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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

Rosenberg & McCloud on Choice-of-Law and Class Actions

Posted on August 11, 2010
David Rosenberg (Harvard) and Luke McCloud have posted their latest article, A Solution to the Choice-of-Law Problem of Differing State Laws in Class Actions: Average Law, on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In this essay, we show why and how to...

BP Litigation, Compensation Fund, and Ken Feinberg

Posted on August 11, 2010
The current issue of the ABA Journal has a couple of interesting pieces on the BP litigation: The Price of Oil and The Go-To Mediator. BGS

Kent Syverud and John Martin, Jr. Named as BP Fund Trustees

Posted on August 10, 2010
Today's National Law Journal has an article about the two new trustees named to BP's $20 million fund: Kent Syverud is currently the dean of Washington University School of Law and is a former dean of Vanderbilt University Law School;...

NYTimes Article on Plaintiff Disappointment with 9/11 Settlement

Posted on August 09, 2010
The NY Times' Mireya Navarro has a long article today entitled "9/11 Settlements Bring Moment of Reckoning" about the disappointment of many plaintiffs in the WTC Disaster Site Litigation with the settlements they are being offered. The settlements take account...

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Feinberg to Disclose Compensation for Administering BP Fund

Posted on July 29, 2010
The Associated Press reports that Ken Feinberg announced on Tuesday that he will disclose BP's compensation to him for administering the $20 billion BP oil-spill claims fund, after he had previously stated such information would be "confidential" and "between [him]...

Eleventh Circuit's CAFA Decision - Cappuccitti v. DirecTV, Inc.

Posted on July 28, 2010
Adam Steinman has a great post on our sister Civil Procedure & Federal Courts blog about the Eleventh Circuit's most recent (and surprising) CAFA opinion, Cappuccitti v. DirectTV, Inc. ECB

MDL Panel in Boise, Idaho, to Decide Where to Transfer BP Oil Spill Lawsuits

Posted on July 23, 2010
Next week, on July 29, the Multi-district Litigation Panel, a panel comprised of seven judges throughout the country, will gather to determine where to transfer the cases filed against BP arising from the oil spill. (In re: Oil Spill by...

Assessing the BP Claims Fund

Posted on July 19, 2010
The Forbes article, BP's Legal Blowout, by Daniel Fisher and Asher Hawkins, looks at the benefits, risks, and remaining issues surrounding the BP claims fund. I'm quoted in the article's discussion of legal fees. BGS

Ken Feinberg Compensation for Administering BP Fund -- A Problem and Possible Solution

Posted on July 18, 2010
Today, I saw on Bloomberg Rewind a video of several questions to Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of the $20 billion BP oil-leak compensation fund. (Video of the interview apparently not yet available on the internet.) At one point, the reporter asked...

House Passes SPILL Act

Posted on July 08, 2010
On July 1, the House passed HR 5503, the Securing Protections for the Injured from Limitations on Liability Act (SPILL Act), which was introduced by Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers. If passed by the Senate, the bill would allow for...

BP Oil Spill Costs Exceed $3 Billion

Posted on July 06, 2010
CNN reports that BP has so far spent more than $3 billion in connection with the Gulf of Mexico spill, including $147 million to pay 47,000 claims so far of the 95,000 total submitted. CNN also noted speculation that the...

Williams & George on Deciding Who Decides: Consolidating Multidistrict Litigation

Posted on July 05, 2010
Margaret Williams (Federal Judicial Center) and Tracey George (Vanderbilt) have posted their paper, "Deciding Who Decides: Consolidating Multidistrict Litigation" on SSRN. Their empirical investigation of MDL fills a tremendous gap in the literature and is a welcome contribution...

Judge Approves WTC Disaster Site Settlement

Posted on June 24, 2010
Yesterday Judge Hellerstein held what the media is calling a "fairness" (in scare quotes) hearing on Wednesday and approved the settlement proposed for resolving the cases in the WTC Disaster Site litigation. Everyone was supportive, including Ken Feinberg...

Feinberg Hits the Ground Running as BP Fund Director

Posted on June 22, 2010
According to the New York Times, he's called for speedier payouts to victims of the Gulf spill. He is quoted as saying: ?Do not underestimate the anger and frustration of people in the Gulf, the uncertainty of not knowing what...

How Much Will BP Pay and How?

