Today’s case, In re Universal Serv. Fund Telephone Billing Practices Litig., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80204 (D. Kan. Jun. 7, 2013), provides an unusual situation for a class action. First of all, it involves a verdict in a class action trial. Second, it is one of the first trial court opinions to pay attention

This week’s article is a student comment: George Mason 3L Jennifer Johnston has published an interesting discussion of the problems that arise from cy pres distributions, Cy Pres Comme Possible to Anything is Possible: How Cy Pres Creates Improper Incentives in Class ActionSettlements, 9 J.L. Econ. & Pol’y 277 (2013). Her primary argument

My apologies for missing last Thursday’s post: life with a newborn occasionally catches up with one. Nonetheless, finishing out our July Class Action Summer Camp, today we’ll focus on Rule 23(e) and class-action settlements. The vast majority of class actions settle, but because class-action settlements implicate so many different interests (the lawyers, the defendant

Much has been written in the last few years about cy pres relief (relief that goes, not to class members, but to ) in class action settlements. While plaintiffs and defendants still find cy pres to be a valuable for increasing settlement amounts, the practice has come under increasing fire from some scholars and

 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