Like many things these days, the legal landscape is changing. One target is class action litigation. Some important new proposals have the potential to dramatically alter class actions in the near future. In particular, these changes would impact class certification and the settlement process. Rule 23 Amendments First, a spate of amendments may bring changes to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The comment period on the amendments closed on February 15th and the ... Keep Reading »
Search Results for: rule 23
Third Circuit Affirms Denial of Class Certification Because Expert’s Exclusion of Relevant Data From Analysis of Classwide Antitrust Impact Precluded a Finding of Predominance
The Third Circuit affirmed an order denying class certification because the plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient evidence of classwide antitrust impact, and thus, could not satisfy Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement. The plaintiffs alleged a conspiracy among truck manufacturers and transmission suppliers to monopolize the heavy-duty truck transmission market, resulting in artificially inflated prices for Class 8 trucks. Specifically, the plaintiffs asserted that ... Keep Reading »
Noodle This! The Yin and Yang of Two Courts, Two Antitrust Cases, Two Class Certification Motions, Two Daubert Challenges, Two Opposite Results, One Day Apart
Noodle this: Two significant orders on class certification in antitrust matters issued last week. Both were heavily influenced by the threshold determination of Daubert challenges to the plaintiffs’ expert evidence. In one court, the Daubert motions were denied and the classes were certified. In the other court, the expert evidence was excluded and the class certification requests were denied (and, indeed, two related classes were decertified). On January 19, 2017, ... Keep Reading »
Adequacy is Adequate: DC District Court Certifies Pacer Fee Class
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia certified a class of all individuals and entities who paid fees to obtain court records though the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. The proposed class representatives, three nonprofit legal advocacy organizations, overcame the government’s primary challenge to class certification, which was that they were not adequate class representatives. The National Veterans Legal Services ... Keep Reading »
No Love For Proposed Consumer Class Settlements
Two consumer class actions recently hit a roadblock when courts denied final approval for class settlements. In In re Target Consumer Data Security Breach, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota preliminarily certified a settlement class in early 2015 and approved the parties’ agreement calling for a $10 million settlement fund to be distributed to the class. Subsequently, after overruling objections, including a challenge to the adequacy of the class ... Keep Reading »
Ascertainability and Predominance Foil Certification of Spyware Invasion of Privacy Class
A Georgia district court denied certification of a multi-state common law invasion of privacy class in which plaintiff sought damages and an injunction against the lessor of computers allegedly containing unauthorized spyware. The court held that the class members could not be ascertained in an objective and administratively feasible manner. The court also held that common issues did not predominate over individual issues with regard to numerous variations in applicable ... Keep Reading »
What are Interim Class Counsel and When Should They be Appointed?
Even before certification of a class under Rule 23(a)-(b), the district court has authority to appoint “interim counsel” under Rule 23(g)(3) “to act on behalf of a putative class before determining whether to certify the action as a class action.” However, as the District of New Jersey recently explained, “neither the federal rules nor the Advisory Committee Notes expressly” state the analysis used to determine when “interim counsel” should be appointed and which counsel ... Keep Reading »
TCPA Class Certified Based Largely on “Concrete Injury” Determination
Following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1549 (2016) – which held that Article III standing requires a concrete injury, even when an injury has otherwise been established for statutory purposes – there has been a debate as to what constitutes Article III “concrete injury” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. § 227. With certain exceptions, the TCPA creates a statutory cause of ... Keep Reading »
Magistrate Judge Had Authority To Enter Final Judgment Without Consent Of Absent Class Members But Abused Discretion In Approving Settlement
The Ninth Circuit held that a magistrate judge was not required to obtain the consent of absent class members to approve a settlement in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) case and to enter a final judgment after certifying a nationwide injunction class. In so ruling, the court joined the Third, Seventh and Eleventh Circuits. The court also held, however, that the magistrate judge abused her discretion in approving the settlement because the injunction was ... Keep Reading »
Judge Gorsuch on Class Actions
On January 31, President Trump announced that Judge Neil Gorsuch of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals would be nominated for the United States Supreme Court. We took a look at those opinions authored by Judge Gorsuch on the Tenth Circuit that primarily addressed class action issues. These decisions confront a range of problems that arise in class action litigation. They also reveal his accessible, sometimes breezy, sometimes pointed, writing style. Four such decisions ... Keep Reading »
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