When state attorneys general file suits to seek monetary recoveries based on claimed injuries to private citizens, those lawsuits look like, walk like, and quack like class actions. In fact, in most of these so-called “parens patriae” cases, the same private plaintiffs’ lawyers that bring private class actions are retained to represent states in exchange for the potential to garner substantial attorneys’ fees. While most class actions and mass actions of significance can be removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”), the Supreme Court held today in Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. …
Continue Reading Supreme Court Holds that CAFA Doesn’t Let Defendants Remove State AG Actions to Federal Court