A recent Texas Supreme Court decision in a class action caught my eye because it addressed several significant class certification issues, including one that I’ve seen regularly and another that the court analyzed in a new...more
6/3/2024
/ Article III ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Insurance Claims ,
Insurance Litigation ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Standing ,
TX Supreme Court ,
USAA
Suppose that the central issue in a putative class action is a legal issue pending before the Supreme Court. Depending on how the Supreme Court rules, the plaintiffs will recover either nothing or up to $600 million. But...more
5/16/2024
/ Attorney's Fees ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
CAFA ,
Class Action ,
Class Members ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Settlement ,
Statutory Violations ,
TCPA ,
Text Messages
Think twice about whether the Class Action Fairness Act’s “local controversy” exception applies to your case. Even if more than two-thirds of the proposed class members are citizens of the forum state, there is a significant...more
A recent Ninth Circuit decision highlights the importance of the defendant clearly pleading the basis for alleging the amount in controversy in a notice of removal under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). In this case,...more
A recent Ninth Circuit decision clarified that the benefit to the class is the “touchstone for determining the reasonableness of attorneys’ fees in a class action.” Under this decision, the fee should not be based on the...more
Federal courts of appeals have disagreed on whether a named plaintiff in a proposed class action can sue defendants who have not injured that plaintiff but allegedly have injured putative class members. This is not an...more
A recent Ninth Circuit decision illustrates how defendants can use evidence on an individualized defense to potentially defeat class certification.
In Van v. LLR, Inc., — F.4th –, 2023 WL 2469909 (9th Cir. Mar. 13, 2023),...more
A sometimes-overlooked aspect of class action law is how class certification rules interact with the Rules Enabling Act, which provides that rules of procedure and evidence “shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any...more
1/30/2023
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Federal Rules of Evidence ,
FRCP 23(b)(3) ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Rules Enabling Act
One of the first significant class certification-related decisions of 2023 comes from the Fifth Circuit. While some trial courts hesitate to strike class action allegations on the pleadings, the district court here concluded...more
The Ninth Circuit recently addressed an issue that tends to arise frequently in class certification motion practice: how trial courts should apply the predominance requirement where appellate decisions have said that the need...more
7/11/2022
/ Bellwether Verdicts ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
Comcast v. Behrend ,
Damages ,
Employment Litigation ,
Liability ,
Predominance Requirement ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Unpaid Wages
Federal district court orders remanding cases to state court are generally not appealable, as provided by 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). One exception to this is that the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) allows a court of appeals, in...more
This week the D.C. Circuit and Seventh Circuit issued decisions addressing a question that has been hotly debated by class action lawyers on the plaintiffs’ and defense sides: whether the Supreme Court’s decision on personal...more
3/13/2020
/ Bayer ,
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co v Superior Court of California - San Francisco County ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Interlocutory Appeals ,
Jurisdiction ,
Lack of Jurisdiction ,
Lost Wages ,
Mass Tort Litigation ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Standard Fire ,
Whole Foods
Believe it or not, the Supreme Court of the United States just decided whether “to have ‘actual knowledge’ of a piece of information, one must in fact be aware of it.” The Court said “yes,” and it was unanimous. Most...more
A recent decision by a Washington federal district court caught my eye because it involved a circumstance I often see—a new development in the law results in a class action lawsuit being filed before the defendant has an...more
2/11/2020
/ Attorney's Fees ,
Auto Insurance ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Damages ,
Denial of Insurance Coverage ,
FRCP 23(b)(3) ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Insurance Claims ,
Insurance Litigation ,
Likelihood of Harm ,
Mootness ,
Policy Terms ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Superiority Claims ,
Treble Damages
A recent decision by the Eighth Circuit in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action provides an important pointer for defendants and their counsel with respect to strategy in defending a putative class action....more
This week, in China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, under its prior decision in American Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974), the filing of a putative class action suit tolls the...more
6/13/2018
/ Appeals ,
China Agritech Inc v Resh ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
Equitable Tolling ,
FRCP 23 ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities Fraud ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Subsequent Litigation
Discovery disputes in class actions often focus on plaintiffs’ requests for computer data regarding putative class members’ claims, and how far defendants need to go in providing such data. ...more
In prior blog posts, I’ve covered developments in the putative class actions against insurance companies in Georgia involving diminution in value on property insurance claims (see my March 11, 2016 post, for example)....more
I’ve regularly followed on my blog key developments in the numerous class actions against the insurance industry involving the application of depreciation to the labor cost component of estimated replacement cost value in...more
2/22/2017
/ Cash Value ,
Class Action ,
Depreciation ,
Fair Market Value ,
Homeowner's Insurance ,
Insurance Industry ,
NE Supreme Court ,
Property Insurance ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Real Estate Market ,
Replacement Costs
The U.S. Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in class action cases involving: (1) class action waivers in employment contracts; and (2) whether filing of a securities class action tolled a statute of repose. In both...more
1/19/2017
/ American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Certiorari ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Collective Actions ,
Ernst & Young ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Murphy Oil USA ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Putative Class Actions ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities ,
Statute of Repose ,
Tolling
I thought readers might find helpful some broader observations on strategies for defending class actions in 2016...
Dig in Deep Early: Some defense counsel are accustomed to the practice of filing a motion to dismiss...more
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, addressing whether the plaintiff had standing to sue in a putative class action brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”)....more
Yesterday the Minnesota Supreme Court issued its opinion in Wilcox v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Company, a putative class action alleging that State Farm, in estimating the “actual cash value” of property damage under...more
A while back, I wrote about a Georgia Supreme Court decision, Royal Capital Development LLC v. Maryland Casualty Co., that held that diminution in value of real property is potentially covered under a property insurance...more
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, No. 14-857. The question presented was whether an unaccepted offer of full relief on the named plaintiff’s individual claim will render a putative class...more