A few weeks ago, the Duke Law Center for Judicial Studies held a conference on class action settlements in San Diego, to discuss best practices in the wake of the likely Rule 23 amendments. Like all of its conferences, this one was held under the Chatham House Rule, which dictate that you can
objectors
Objectors: The Defense Lawyer’s Friend
I’ve been busy this week with a number of things, but a few of them, including the upcoming amendments to Rule 23 and prepping for a Strafford webinar on Thursday, have me thinking about the proper role of objectors again.
I think I’ve mentioned before that a number of class action lawyers (especially on…
The New Rule 23 Is Available for Public Comment
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The Ten Most Significant Class Action Cases of 2014
Year-end lists are funny things. They take a sort-of arbitrary starting and stopping point, and then they cram a bunch of prejudices into a (usually) arbitrary number of items. And then people take them kind of seriously. But they can be handy ways of catching trends one did not see before. And in a year…
Objector-proofing May Attract Objectors – Hershey v ExxonMobil Oil Corp
ExxonMobil recently attempted to settle a class action involving the payment of gas royalties. As part of that settlement, it agreed to a provision that would impose a severe appeal bond on any objectors who might wish to appeal an unsuccessful objection. The clause read:
Because any appeal by an objecting Class Member would delay
…
Coupon Settlements Revisited – Feder v Frank
Just about anyone who owns a printer has strong opinions on toner cartridges. An enterprising group of plaintiffs’ lawyers sought to capitalize on consumer annoyance with printer cartridges by filing three class actions in the Northern District of California against toner manufacturer Hewlett Packard.
Their cases didn’t go so well. Some of the complaints…
When Incentive Awards Attack – Radcliffe v. Experian Info Solutions Inc.
Going through bankruptcy is traumatic enough; doing so and still having your credit report still list your discharged debts as "delinquent" is enough to drive some people to litigation. And that’s how several credit agencies found themselves on the receiving end of a series of Fair Credit Reporting Act class actions.
In this case, the…
Class Action Summer Camp – Rule 23(e) & Settlement
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…
Classic Scholarship – Class Wars: The Dilemma of the Mass Tort Class Action
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…
Second Circuit Says Subclasses Need Their Own Attorneys
[Note: Many thanks to the folks at the WLF Legal Pulse for asking me to write this entry. It’s cross-posted there.]
Given the stakes of class actions, which transform small-dollar claims into bet-the-company litigation, settlements are hardly unusual. And given the minuscule recoveries most class members receive compared to their lawyers’ multi-million paydays, neither…