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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…

Challenges to ascertainability have become noticeably more popular over the last few years. As a result, defendants will sometimes challenge the class definition even though there are deeper problems with the class. As a recent case shows, however, it is usually worth probing deeper than the definition in one’s arguments.

Steimel v. Minott, No.…

 In the past few years, Professor Mark Moller of DePaul University Law School has proven to be one of the most thoughtful critics of modern class action law in the legal academy. While most commentators take on class action decisions from either a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant standpoint, Professor Moller appears intent on evaluating these opinions…

 After watching an infomercial, Harry Wiedenbeck bought a "comprehensive" medical health insurance plan for himself and his wife. When the insurer subsequently denied a claim based on his wife’s hospitalization, Mr. Wiedenbeck filed a class action alleging fraud and bad faith on behalf of all Wisconsin residents who had bought the plan.

The subsequent case…

A group of Hispanic and African-American borrowers sued the National City Bank, alleging that its "Discretionary Pricing Policy" for home mortgages had resulted in higher borrowing costs for racial minorities. During discovery, the parties engaged in a mediation and reached a $7 million settlement, which a trial court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania preliminarily…

 Class action practice provides plaintiffs with some odd pleading incentives. Two that cause continual problems are the need to keep things vague (in order to emphasize commonalities over any variations that may arise from more specific details) and the need to frame one’s complaint as broadly as possible to maximize the potential recovery in settlement…

Property-rights class actions are difficult to bring, because property tends to be unique, and class actions do not work well with unique claims. But that doesn’t stop plaintiffs from trying to certify classes asserting property based claims.

This week’s case–Onyx Props. LLC v. Bd. Cty. Comm’ners of Elbert Cty., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS…