The Supreme Court will decide before the end of this Term whether to hear any or all of four important cases that raise recurring questions of class action law that have sharply divided the lower courts. These cases address questions that we have blogged about before (e.g., here and here): whether a class full of uninjured members may be certified, and whether plaintiffs may rely on experts and statistics to gloss over individualized differences among class members in order to prove their class claims and damages. These questions strike at the heart of what it means to be a “class,” because class actions generally must be litigated using common evidence to show that each class member has been harmed.
Continue Reading Supreme Court To Decide Whether To Hear Four High-Stakes Cases Asking When A Suit May Be Litigated As A Class Action
Does Precedent or Congressional Action Prevent the Supreme Court from Reconsidering the Fraud-on-the Market Doctrine in Halliburton?
The Supreme Court will grapple with private securities class actions when it hears oral argument tomorrow in Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc. The principal question in the case is the continuing validity of the fraud-on-the-market doctrine, endorsed by the Court twenty-five years ago in Basic Inc. v. Levinson, which relieves plaintiffs asserting claims under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of the obligation to prove actual reliance, and permits the reliance element of a securities fraud claim to be satisfied presumptively by proof that the securities at issue traded on an efficient market.
A significant part of the debate in the Halliburton briefs addresses new scholarship contradicting the views of economists who developed the hypothesis underlying fraud-on-the-market. That is precisely what Justice White predicted in his Basic dissent: “[W]hile the economists’ theories which underpin the fraud-on-the-market presumption may have the appeal of mathematical exactitude and scientific certainty, they are—in the end—nothing more than theories which may or may not prove accurate upon further consideration. . . . I doubt we are in much of a position to assess which theories aptly describe the functioning of the securities industry.”
But the defenders of fraud-on-the-market, perhaps recognizing the doctrine’s tenuous status based on the economic learning over the past quarter-century, focus considerable attention on three arguments unrelated to the doctrine’s merits:
- Principles of stare decisis prevent the Court from overturning Basic;
- Congress ratified Basic’s endorsement of fraud-on-the-market when it enacted the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act; and
- Securities class actions benefit investors and, because they would be harder to bring if Basic were overturned, the Court should leave fraud-on-the-market in place.
To spare readers (and myself) an exegesis into economic analysis, this post focuses on these contentions, explaining why a fair appraisal of these arguments in fact demonstrates that the Court is obligated to assess Basic on the merits, and overrule the decision if the fraud-on-the-market presumption can no longer be justified.Continue Reading Does Precedent or Congressional Action Prevent the Supreme Court from Reconsidering the Fraud-on-the Market Doctrine in Halliburton?
Supreme Court Holds that CAFA Doesn’t Let Defendants Remove State AG Actions to Federal Court
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
Justice Alito Addresses A Federal District Judge’s Policy Of Requiring Race- and Gender-Conscious Selection of Class Counsel
For the second time in two weeks, the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in a class action case—this time, Martin v. Blessing—has garnered significant attention because of a separate statement by a Justice concerning the denial of review.
In Martin, the petitioner challenged the policy of one federal judge in the Southern District of New York to condition appointment of class counsel on the agreement by that counsel to “make every effort to assign * * * this matter [to] at least one minority lawyer and one woman lawyer with requisite experience.” Specifically, in Martin—an antitrust class action
Continue Reading Justice Alito Addresses A Federal District Judge’s Policy Of Requiring Race- and Gender-Conscious Selection of Class Counsel
O Canada: New Ground Rules For Class Certification in Antitrust Cases North Of The Border
While the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals have in recent years demanded rigorous scrutiny before authorizing certification of class actions, the Supreme Court of Canada has charted a different course. In a trio of recent decisions in antitrust class actions, Canada’s high court rejected key U.S. precedents on the scope and nature of class actions, forcing companies to defend against the same types of allegations under distinctly different legal regimes on each side of the border.
The three cases decided by the Canadian court, which all involved allegations of price-fixing, are:
Supreme Court Hears Argument in Class Action Fairness Act Case, Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp.
Today at the Supreme Court, all eyes, including mine, were on the oral arguments in the Town of Greece prayer case. But the second case—although it will certainly garner less attention—also is of great importance, especially to class-action practitioners. The issue in that case, Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., is whether so-called parens patriae lawsuits filed by state attorneys’ general to recover money on behalf of state citizens can be removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).
Why does Hood matter? Significantly, the fight is not over whether these cases can be
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D.C. Circuit Overturns Certification of Antitrust Class Action and Requires Reconsideration in Light of Comcast Corp. v. Behrend
Class-action lawyers on both sides of the “v.” have been debating the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year in Comcast Corp. v. Behrend. Last week, the D.C. Circuit delivered its answer in In re Rail Freight Fuel Surcharge Antitrust Litigation, the most significant opinion thus far to address Comcast. As the D.C. Circuit put it in a unanimous opinion by Judge Brown, “[b]efore [Comcast v.] Behrend, the case law was far more accommodating to class certification under Rule 23(b)(3).” But Comcast places that case law in doubt: When class certification rests on expert economic testimony—which is increasingly the case—“[i]t is now clear . . . that Rule 23 not only authorizes a hard look at the soundness of statistical models that purport to show predominance—the rule commands it” (emphasis added). That powerful holding makes the Rail Freight decision especially important for defendants opposing class certification.
Supreme Court To Decide Whether Parens Patriae Suits Can Be Removed Under Class Action Fairness Act
We’ve blogged before about whether parens patriae lawsuits filed by state attorneys’ general to recover money on behalf of state citizens can be removed under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). (CAFA authorizes defendants to remove certain “mass actions” involving “monetary relief claims of 100 or more persons” from state court to federal court. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(11)(B)(i). Today, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., No. 12-1036, to resolve a circuit split on this issue.
The case arises from a lawsuit that the Mississippi attorney general filed in state court
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In-House Counsel Predictions of Class Action Trends
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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Judge Mulls Appointment of Own Expert to Evaluate What Could Be the Largest-Ever Class Settlement of Private Antitrust Claims
It’s rare for a court to appoint its own expert in a class action. But Judge Gleeson of the Eastern District of New York is poised to do precisely that in order to help him decide whether to grant final approval to the $7.25 billion proposed class settlement of antitrust claims by retailers challenging Visa’s and MasterCard’s interchange fees. Some observers say that the proposed class settlement in the case—In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation, No. 1:05-md-01720—would be the largest class settlement of private antitrust claims in U.S. history.