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The Commonality Of Causation, Sergio J. Campos

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This essay, a version of which was given as the inaugural Goldman Endowed Lecture at Ohio Northern University School ofLaw, discusses the treatment of causation in class actions, multidistrict litigation, and similar collective litigation. Causation is a ubiquitous element of civil claims, and typically it is treated as an individual element of a claim because it is dependent on the circumstances of each individual claimant. Even if the conduct at issue in litigation is "common, " or the same, for a group of claimants, whether that conduct caused harm to a specific claimant will depend on the unique circumstances of …