On December 17, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit handed down its published opinion in Stafford v. Bojangles’ Restaurants, Inc., 2024 WL 5131108 (4th Cir. 2024). In a rare move, the Fourth...more
Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its decision in Lytle v. Nutramax Labs, Inc., finding that a class action plaintiff may rely on a model to demonstrate that damages are susceptible to...more
On January 3, 2024, the defendant in Heppard v. Dunham’s Athleisure Corporation filed an interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, arguing that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District...more
When you finally reach an agreement to settle a hotly contested class action, you want more than anything for the court to approve your settlement agreement and for the case to be over. But, to get to the end of the case,...more
On February 2, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a significant decision holding that a putative class representative does not need to establish an administratively feasible method to...more
District courts within the Third Circuit have historically applied different standards when analyzing a renewed motion for class certification. The Third Circuit used the recently issued Hargrove v. Sleepy's LLC as an...more
The parties to class action litigation frequently contest whether plaintiffs are entitled to pre-certification discovery aimed at identifying additional or replacement class representatives. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the...more
As the use of biometric data continues to grow and become more prevalent across industries of all types and sizes, complying with data security and privacy laws has never been more critical or challenging. This is...more
Multinational corporations operating in the United States and abroad encounter complex and dispositive legal frameworks that govern not only substantive rights, but also procedural rules that dictate who may assert such...more
• A U.S.-style class action regime looms large in the European Union. • The current draft legislation imports certain hallmarks of the system celebrated by U.S. plaintiffs’ lawyers, but there is uncertainty over what...more
Rule 23 gains a toehold in certain bankruptcy proceedings. Generally impermissible until 1987, class action proofs of claim have increasingly been used by class creditors to their advantage. ...more
The Situation: Under the Class Action Fairness Act, the Department of Justice may object to federal class action settlements it believes are unfair or inequitable to unnamed class members. The Result: In the past year,...more
The Situation: Recently amended Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(e)(2) requires courts to analyze several factors in evaluating whether to approve class settlements. The Result: Class action settlements that would...more
The United States Supreme Court recently approved and adopted amendments to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 concerning class action practice as proposed by the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. The amended rule went into...more
Consumer advocates, defense attorneys, tort reformists, and trial judges are all eagerly awaiting a decision by the Ninth Circuit which all hope will clarify the process for certifying a nationwide settlement class in the...more
Effective December 1 of this year, Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure – governing class action lawsuits – was amended. Among other things, the amendments modernize the rule with respect to electronic...more
A few weeks ago, Judge Leigh Martin May in the Northern District of Georgia denied a Defendant’s Rule 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss brought on the basis that, under Bristol-Myers Squibb, the court lacked subject matter...more
In Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc., 2018 WL 5311903 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 26, 2018) Judge Virginia M. Kendall of the Northern District of Illinois held that Bristol-Myers Squibb applies to Rule 23 class actions, and consequently struck the...more
On June 11, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the tolling rule first stated in American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974) cannot salvage otherwise-untimely successive class claims. ...more
The Supreme Court of the United States issued four decisions today: China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh, No. 17-432: In American Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974) and subsequent decisions, the Court has held that...more
Once class action certification has been denied, a putative class member may not start a new class action beyond the applicable statute of limitations, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Ruth...more
The U.S. Supreme Court in China Agritech v. Resh, 2018 WL 2767565 (June 11, 2018) ruled that the American-Pipe doctrine—under which filing a class action tolls the statute of limitations for later-filed individual claims—does...more
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in China Agritech v. Resh et al., a decision concerning the U.S. Court of Appeals’ application of the tolling rule first stated in American Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah and later...more
On June 11, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States decided China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh, No. 17-432, holding that a member of a failed federal class action may not use the tolling rule of American Pipe & Construction...more
We’ve noted several times in this blog the difficulties parties may face when trying to obtain court approval for a settlement they have reached. Recognizing many of these issues, new amendments to Federal Rule of Civil...more