Class Action Trends

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Carlton Fields recently published a survey (pdf) of 368 general counsel and other in-house counsel at major companies across more than 25 industries regarding the class actions they faced in 2012 and their expectations for 2013. A number of the findings were quite interesting:

  • In-house counsel reported that their companies spent $2.1 billion on class actions in 2012, a slight decline from 2011. Per-company spending, however, varied widely, with some companies spending $100 million a year and some as little as $180,000. The per-company average was $3.19 million.
  • In 2012, the typical class action cost $671,100 annually, a

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Continue Reading In-House Counsel Predictions of Class Action Trends

A key question in many privacy class actions is whether the plaintiff has suffered an injury sufficient to confer Article III standing. Quite a number of these actions have been dismissed for lack of standing. The plaintiffs’ bar therefore has been brainstorming new theories of injury in the hope that one of them will be deemed sufficient to allow the case to remain in court (and open the door to expensive discovery). A recent order by Judge White of the Northern District of California in Yunker v. Pandora Media, Inc. addresses—and rejects—some of these theories.

The lawsuit involves Pandora’s mobile…
Continue Reading Do Plaintiffs Have Standing To Sue Over Alleged Reduction In The Value Of Their Personal Data?

We’ve previously discussed the Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. The American Lawyer Litigation Daily has just published a column by my colleague, Andy Pincus, responding to another columnist’s lament that Kiobel has rendered claims under the Alien Tort Statute “a zombie doctrine—not quite alive and not quite dead.”  Andy provides a dose of reality about the history of ATS litigation in the United States, and explains why private litigation is not the most productive way to respond to human rights concerns.  Both columns are well worth reading to get a sense of the debate…
Continue Reading Article on Alien Tort Statute after Kiobel

Today, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (pdf) on the scope of the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, a law that creates federal jurisdiction for civil actions brought by aliens for torts committed in violation of the law of nations or a U.S. treaty. In Kiobel, the Court held that presumption against applying federal statutes extraterritorially applies to the ATS, and affirmed the dismissal of an ATS complaint alleging violations of international law in Nigeria. Kiobel thus is a very welcome development for businesses that have been targeted by lawsuits under the ATS, an increasingly common vehicle for unjustified class actions in recent years.

See additional discussion below the fold.
Continue Reading Supreme Court Holds That Alien Tort Statute Doesn’t Apply Extraterritorially

Social media can be a game-changer for class actions.

I was recently reminded of this when reading news coverage of a proposed class settlement of claims involving chicken that a fast food restaurant allegedly had improperly described as halal. A Michigan lawyer, who wasn’t involved in the case, had taken to Facebook to complain that the settlement would distribute the $700,000 class fund to plaintiff’s counsel and two charities rather than to class members. (We’ve previously blogged about the emerging backlash against settlements with large cy pres components.)

Plaintiff’s counsel, apparently fearing that the Facebook posting would stir up objectors,…
Continue Reading Will Your Class Action Go Viral?

Here’s the situation: You’re facing a class action in federal court in which the plaintiffs define the putative class so broadly as to encompass many people who weren’t injured by the alleged wrongdoing. For example, consider a false-advertising class action on behalf of “all purchasers” of a product that the vast majority of purchasers would have used without any problem whatsoever, meaning that the alleged rarely occurring (or entirely hypothetical) defect that the defendant failed to disclose makes no difference to them. What’s the best way to attack this weakness in the complaint?

One option would be to characterize the…
Continue Reading Do the Plaintiffs Lack Standing or Are Their Claims Simply Meritless—or Both?

My colleague Anthony Diana publishes monthly tips for businesses seeking to navigate the shoals of modern document-preservation and e-discovery practice. Readers of the blog might be particular interested in the column on strategies for businesses that have been targeted by class actions.

Past tips that might be of particular interest to class-action defendants include:

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Continue Reading How Can Class Action Defendants Control E-Discovery Costs?

I previously blogged about the Second Circuit’s troubling decision in NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund v. Goldman Sachs & Co. (pdf), 693 F.3d 145 (2d Cir. 2012), which invented a “class standing” doctrine allowing a named plaintiff in a class action to assert Securities Act claims regarding securities that he or she never purchased. In the wake of that decision, plaintiffs have filed a flurry of motions to reconsider district court decisions that had dismissed claims like these for lack of standing.

So far, a few courts have granted those motions and revived some or all of the previously dismissed…
Continue Reading Plaintiffs Seek to Revive Securities Fraud Class Actions Under Second Circuit’s “Class Standing” Doctrine

According to a recent report authored by Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, Securities Class Action Filings—2012 Year in Review (pdf), 19 percent fewer securities fraud class actions were filed in federal court in 2012 than in 2011. The 152 new class actions filed in 2012 is the second-lowest such number in the last 16 years.
Continue Reading Cornerstone and Stanford Law School Issue Report On Securities Class Actions

A number of courts recently have weighed in on a question we’ve blogged before—whether lawsuits by state attorneys general seeking restitution on behalf of private citizens are subject to removal under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (pdf) (“CAFA”). These rulings have broad implications for the litigation of these quasi-class actions.  They also are of substantial importance to determining whether securities fraud actions filed by state attorneys general are precluded by the federal Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (pdf) (“SLUSA”).
Continue Reading Are Quasi-Class Action Suits By State AGs Removable Under CAFA (Or, For Securities Fraud Cases, Barred By SLUSA)?