parens patriae

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A decade ago, California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and its closely related false advertising law (FAL) were the ideal plaintiff’s tools.  Any person—even one with no connection to a particular asserted violation or harm—was able to bring a claim on behalf of the “general public” and recover restitution for thousands of people (and, of course, attorney’s fees) without going through the hassle of class certification. But in 2004, the California voters changed that; private plaintiffs who want to sue on behalf of others must certify a class. The statutes still work the old way for public prosecutors, who can invoke…
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Holds That State AGs and Prosecutors Can’t Seek Restitution On Behalf Of A Class That Already Settled Its Private Claims, But Can Seek Injunctive Relief and Penalties

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

The American Tort Reform Association has released its annual report on “Judicial Hellholes”—a term it popularized for jurisdictions in which defendants often contend that they can’t get a fair shake. This year’s report identifies California, Louisiana, New York City, West Virginia, Madison & St. Clair Counties (Illinois), and South Florida as the most unfavorable jurisdictions. According to the report, these jurisdictions suffer from (among other things) overly-aggressive plaintiffs’ bars, expansive liability rules, court procedures that advantage plaintiffs, and welcoming attitudes toward forum-shopping out-of-town plaintiffs.

While the report is worth reading in full, here are some of the highlights…
Continue Reading Annual Report on “Judicial Hellholes”

One of the more alarming recent developments in the class-action arena is the increase in actions by state attorneys general that mirror private class actions. These state AG actions aren’t like the typical enforcement action, in which the government pursues claims for civil penalties that are distinct from the relief sought in the private class action. Instead, these are copycat actions in every sense of the word. The state AG seeks restitution or disgorgement that is equivalent to the remedies requested in the private class action. And increasingly, the state AG is handing over the reins entirely to class-action plaintiffs’…
Continue Reading You’ve Settled the Class Action—Can the State AG Demand Another Payout?

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…
Continue Reading Supreme Court Hears Argument in Class Action Fairness Act Case, Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp.

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…
Continue Reading Supreme Court To Decide Whether Parens Patriae Suits Can Be Removed Under Class Action Fairness Act

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)?

Some academics and commentators have been reading the tea leaves in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes (pdf) and AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (pdf) as spelling doom for consumer and employment class actions. That’s overwrought; Dukes rejected an extremely adventuresome application of the class action rules by the Ninth Circuit, and Concepcion merely reminded courts that they can’t get around the Federal Arbitration Act by insisting that arbitration agreements permit expensive aspects of judicial litigation that are completely alien to arbitration in its traditional form. The continuing flood of class action filings is proof that the spigot hasn’t been shut off. But companies should pay attention to where the plaintiffs’ bar thinks they should move next if filing class actions stops being a viable business model.

In a recent article—After Class: Aggregate Litigation in the Wake of AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (pdf), 79 U. Chi. L. Rev. 623 (2012)—law professor Myriam Gilles and plaintiffs’ lawyer Gary Friedman shine the spotlight on state attorneys general:

In our view, the “private attorney general” role assumed by class action lawyers over the past several decades should give way to a world in which state attorneys general make broad use of their parens patriae authority—far greater use than they have in the past—to represent the interests of their citizens in the very consumer, antitrust, wage-and-hour, and other cases that have long provided the staple of class action practice.

And to tackle complex cases, we would hope to see underfunded AG offices making use of the lawyers who have acquired expertise in originating, investigating, and prosecuting class actions, as well as financing them.

The linchpin of this strategy is, of course, the money. If a state AG can’t give the deputized class action lawyers a big chunk of the money recovered for citizens, the model falls apart. Of course, money was one of the main problems with the biggest experiment with deputizing private lawyers as state AGs—the states’ lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Then-Texas AG Dan Morales was sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to steer millions of dollars from the proceeds of the tobacco settlement to a Houston lawyer.

So what should businesses do if they face one of these parens patriae lawsuits from a faux “acting AG”? Here are a few thoughts:
Continue Reading What’s Next for the Class Action Plaintiffs’ Bar? Getting Deputized by State Attorneys General