In yet another strongly-worded opinion, the Seventh Circuit rejected the proposed settlement of a Walgreens’ shareholder strike suit in which the class obtained “worthless” supplemental disclosures but class counsel received generous fees. Judge Posner authored the opinion, as he did in Person v. NBTY, Inc., 772 F.3d 778 (7th Cir. 2014) and Eubank v. Pella Corp, 753 F.3d 718 (7th Cir. 2014). He described the practice of settling “deal litigation” like this that yields ... Keep Reading »
Archives for August 2016
Third Circuit Rejects Inflated-Value Theory of Damages, Declines to Certify Law School Tuition Class
The Third Circuit recently affirmed the denial of class certification in a suit alleging that a law school made misrepresentations about the employment status of its graduates, thereby inducing students to pay inflated tuition in violation of the New Jersey and Delaware consumer fraud statutes. Much of the decision centered on damages; plaintiffs claimed they could show damages on a class-wide basis by estimating the amount by which tuition was inflated due to the ... Keep Reading »
Lawyers Sanctioned for Seeking to Settle Federal Court Class Action in State Court
Lawyers seeking to settle class actions pending in federal court by dismissing and refiling in state court beware! In two recent orders, a federal judge in the Western District of Arkansas ruled that the attorneys representing a class and defendants alike violated Rule 11 and abused the judicial process by this practice. The court sanctioned the lawyers for the class in the form of a reprimand. It retreated from a formal sanction of the defendants’ lawyers because it was ... Keep Reading »
“Placeholder” Motions to Certify are Unnecessary after Campbell-Ewald According to South Carolina District Court
Relying on the Supreme Court’s 2016 opinion in Campbell-Ewald, the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina ruled that a class action plaintiff need not file a “placeholder” motion to certify to avoid a defendant’s attempt to “pick-off” the plaintiff and moot the class with a Rule 68 Offer of Judgment (OJ). Plaintiff filed its putative class action complaint alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Practices Act and immediately sought ... Keep Reading »