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Class Action

Mass Tort Litigation Blog

Law professors discuss mass tort and class action lawsuits.

Post Frequency: 9.9/day

Last Entry: March 29, 2011 at 17:41:19

Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility Awarded to Alexandra Lahav

Posted on January 12, 2011
Congratulations to our co-blogger Alexandra Lahav of the University of Connecticut School of Law for being awarded the Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility for her article, Portraits of Resistance: Lawyer Responses to Unjust Proceedings, which...

U.S. Supreme Court Grants Cert. in Halliburton Securities Class Action Case Involving Statements on Asbestos Liabilities

Posted on January 12, 2011
More on the case from the Reuters article, Supreme Court to Hear Halliburton Securities Case, by James Vicini, as well as from SCOTUSblog. Yes, it's a securities case and so not our usual focus in mass torts, but it will...

Federal Commission Report on BP Gulf Oil Spill

Posted on January 12, 2011
More in the Wall Street Journal's article, Panel Faults Oil Firms, Calls for Better Oversight, by Tenille Tracy and Ryan Tracy. ? BGS

Ken Feinberg Cover Story in ABA Journal

Posted on January 11, 2011
Reporter Terry Carter provocatively asks, "Is Ken Feinberg changing mass tort law?" in the article, The Master of Disasters. BGS

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Senate Considers 9/11 First-Responder Health Bill

Posted on December 21, 2010
As this article on CNN notes, the United States Senate continues to consider the proposed 9/11 first-responder healthcare bill, championed particularly by Senator Schumer of New York. BGS

U.S. Sues BP Over Gulf Oil Spill

Posted on December 17, 2010
Possible civil penalties range from $5.4 billion to $21 billion, and criminal charges might still be subsequently brought. Here's the CBS television report from Jan Crawford: BGS

Bellwether Trials and "Sabotage"

Posted on December 17, 2010
Cue the music. Drug and Device law blog has a post about plaintiffs sabotaging bellwether trials when the cases picked to be bellwethers are not to their liking. As I have written elsewhere, the informational bellwether processes used by courts...

Judicial Hellholes 2010 report released by ATRA

Posted on December 14, 2010
The American Tort Reform Association each year releases a report on the jurisdictions that it considers the most plaintiff-friendly in the nation. The 2010 honorees are (1) Philadelphia, (2) California, particularly Los Angeles County and Humboldt County, (3) West Virginia,...

How Do the Justices Feel About Class Actions?

Posted on December 14, 2010
In a recent post I suggested that Justice Ginsburg is hostile to class actions, based on her dissent in Shady Grove v. Allstate, a case decided last term. I was reading the Brief of Civil Procedure and Complex Litigation Professors...

Feinberg to Pay "Bonus" for Release of Some Claims

Posted on December 13, 2010
John Schwartz at the New York Times reports that Ken Feinberg is offering to pay additional sums to those recipients of emergency funding willing to release their claims. Apparently people whose emergency funding fully compensated them can get an additional...

The Coming Revolution in Class Actions

Posted on December 10, 2010
This term the Supreme Court has granted cert in three class action cases and each case has a far reach. Depending on what the court does with these cases, the world of complex litigation could be dramatically changed. These aren't...

How Do Big Cases Affect Companies?

Posted on December 09, 2010
If you're wondering how will the Dukes class action affect Wal-Mart, if the plaintiffs win their certification motion? The answer from one prominent scholar is, probably not much. I think this is a great time to revisit the very provocative...

Justice Ginsburg and the Dukes Class Action

Posted on December 08, 2010
Our own Howard Erichson was cited in a Supreme Court amicus brief for his observation that "Granted, the Wal-Mart class action isn't a mass tort, but the Ninth Circuit's previous decision that upheld certification of the largest class action to...

Supreme Court Grants Cert in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Posted on December 06, 2010
In a long awaited decision to Wal-Mart's petition, the United States Supreme Court granted review in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. There's already been a good bit of academic commentary on the case. Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc hosted a...

4th International Conference on the Globalization of Collective Litigation at ?Florida International University College of Law?

Posted on December 02, 2010
The 4th International Conference on the Globalization of Collective Litigation? will take place on Friday, December 10, 2010 at Florida International University College of Law? in Miami. This conference, co-organized by professors Manuel A. Gomez (Florida International University College of...

