Law, Strategy, and Risk in Commercial Disputes
The Fifth Circuit seldom affirms class certification orders. Can it stand class actions?
The court's ruling last week in Reed v. Florida Metro. Univ., No. 11-50509 (5th Cir. May 18, 2012), suggests not. The case dealt with the near-worthless degrees that Everest College sold — awarded — online and from store-front "campuses", where (per…
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…
Back in April, Blawgletter read the Court's decision in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int'l Corp., No. 08-1198 (U.S. Apr. 27, 2010), to mean that arbitrators "will have no choice but to deny almost all class certification requests."
The Stolt-Nielsen majority held, 5-3, that an arbitration panel exceeds its authority under the federal Arbitration Act…