Last week, Senator Al Franken (D-Minn) proposed a bill that would partially reverse the Supreme Court’s opinion in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes.
According to Senator Franken’s press release, the Equal Opportunity Employment Restoration Act (good title) would add a section 4201 to 28 U.S.C.:
Section 4201(a) creates a new judicial
…
After Dukes, many commentators bemoaned that the class action was dead. At the very least, many argued (as did some last week at DePaul Law School’s Symposium on Class Action Rollback) that the Title VII class action is likely on its last legs.
If so, no one told the plaintiffs’ counsel prosecuting…
In 2004, five women applied to be paramedics with the Chicago fire department, a demanding job with a demanding application process. While they were otherwise qualified, these five women, for whatever reason, did not pass the city’s physical ability test. After they were removed from the city’s eligibility list, they sued the city in…
In a decision that has already garnered massive press coverage and commentary the Supreme Court yesterday granted certiorari in the case that will be known as Wal-Mart v. Dukes. The 9th Circuit’s opinion affirmed certification of the largest-ever employment class action. (Too large, in Wal-Mart’s opinion.)
The Supreme Court will not review…
Many apologies for providing you all with just a linkdump for my Tuesday entry, but I’m lying in bed with a triple-digit fever. Still, there are certainly other legal blogs that do a thoughtful job of covering class-action issues, and I’m lucky that several of them have great entries right now.
…
All too often, courts and class-action litigants take the question of commonality for granted. But, when framed properly, the question of commonality can provide a court with the tools necessary to engage in a truly rigorous analysis of a proposed class.
In his recent essay "Common Answers for Class Certification," noted professor…
Commonality is rarely the subject of much discussion in class certification. The plaintiff often treats it as a perfunctory hurdle, subsumed into the more difficult questions of predominance (under Rule 23(b)(3)) or cohesiveness (under Rule 23(b)(2)). But, much like numerosity, commonality is a requirement that may reward careful scrutiny when a defendant opposes class certification.…
While I was on my self-imposed editing hiatus (shameless plug: The Class Action Playbook comes out in September), the Ninth Circuit handed down its en banc opinion in Dukes v. Wal-Mart. The court worked overtime to tie its opinion to the specific facts and arguments in front of it, which may prevent some…