Posted on June 16, 2010
The NYTimes reports that BP has agreed to set aside $20 billion for a compensation fund. Ken Feinberg will be the independent administrator. In the last ten years Feinberg has become the gold-standard of mediators and administrators. If you're worried...

Feinberg a Likely Choice to Oversee the Oil Spill Escrow Fund

Posted on June 16, 2010
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Ken Feinberg, who is currently handling the 9/11 First Responders' Settlement, will likely be appointed as independent administrator of an oil-spill escrow fund. I can't say that I'm surprised. As I watched last...

Epstein on BP in the Wall Street Journal

Posted on June 16, 2010
Richard Epstein (Chicago, NYU) has an op ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for a strict liability regime for the BP incident. Here is a nice quote from the op ed: The legal system should never allow self-interested parties...

Trade Secrets, Our Oceans and BP

Posted on June 16, 2010
Frank Pasquale (Seton Hall) has an excellent post over at Concurring Opinions about how the current administration permitted BP to dump a chemical dispersant into the oceans in the immediate aftermath of the spill, a dispersant about which no toxicity...

Social Networking and Class Actions

Posted on June 15, 2010
Both the ABA Journal and the Wall Street Journal have articles in today's news about the use of social networking as a legal tool. The ABA Journal notes that law firms' websites are "set up to resemble community forums or...

Proposal for Oil Spill Victim Compensation Fund

Posted on June 14, 2010
When the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund was created it was widely considered a one time, unique institution responsive to the particular national tragedy (and the risk to the airline industry of catastrophic liability). It looks like the Obama administration is...

E-Ferol Class Action Settlement Approved

Posted on June 14, 2010
Today's National Law Journal reports that Judge Sidney Fitzwater of the Northern District of Texas has approved a class-action settlement in the E-Ferol litigation. E-Ferol was a non-FDA approved vitamin E supplement given to premature babies during the 1980s that...

New (and Final?) Settlement in WTC Disaster Site Litigation

Posted on June 10, 2010
The NYTimes reports that there has been a new settlement reached in the WTC First Responders litigation. According to the article, the city's insurer (WTC Captive Insurance Company) has agreed to pay out more for the settlement ($712.5 million). The....

BP's investors react to lawsuits & cleanup costs

Posted on June 02, 2010
Here is an article in the NY Times. The best part is a quote from BC Law Professor and former chairman of the legal task force on the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Zygmunt J.B. Plater: ?It?s going to be a...

Lawyers Reduce Fees in WTC Disaster Site Litigation

Posted on June 02, 2010
The civil procedure blog reports on it here. The AP report can be found here. The lawyers have offered to cap their fees at 20% instead of 30%. But this does not solve all the issues identified by Judge Hellerstein,...

Toyota MDL Plaintiffs' Mgmt Committee Appointed

Posted on May 28, 2010
BNA Class Action Litigation Report has the latest. The personal injury piece will be led by Elizabeth Cabraser of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein of San Francisco and Mark P. Robinson Jr. of Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson in Newport Beach,...

Size of BP Leak Larger Than BP Earlier Estimated

Posted on May 20, 2010
BP had been saying 5,000 barrels a day had been leaking into the Gulf, but the clean-up siphon is itself now pulling up 5,000 barrels a day and the siphon is only reaching a portion of the escaping oil. For...

Walter Olson Joins Cato

Posted on May 17, 2010
Walter Olson, formerly of the Manhattan Institute, and known widely for his blogging on Overlawyered and Point of Law, has joined the Cato Institute as a Senior Fellow. Cato's legal research has for some time focused on constitutional issues, and...

Mass Tort Crisis Management

Posted on May 17, 2010
Recent crises stemming from BP's oil spill and Toyota's acceleration problems have brought a swarm of media coverage, congressional hearings, regulatory agency activity, corporate news conferences, and lawsuits. Indeed, theories of liability may stem not only from the initial traumatic...

I Call Shotgun!

Posted on May 06, 2010
The article referenced by Beth Burch below reads like a who's who of mass tort and class action litigation. But really the reason for this post was the nerdy title. h/t Robin Effron at the Civil Procedure Blog. ADL

Plaintiffs' Attorneys Jockey for Lead Position in Toyota Litigation

Posted on May 05, 2010
Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about the plaintiffs' attorneys jockeying for the lead position in the Toyota MDL. The litigation has been consolidated in front of U.S. District Court Judge James Selna of Santa Ana, California. The applicants...

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