ERISA

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In a published decision issued yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that collective claims for alleged breaches of fiduciary duty under ERISA were not subject to the arbitration agreements in plaintiff employees’ employment contracts. Instead, since those claims were brought for the benefit of the ERISA plans in which the…

 Superiority (which requires a court to find "a class action is superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy") is an often-overlooked area of Rule 23, perhaps because these days, it comes with a nice long, non-exhaustive list of factors to consider, including:

(A) the class members’ interests in individually

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 As a class action lawyer (and one who defends class actions, no less), I often face the problem of explaining to friends and family exactly what I do all day. The cases themselves are often interesting, but the way we lawyers go about defending them–by mastering the arcana of one of the Federal Rules of…

The tactic is more common that one might imagine: when plaintiffs file their motion for certification, they may include an expert report from a noted law professor, testifying that their case is ideally suited for certification under Rule 23. Now, on one side of the certification debate, you have practicing lawyers zealously representing their client…