Clermont on Class Certification's Preclusive Effects

Posted on November 30, 2010
Kevin Clermont (Cornell) has posted a draft of his forthcoming PENNumbra piece, Class Certification's Preclusive Effects, on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In September 2010, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the controversial Baycol litigation. The central question will be whether,...

BP Oil Spill Fund's Final Phase

Posted on November 24, 2010
John Schwartz of the New York Times has an article in this morning's paper detailing the final settlement phase of the BP Oil Spill. The claims handling process includes a three-year program that requires anyone who agrees to a final...

Economic Claims Against Toyota Move Forward

Posted on November 23, 2010
Last week, District Judge James Selna refused to dismiss the economic injury claims by Toyota owners who alleged that the unintended acceleration problems caused a decrease in their cars' value. The multi-district litigation includes more than 200 economic injury class...

More Discussion of Ken Feinberg's Pay in BP Gulf Oil Spill Fund

Posted on November 23, 2010
Moira Herbst of Reuters has a short, but thoughtful piece analyzing the issues at play for a private claims administrator running a quasi-public claims fund. It's easy to sympathize in the abstract with Ken Feinberg's difficult situation in exploring what's...

Two Families in Fatal Toyota Accident Join to Sue Toyota for Unintended Acceleration

Posted on November 22, 2010
The family who lost a son and granddaughter in the accident has come together with the man driving the Toyota to file a suit against Toyota for unintended acceleration. Jan Crawford of CBS has the story. BGS

New York Jurors Find Merck Not Liable in Fosamax Bellwether Trial

Posted on November 21, 2010
Merck has won the second of three bellwether trials on Fosamax, Graves v. Merck & Co., 1:06-cv-05513 (S.D.N.Y.). Judith Graves, a Florida resident, sued the company and alleged that Fosamax (an osteoporosis drug) caused her jawbone to deteriorate. The jury...

Other-Regarding Preferences in the 9/11 Workers Settlement

Posted on November 20, 2010
Reading yesterday?s New York Times article on the 9/11 Workers Settlement, I couldn?t help but think of the other-regarding preferences and psychological influences that played a role in garnering the requisite 95.1% agreement. The two claimants quoted in the article,...

9/11 Settlement Report

Posted on November 19, 2010
The allocation neutral in the World Trade Center litigation reported today that 10,043 claimants have agreed to participate in the settlement. This number, which constitutes 95.1% of the 10,563 eligible claimants, apparently meets (just barely) the 95 percent threshold required...

Upcoming conferences?

Posted on November 19, 2010
Each year the Civil Procedure Section of the AALS prepares a newsletter that aggregates various bits of information for the benefit of Civil Procedure teachers and scholars. One regular feature of that newsletter is ?Upcoming Conferences.? If you have planned...

WTC Disaster Site Litigation Settlement - Results Announced Tomorrow

Posted on November 18, 2010
The results of how many plaintiffs signed on to the WTC Disaster Site Litigation Settlement, which required that 95% of the plaintiffs sign on for the settlement to go forward, will be announced at 1 PM tomorrow. Click here to...

Brunet on AT&T (and the NYTimes Coverage of the case)

Posted on November 16, 2010
Edward Brunet, an eminent civil procedure scholar and expert on arbitration, sent the following to me regarding the recent NY Times coverage of the AT&T Mobility case: Adam Liptak?s excellent treatment of the AT&T Mobility oral argument would have been...

Oral Argument in AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Vincent Concepcion

Posted on November 10, 2010
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Vincent Concepcion, a case that will determine whether states can require businesses to include certain procedures (like class-wide arbitration) in their arbitration agreements...

NYTimes on the BP Litigation

Posted on November 10, 2010
The New York Times Sunday Magazine has a feature by Douglas McCollam about the lawyers suing BP. You can find it here: The Other Oil Cleanup. More analysis later. H/T Civ Pro & Fed Courts Blog ADL

Recent Scholarship That Might be of Interest to Proceduralists

Posted on November 08, 2010
Although the following pieces are not specifically aimed at mass torts, they do bear on procedure more broadly and might be of interest: Cathy Struve (Penn) has posted her article, "Institutional Practice, Procedural Uniformity, and As-Applied Challenges under the Rules...

Seventh Circuit's All Writs Act Opinion in Thorogood v. Sears, Roebuck and Co.

Posted on November 08, 2010
Last week, the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion concerning the All Writs Act in Thorogood v. Sears, Roebuck and Company (No. 10-2407). Suit 1 involved plaintiff Thorogood, who sued in the state court of Illinois. Sears, the defendant, removed to...

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