The Supreme Court recently granted Tyson Foods' petition for certiorari which presents to the Court two important class action issues: (1) Whether differences among individual class members may be ignored and a class action certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), or a collective action certified under the Fair Labor Standards Act, where liability and damages will be determined with statistical techniques that presume all class members are identical to ... Keep Reading »
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Third Circuit to Plaintiffs’ Bar: Expert Testimony Necessary for Certification Must Satisfy Daubert
Plaintiff purchasers of traditional blood reagents, products that test the compatibility of donor blood with recipients, brought putative class actions claiming that two defendant companies conspired to fix prices in violation of antitrust law. Numerous lawsuits were consolidated in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (and one of the defendants subsequently settled with the plaintiffs). The district court found that plaintiffs had satisfied the requirements of ... Keep Reading »
14 Days Or Bust: Fourth Circuit Bolsters “Rigid And Inflexible Rule” For Appealing Certification Orders
Artful attempts to appeal a class certification order beyond fourteen days will not impress the Fourth Circuit. In Nucor, the district court certified two classes relating to substantive allegations of racial discrimination. The district court then denied a motion to reconsider, triggering the fourteen day period for filing an interlocutory appeal. Defendants, however, subsequently filed three motions for decertification, and one of them succeeded in part: it ... Keep Reading »
Damage Models Create Individualized Issues For Pre-Explosion Subclass Of BP Shareholders, But Present No Impediment For Post-Explosion Subclass
The Southern District of Texas recently denied certification of a subclass of BP shareholders who purchased shares prior to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and alleged that misstatements regarding safety improvements caused them to buy BP shares at inflated prices. The court, however, certified a subclass of shareholders who purchased shares after the disaster and alleged that BP’s misstatements regarding the scope of the damage from the explosion and oil spill ... Keep Reading »
Putative Nationwide Class Of Car Dealers Turns Out To Be A Lemon – Individualized Issues Preclude Certification
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denied plaintiffs’ motion for nationwide class certification because the proposed class did not meet Rule 23’s commonality or predominance requirements. The putative class plaintiffs had entered into agreements granting them rights to distribute the defendant’s cars in the United States. The plaintiffs had paid the defendant’s “application” fees and, in some instances, prepared dealerships to receive new ... Keep Reading »