Courts look down on offers of judgment in class actions as a procedural trick. Used properly, however, they are an effective early screen for cases that can’t be certified.
One of the most heated debates in the last five years of class action practice has been the proper use of Rule 68’s offer of judgment. …
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…
In Franco v. Allied Interstate LLC, No. 13 Civ. 4503, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47077 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 2, 2014), the named plaintiff sued the defendant for sending him a debt collection letter that implied he could face garnishment of his wages if he did not pay his debt. He did not allege any actual…
Rule 68 offers of judgment have been controversial in the class action context. Defendants will often use them in an attempt to moot the class claims of the named plaintiff: offering full relief first, and then moving to dismiss the case on jurisdictional grounds should the plaintiff decline the offer.
But there is a second…
2013 did not offer the blockbuster docket in front of the Supreme Court that 2011 did, but that didn’t stop the Court from issuing a number of opinions whose effects will be felt for some time to come. In addition, a number of other courts took bold steps to either support or constrain class…
Ellen Delgado sued collection agency Collecto, Inc., accusing it of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by sending her an improper debt collection letter. After she filed suit (but before she moved for class certification), Collecto made an offer of judgment for Ms. Delgado’s full damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs. It…
Rule 68 offers of judgment have been controversial in class action practice for quite some time. Proponents of the tactic believe that it offers a valuable means of limiting frivolous lawsuits: where there are really only a few affected claimants, an offer of judgment can force them to face up to the costs of meritless…
I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend. This week, we take a brief look at a number of opinions that were decided last week, none of which are revolutionary, but all of which are useful to defendants at some stage of the class action. Think of it like a Memorial Day barbecue, a…
