A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit provides an important reminder that if defendants want absent class members to be bound by a summary judgment ruling in their favor, generally they must insist that notice be given to the class before that ruling is made.
In Faber v. Ciox…
A recent decision by the Eighth Circuit in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action provides an important pointer for defendants and their counsel with respect to strategy in defending a putative class action. The key takeaway is to take into consideration whether the case was originally filed in federal court or removed from…
With Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, one question to ask is whether, if he is confirmed, that will move the Court to any degree in class action cases. Unfortunately, we don’t have much to look at. The D.C. Circuit, with its small geographic footprint, is not a hotbed of class action filings.…
After a decades-long drought, the Supreme Court recently decided a case involving the Contracts Clause of the Constitution. You might not recall that provision because it is so rarely invoked in modern-day litigation (due to how it has been construed). It provides that “[n]o state shall . . . pass . . . any Law…
Yesterday, in China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, under its prior decision in American Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974), the filing of a putative class action suit tolls the statutes of limitations only to allow individual, non-class suits to be filed after class…
In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the California state courts lacked personal jurisdiction over claims made by out-of-state plaintiffs in a mass action, where the plaintiffs did not claim that they were harmed in California and the defendant’s relevant conduct did not…
In a long-running employment class action in California, a California Court of Appeal recently addressed once again the use of surveys of class members. The case was the subject of a prior California Supreme Court decision (see my June 2014 blog post), which provided guidance on the use of statistical evidence by plaintiffs to…
When a defendant receives an adverse decision on a motion for class certification, whether the court of appeals grants permission to appeal under Rule 23(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (or a state-court equivalent, if available) can be a crucial turning point in the case. If the court of appeals will not hear…
At the recent DRI Class Action Seminar, I asked Alison Frankel of Thomson Reuters how she thinks corporate defendants should best handle media inquiries relating to class action suits. Here’s what I gleaned from her answer:
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This week the Supreme Court issued a new opinion in a case that involved the scope of personal jurisdiction in a nationwide mass action brought in a state court. Although it is not entirely clear the extent to which this decision may apply in a class action or in a case brought in federal court,…
