For the last six or seven years, a growing academic literature has put forward the argument that the primary justification for class actions is not to compensate absent class members, but to deter corporate wrongdoing. That justification has formed the basis of a number of arguments, from Professor Fitzpatrick’s proposal that class action attorneys earn
classic scholarship
Classic Scholarship – Naming, Blaming & Claiming
By The Editors on
Posted in Lawyers
This month’s piece of classic scholarship comes from the sociology of law. Thirty years ago, William L.F. Felstiner, Richard L. Abel, and Austin Sarat published a piece in the Law & Society Review titled "The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming …"
The authors wanted to trace how experiences…
Classic Scholarship – Taking Adequacy Seriously
By The Editors on
Posted in Certification
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.…
Classic Scholarship – Class Wars: The Dilemma of the Mass Tort Class Action
By The Editors on
Posted in Settlement
Mass torts have long been a problem for the American judicial system. Today, it’s Vioxx, the BP oil spill, and Chinese drywall. Fifteen years ago, it was asbestos, Agent Orange, and silicone gel breast implants. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, when mass torts first threatened to overwhelm crowded…
Classic Scholarship – The Class Action Device in Antisegregation Cases
By The Editors on
Posted in Strategy
This month, in our piece of classic scholarship looks at an old University of Chicago Law Review comment on how to use class action. The Class Action Device in Antisegregation Cases, 20 U. Chi. L. Rev. 577 (1953). (JSTOR link here.)
The Comment takes a plaintiffs’ view of how to use class actions to…
Classic Scholarship – Nonpecuniary Class Action Settlements
By The Editors on
Posted in Settlement
This month’s look at "classic" class action scholarship focuses on the article Nonpecuniary Class Action Settlements by Geoffrey Miller and Lori Singer. Like the name suggests, nonpecuniary settlements are settlements that don’t require cash payments to the absent class members. According to Miller and Singer, they include:
- Coupon settlements.
- Monitoring settlements, "where the defendant endows
…
Classic Scholarship – The Challenge of the Mass Trial
By The Editors on
Posted in Strategy
This week, we begin a new feature at Class Action Countermeasures. Much as I occasionally look at classic class-action cases, I’m also going to look at classic scholarship once per month. That scholarship will have to have some connection to class actions or other kinds of aggregated litigation. And I’ll be mining these articles…