Class Actions

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12+ years

In its more than 12 years of life, the case of Comcast Corp. v. Behrend has offered dozens of chances for the lawyers to persuade — or not.

Although class counsel suffered a tough 5-4 defeat in the U.S. Supreme Court, we convinced judges often enough to eke out $35 million in cash, bill credits, and services for the Philadelphia-area class.

Class plaintiffs prevailed mostly because we had the better side of the issues. But we also did a better job of earning the trust of the decision-makers we appeared before — the district judges in Boston and Philadelphia, appellate judges on the First and Third Circuits, and even justices of the Supreme Court.

Let me give you a few reasons for my view.
Continue Reading Lessons from an Epic Case — Trust

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A U.S. appeals court judge told me a few years ago that private contracts between businesses should call for settling disputes through bench trials rather than by arbitration.

But neither the judge nor I thought to mention a factor that may matter more than the relative quality of justice in courts versus private arbitration. As a recent 2-1 ruling by the Ninth Circuit just reminded us, federal courts strongly favor public access to case records — even if the records include deeply embarrassing documents that a party produced in discovery.
Continue Reading Keeping Secrets

imageBring your checkbook

Today resumes the series on take-aways from the epic case of Comcast Corp. v. Behrend — an antitrust class action that began more than a dozen years ago, produced dozens of opinions, and survived a loss in the U.S. Supreme Court before ending in a $50 million settlement, the benefits of which class members started receiving last month.

Today’s lesson underscores a harsh reality — and one that critics of class actions tend to forget: Class actions cost class counsel not only their time but also their money, potentially large quantities of it.
Continue Reading Lessons from an Epic Case — Bring Your Checkbook

imageOn December 8, 2003, the antitrust class action that lawyers know as Comcast Corp. v. Behrend started a 12-year odyssey through the federal courts. On December 15, 2015, the settlement that will end Behrend became final.

Today begins a five-part series on lessons that Behrend taught. This post will focus on a need that all plaintiffs share: the need for speed in getting to a final outcome, whether favorable or not. But it highlights a danger that exists especially in legally complex cases — the risk that the governing law will make reaching a favorable final resolution more costly, time-consuming, and risky. 
Continue Reading Lessons from an Epic Case — The Need for Speed

Handshake with TearLast Thursday, the Association for Corporate Growth hosted a talk in Dallas about deals that result in a lawsuit or arbitration. Several dozen deal-makers, mergers and acquisitions lawyers, and consultants attended. The Honorable Jeff Kaplan of JAMS, Elizabeth Brandon of Vinson & Elkins, and I gave the talk. Ladd Hirsch of Diamond McCarthy organized and moderated the event. In a little over an hour, we discussed the characteristics that commonly occur in transactions that produce formal claims, offered suggestions on how deal-makers can manage the risk of earl disputes, and answered several thoughtful questions from the audience. I enjoyed the session immensely. Please see my review of the lively discussion below.
Continue Reading Why Some Deals Result in Disputes

imageClass action skeptics

Since 2011, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court has made class actions harder to bring and tougher to sustain.

In the current term, the Court’s quintet of class action skeptics — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas — may use a pair of cases in which it has heard arguments to all but doom wide swaths of class cases altogether.

I write not to address those cases but to explain why even if the threats they pose prove non-fatal, the reprieve may not last. Two other petitions for review on the Court’s docket pose existential threats almost as potent.
Continue Reading The Next Death Threat to Class Actions

imageThe Third Circuit’s decision in In re Avandia Marketing, Sales Practices & Product Liability Litigation, No. 14-1948 (3d Cir. Oct. 26, 2015), accepts a path-breaking fraud-on-the-intermediary theory under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (RICO), which allows you to recover three times your actual damages plus reasonable attorneys’ fees. Expect more cases like this.
Continue Reading Rewards of RICO

FundingBig dollars in business cases

Expenses in big-dollar lawsuits can run into the millions of dollars. An antitrust class action that I’ve handled since 2003, for instance, cost more than $8 million. The law firms representing the class fronted all that money, with no assurance we would ever get any of it back. Why would any sane person do such a thing?
Continue Reading The Cost of Funding Litigation Expenses

Banned ItemsIn 2016, despite contracts that mandate one-on-one arbitrations, consumers will likely gain the right to bring claims against banks, credit card issuers, and other lenders in class actions. The new rule, which the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on October 7, 2015 it will probably issue next year, will partially reverse a string of recent Supreme Court decisions that made class-banning arbitration clauses broadly enforceable.

The action by the Bureau will vastly raise the stakes for disputes involving practices affecting large numbers of consumer finance customers.
Continue Reading Banning Bans on (Some) Class Cases