Mass Torts vs. Class Actions: A Tale of Two Strategies
Eighth Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Putative Class Claims
Class Action | Eleventh Circuit Reinstates No Hire Antitrust Claims Against Burger King
John Lewis of BakerHostetler Discusses Use of Social Media in Gawker Class Action
Wearables and the Future of Intellectual Property Law
The Roundup covers notable class action decisions each month from federal appellate courts, as well as notable Supreme Court class action cert petitions....more
Welcome to the inaugural edition of Classified Monthly: A Roundup of Class Action Decisions from Federal Appellate Courts. The Roundup normally will arrive in your inbox the first week of each month and will cover the...more
NC Process for Settlement of a Putative Class Action Dispute: Terri Moose vs. Allegacy Federal Credit Union - Sometimes, the short-cut turns out to be the long way around. A North Carolina Business Court opinion by Judge...more
In the realm of TCPA class actions, the Central District of California’s decision in Wiley v. Am. Fin. Network, Inc. serves as a noteworthy (and positive) development. And it offers a blueprint for corporate defendants...more
The District of Massachusetts’s recent decision in Fairfield v. DCD Auto. Holdings, Inc., No. 22-cv-11977, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109463 (D. Mass. June 26, 2023) serves as a key reminder for businesses not only to have...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
A 10-Point Response Plan - The company was just sued in a putative class action. Now what? The following 10-point response plan broadly outlines the initial steps to implementing a comprehensive class action defense,...more
The TCPA has long been a breeding ground for innovative and aggressive plaintiffs and the attorneys who represent them. A recent federal district court decision highlights an important limitation on claims under the...more
A federal district court judge refused to certify a class led by a serial plaintiff who prolonged unsolicited calls in order to create a cause of action under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The decision is a...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
On November 18, 2020, the United States District Court for the Central District of California (the “Central District”) dismissed the First Amended Complaint of putative class representatives asserting a FCRA claim against...more
Last month, in a split decision, the Eleventh Circuit reversed a district court’s incentive award to the named plaintiff in a class action alleging willful violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In doing so, it...more
Interpreting Bristol-Myers : Are Unnamed Members of Nationwide Class Actions ‘Parties’? If So, When? In 2017, the Supreme Court decided Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California (BMS), holding that a...more
Resolving an issue of first impression before it, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA) “may not be used to evade the specific numerosity requirement”...more
On June 3, the Ninth Circuit dismissed a putative class action after the named plaintiff voluntarily settled his individual claims. In so doing, the court held that a class representative must retain a financial stake in the...more
- The 9th Circuit has held that settlement of a plaintiff’s individual claims moots the appeal of an order denying class certification, unless the settlement agreement specifically preserves the plaintiff’s personal stake in...more
A key premise of a class action is that a court can, in essence, review the merits of the class representative’s claims and apply the result of that review across the class as a whole. This concept is most readily found in...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas dealt a major blow to the putative class action Torres v. American Airlines, Inc., finding that the four named plaintiffs are not adequate class representatives for...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Although federal courts are certifying class actions at a record rate, a recent opinion by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio demonstrates that the requirements of Rule 23 are not...more
Must an insurer consider the possibility that putative class members (i.e., potential class members not named in the complaint) other than the proposed class representatives (i.e., the plaintiffs named in the complaint to...more
On November 18, the Northern District of California issued an order denying class certification on the sole basis that the proposed named plaintiff was an inadequate class representative under Rule 23(a)(4) due to his prior...more
One of the biggest problems with the TCPA is how quickly a single call or text message can become the catalyst of a massive, and expensive nationwide class action creating significant exposure to any business caught in its...more
On September 23, 2019, Judge Denise J. Casper of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts denied class certification in a securities fraud action brought against a biopharmaceutical company (the...more
A class must satisfy the following prerequisites in order to be certified to proceed in the form of a class action: numerosity, commonality, typicality, adequacy and it must be demonstrated that a class action is superior to...more
On May 16, 2019, the District of Massachusetts denied a lead plaintiff’s motion to amend a complaint that sought to overcome standing deficiencies of the original class representative by adding a new named plaintiff....more