Blawgletter thinks we can all agree that the U.S. Supreme Court has done few favors in the last decade or two for what the folks at the American Law Institute call "aggregate litigation" — mainly class actions. What with Dukes (no class for women who work at Wal-Mart) and Concepcion (no class for AT&T wireless
Fifth Circuit Allows Common Fund Fee as Percent in Dell Case
The Fifth Circuit for a long time has seemed to insist on paying class counsel on a pure lodestar basis — hours x hourly rates. It looked to have stuck itself to the old-style lodestar method under Johnson v. Ga. Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir. 1974).
That contrasts with other circuits'
Second Circuit Explains Why It Lifted Order Barring Efforts to Enforce Ecuadoran Judgment in New York
Last September, a panel of the Second Circuit tossed a preliminary injunction that barred any action, anywhere, to collect on an Ecuardoran court's $17.2 billion judgment against Chevron for polluting part of the Amazon. Last week, the court got around to saying why.
[Blawgletter describes some of the dispute's facts, claims, and decades-long history here.]
The
Enemy of the Good: Class Cert Doesn’t Require Perfect Proof, Seventh Circuit Says
The Seventh Circuit held last week that a district court set too high a standard for class certification in an antitrust case.
"In essence," the panel ruled, it is important not to let a quest for perfect evidence become the enemy of good evidence." Messner v. Northshore University HealthSystem, No. 10-2514, slip op. 3
Waiver Ban Skips “Right to Sue” in Credit Repair Notice, Supreme Court Holds
A federal law says firms that offer "credit repair" have to tell customers about their "right to sue a credit repair organization that violates" the law. The statute also voids "[a]ny waiver by any consumer of any protection provided by or any right of the consumer under this subchapter".
May a consumer still waive
Third Circuit Restores Global Diamond Class
Remember the antitrust settlement class that a Third Circuit panel struck down last year? The one that went en banc a few weeks later? The one whose oral argument Blawgletter saw and wrote a post about?
Today, the en banc Third Circuit ruled 7-2 in favor of class certification. Judge Rendell, who wrote the dissent
State AG Action Can Stay in State Court Despite CAFA, Says Seventh Circuit
The Seventh Circuit split with the Fifth over whether a lawsuit by a state attorney general counts as a “class” or “mass” action that the Class Action Fairness Act [sic] allows defendants to remove to federal from state court. The panel held that CAFA doesn’t reach such a “parens patriae” case if the complaint as
Alison Frankel on the Rambus Loss
Top legal writer Alison Frankel wrote a first class piece on Rambus's stunning loss this week of a price-fixing case against two chip makers that, ahem, had confessed to fixing prices. See .
Rambus accused Hynix and Micron ruined a sweet deal with Intel, which agreed to build Rambus technology into Intel chips. Micron and
Seventh Circuit Okays Remand of MDL Cases After Summary Judgment Rulings
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation lives mainly to decide whether to group cases from around the country into big mega-cases for pretrial work — motions to dismiss, discovery, summary judgment motions — and, if so, which district judge to send each of the mega-cases to.
But what happens when the "transferee" judge finishes the
Amgen Class Gets Ninth Circuit Okie Dokie; Living in a Materiality World
The Ninth Circuit today upheld an order that granted class status to a federal securities fraud case against Amgen. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds v. Amgen Inc., No. 09-56965 (9th Cir. Oct. 8, 2011).
The panel gave the back of its hand to Amgen's jutting chin of a point — that the class