It is easy to overgeneralize the outcome of a legal dispute as pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant to paint a picture of which way a court is leaning and who is finding favor. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its second...more
6/15/2018
/ American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah ,
China Agritech Inc v Resh ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
Equitable Tolling ,
FRCP 23 ,
PLSRA ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities Fraud ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Subsequent Litigation
The reality of class action litigation is that what is supposed to be the court’s preliminary decision of whether to certify a case as a class action is often the end of the litigation. In many cases, plaintiffs will not...more
6/29/2017
/ Article III ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Design Defects ,
Dismissal With Prejudice ,
FRCP 23 ,
FRCP 23(f) ,
Interlocutory Appeals ,
Microsoft v Baker ,
SCOTUS ,
Standing ,
Xbox
The North Carolina legislature recently passed H.B. 239, over Gubernatorial veto, which gives company defendants the right to appeal trial court decisions allowing class certification directly to the North Carolina Supreme...more
As class action litigation has continued to proliferate, we have seen efforts to rein in the perceived abuses of the system on multiple fronts. Over a decade ago, Congress passed the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA)...more
4/17/2017
/ Ascertainable Class ,
Attorney's Fees ,
CAFA ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Discovery ,
FRCP 23 ,
Jurisdiction ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Removal ,
Settlement
Federal class action jurisprudence has been evolving rapidly over the course of the last 5-6 years, with several major U.S. Supreme Court decisions defining and redefining many aspects of class litigation. With the first...more
What began several years ago as a defeated attempt at a class action against the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) ultimately resulted in a win this month for plaintiff landowners in Kirby v. NCDOT (No....more
Plaintiffs can count the first class action decision to be issued by the U.S. Supreme Court since the death of Justice Scalia as a win; although, they did not receive broad authorization to proceed carte blanche, as some had...more
4/18/2016
/ Admissible Evidence ,
Calculation of Damages ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Doffing ,
Donning ,
Dukes v Wal-Mart ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
FRCP 23(b)(3) ,
Predominance Requirement ,
SCOTUS ,
Statistical Sampling ,
Timekeeping ,
Tyson Foods ,
Tyson Foods v Bouaphakeo ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
Circumscribing an individual’s power to subject companies to class and collective actions has been on the forefront of corporate litigation for several years, particularly in light of the growing trend of class action...more
Class action lawsuits have become a commonplace fixture in the American judicial landscape and carry the force to extract billions of dollars from defendants, many of whom settle once a class is certified due to the costs and...more
Most of the cases that come to mind when you think “class action” consist of a large group of plaintiffs (hundreds or multiple thousands) seeking authorization to proceed as a class in one lawsuit against one or a handful of...more
Class action settlements, certification of issues classes, and class notice requirements are among the topics that may be the subject of upcoming proposed amendments to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. On the agenda for...more
The highly anticipated U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 573 U. S. ____ (2014) (June 23, 2014) left intact the fraud-on-the-market theory established by the Supreme Court in Basic Inc....more
On February 24, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in three “moldy” washing machine class actions, which presented questions regarding Fed. R. Civ. P. 23’s commonality and predominance requirements as clarified by...more
3/6/2014
/ Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Comcast ,
Comcast v. Behrend ,
Commonality ,
Dukes v Wal-Mart ,
Mold Litigation ,
Predominance Requirement ,
SCOTUS ,
Wal-Mart ,
Whirlpool
Several opinions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court during the past few years have made it more difficult for plaintiffs to obtain class certification. Despite the hurdles erected by the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in...more