The First Circuit recently reversed the District of Massachusetts’s approval of a settlement award that improperly lacked any subclasses within the 4.8-million-person putative class, finding it “too difficult to determine...more
A recent Ninth Circuit decision on a class action settlement, In re Apple Inc. Device Performance Litigation, 2022 WL 4492078 (9th Cir. Sept. 28, 2022), received significant attention in the legal media. It addressed several...more
For decades, Plaintiffs and defendants have fought bitterly over most aspects of class-action law. One issue, however, had managed to escape serious contention: the propriety of paying “incentive awards” (also known as...more
Motions To Strike Class Allegations: Here To Stay or Going out of Style? By their nature, class actions, given the prospect of classwide liability and potentially millions (if not billions) in aggregated damages, are...more
Time and time again this scenario repeats itself and necessarily begs the question: Who is supposed to be protecting the interests of the absent class members in these settlements—class counsel who is taking more than 30% of...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Incentive awards for class representatives are impermissible, according to a ground-breaking decision last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Though not an employment case, the...more
It is not atypical for class actions to be brought seeking damages that can be characterized as nominal in nature. An oftentimes powerful incentive for potential class representatives to put their names on a putative class...more
While not authorized by Rule 23, incentive awards to class representatives are a common feature of class action settlements. Nevertheless, a divided Eleventh Circuit panel ruled last Thursday that such payments are strictly...more