Law Commons^™

Reassessing Damages In Securities Fraud Class Actions, Elizabeth C. Burch

ExpressO

No coherent doctrinal statement exists for calculating open-market damages for securities fraud class actions. Instead, courts have tried in vain to fashion common-law deceit and misrepresentation remedies to fit open-market fraud. The result is a relatively ineffective system with a hallmark feature: unpredictable damage awards. This poses a significant fraud deterrence problem from both a practical and a theoretical standpoint.

In 2005, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to clarify open-market damage principles and to facilitate earlier dismissal of cases without compensable economic losses. Instead, in Dura Pharmaceuticals v. Broudo, it further confused the damage issue by (1) perpetuating the …

Mass Toxic Tort Litigation And Class Action Rule Reform In The United States, Jason L. Betts

ExpressO

The paper advances the proposition that mass toxic tort litigation has been the predominant driver of class action rule reform in the Unites States. Through three distinct phases of proposals to reform Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the judicial and academic attitude to the certification of mass toxic torts has influenced the reform debate in radically different ways – initially by providing the catalyst for efforts to reform Rule 23; then as a dampener against significant reforms to Rule 23 in the wake of mass toxic tort “settlement-only” classes; and ultimately as an explanation for the …