industry team leader David Reidy and appellate litigator Jonathan Urick bring us this succinct analysis of the Supreme Court’s hotly anticipated decision on the doctrine of “equitable tolling” in class actions:

Class-action plaintiffs cannot toll the statute of limitations indefinitely by filing copycat class actions until certification sticks, the U.S. Supreme Court held…

Washington, DC-based litigator James Freije brings us an analysis of the Supreme Court’s latest class certification decision.

Resolving a current split amongst multiple federal circuits, the United States Supreme Court recently ruled in Microsoft Corp. v. Baker that federal courts of appeals lack jurisdiction to review orders denying class certification after plaintiffs voluntarily dismiss their…

Richard C. Beaulieu reports below on the Iowa Supreme Court’s affirmation of the trial court’s order certifying a class of individuals asserting claims against a corn milling facility based on allegations of air pollution.

Over the past two decades, large agricultural operations have become a popular target for plaintiffs’ attorneys.  Bringing claims under common law…

In Ubaldi v. SLM Corp., No. 11-01320, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38587 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 24, 2014), the plaintiffs sued student-loan institution Sallie Mae for allegedly imposing unenforceable choice-of-law provisions on some of its borrowers, as well as charging improper late fees and "usurious" interest.

The trial court denied certification on a number of…

 For some time, academics have been decrying the demise of the class action, arguing that the Supreme Court’s precedent makes it harder than ever to certify a class under Rule 23. And yet, as one practitioner I know observed, plaintiffs keep filing the things. And quite a few courts keep certifying them.

Now, however, at…

Class action lawyers are well aware that the burden to affirmatively demonstrate compliance with Rule 23 rests on the plaintiffs. Over the years, courts have elaborated somewhat on the burdens plaintiffs must meet for numerosity and commonality, but have remained somewhat vaguer when it comes to typicality.

Last week, a trial court in the…

This week, we get our yearly reminder not to take the humble numerosity requirement for granted. In Spread Enterprises, Inc. v. First Data Merchant Services Corp., No. 11-CV-4743, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22972 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 22, 2014), the named plaintiff–a prepaid phone minutes company–sued a bank and a credit card payment processor for charging…