Fellow class action blogger and defense lawyer Andrew Trask has posted some key insights from his notes of the 5th Annual Conference on the Globalization of Class Actions, on his excellent blog, ClassActionCountermeasures. I had the pleasure of finally meeting Andrew in person at the conference, and he was every bit as engaging in person as he is [...]
Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category
Trask’s Key Insights from the 5th Annual Conference on the Globalization of Class Actions
Posted in Commentary, Other class action blogs, tagged classactioncountermeasures, global class action, International Class Action Law, trask on December 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Association, Causation, and the Fuzzy World of the Baysian p-Value in Class Actions
Posted in Class Action Trends, Commentary, tagged 10-b, 10b, anosmia, basic, baysian, class action statistics, hopson, kaye, matrixx, p-value, reasonable investor, scientific evidence, securities, securities class action, securities fraud, statistics, zicam on November 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
David H. Kaye, Distinguished Professor of Law and Weiss Family Faculty Scholar at the Penn State School of Law, recently published a fascinating commentary in the BNA Insights section of the BNA Product Safety & Liability and Class Action Reporters, entitled Trapped in the Matrixx: The U.S. Supreme Court And the Need for Statistical Significance. In the article, [...]
Jackson v. Unocal – Class Actions Find a Welcome Home in Colorado
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Class Action Trends, Colorado Civil Procedure, Colorado Class Action News, Commentary, tagged bp america, class action, class certification, colorado, colorado supreme court, conditional certification, crcp 23, decertification, dukes, frcp 23, garcia, jackson, medved, patterson, reyher, rigorous analysis, rule 23, state farm, unocal, wal-mart on November 2, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decisions in Smith v. Bayer and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, I have wondered aloud whether we would start to see a significant divergence between the standards applicable to class certification in the state and federal courts. (See the Parting Thoughts Section of this August 31 SCOTUSBlog Post). My home state [...]
Battleground TCPA
Posted in Class Action Trends, Commentary, tagged annihilating, auto-dialer, class action, colorado, critchfield, FACTA, fax blast, giovanniello, kosher bagel munch, local banking products, madison county, predominance, robo-call, rule 23. 47 u.s.c. 227, shady grove, statutory penalty, superiority, TCPA, telephone consumer protection act, unsolicited phone calls on October 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
One of the hottest substantive areas in consumer class actions these days is litigation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 47 U.S .C. § 227, sometimes called the ”fax blast” statute, which prohibits unsolicited faxes and automated calls for the purpose of commercial solicitation. The TCPA has a statutory penalty provision that allows consumers to recover $500 for each violation. The [...]
Debate over Wisconsin Class Action Rule Takes on Increased Significance After Recent Supreme Court Decisions, Arrrr
Posted in class action reform, Class Action Trends, Commentary, tagged bayer, class certification, concepcion, dukes, federal class action, forum shopping, frcp 23, rule 23, shady grove, state class action, state court class action, wisconsin class action, wisconsin lawyer on September 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
As I noted in my post a few weeks ago for the SCOTUSBlog class action symposium, one issue to which I’m paying particularly close attention these days, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Shady Grove, Concepcion, Bayer and Dukes, is whether the state court class certification standards begin to diverge from [...]
Third Circuit Applies a Broad Reading of Concepcion
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Commentary, Federal Court Decisions, tagged AT&T Mobility, class action waiver, class arbitration, class arbitration waiver, concepcion, FAA, litman, Supreme Court, third circuit on September 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
My recent SCOTUSblog post on the October 2010 Supreme Court Term class action decisions does not address an important decision from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which was issued last week. In Litman v. Cellco Partnership, the Third Circuit held that New Jersey decision holding class arbitration waivers unconscionable was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. To [...]
Perspectives on the October 2010 Supreme Court Term
Posted in Articles, Class Action Trends, Commentary, tagged bayer, class action, class certification, dukes, erica p. john fund, halliburton, scotus, scotusblog, Supreme Court, u.s. supreme court, wal-mart on August 31, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
My submission to the SCOTUSblog Class Action Symposium is now available for viewing. Click the title below for the link: The October 2010 Supreme Court Term in review: For defendants, life returns to normal after the celebration ends
Don’t Miss the Class Action Symposium on SCOTUSblog
Posted in Articles, Class Action Trends, Commentary, Other class action blogs, Supreme Court Decisions, tagged class action, class action symposium, Class Action Trends, class certification, dukes, erica p. john fund, halliburton, scotus, smith v. bayer, Supreme Court, wal-mart on August 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The award-winning U.S. Supreme Court blog SCOTUSblog is presenting a symposium on recent Supreme Court developments in the area of class actions that you won’t want to miss. Click here for an introduction to the symposium and here to see a list of the various contributions as they are released. I’m extremely honored to be listed [...]
BNA Reporter Article, Class Action Settlement Objectors: Minor Nuisance or Serious Threat to Final Approval?
Posted in Articles, Commentary, tagged bna reporter, class action objection, class action objector, class action settlement, fairness hearing, final approval, objection deadline, objector, professional objector, public interest objector on August 1, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Raj Chohan and I recently co-authored an article entitled Class Action Settlement Objectors: Minor Nuisance or Serious Threat to Final Approval?, which appears on page 739 of the July 11, 2011 edition of the BNA Product Safety & Liability Reporter. The article is only available online to subscribers, but the publisher gave me a box [...]


Demanding More from Outside Counsel
Posted in Commentary, Other class action blogs, rule 23, tagged class action, constitutional law, constitutionality, herrmann, legal theory, outside counsel, redish, rule 23, trends on January 14, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Mark Herrmann, former contributor to Drug and Device Law Blog and Vice President and Chief Counsel for Litigation at Aon, Inc., recently authored and entertaining and enlightening post in the legal industry blog, Above The Law. In Inside Straight, Torpedoing Class Actions, Herrmann highlighted a 2009 book by Northwestern Law’s Martin Redish entitled Wholesale Justice: Constitutional Democracy and the Problem of the Class [...]
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