The Macondo spill also spawned securities fraud claims
The Macondo spill also spawned securities fraud claims

Modest decision

In Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133 S. Ct. 1426 (2013), a 5-4 majority — over an extraordinary joint dissent by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer — had to work hard to make a modest ruling. The Court held that plaintiffs seeking class treatment under Rule 23(b)(3) sometimes may have to plausibly link their theory of liability (the misconduct that caused damages) to the theory of class-wide damages (the estimate of the damages flowing from the misconduct) in order to obtain class certification.

I say emphatically that the Court did not hold that any plaintiff class seeking certification under Rule 23(b)(3) must prove damages on a class-wide basis. It said only that if a class cannot obtain class certification without establishing class-wide damages, then by golly it must show that it can establish class-wide damages.

I should know; I briefed and argued the case for the plaintiff class.
Continue Reading Fifth Circuit Misapplies Comcast, Affirms Class Anyway

Blawgletter got back this morning (around 3:00 a.m.) from our first-ever trip to Boise.  We saw a Great Many lawyers.

We and they had come to watch, and some of us to present, argument about what the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation should do with big cases. 

In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the