Securities Law Commons^™

Jury Certification Of Federal Securities Fraud Class Actions, Thomas Kayes

Northwestern University Law Review

The rough equivalence of certification and ultimate outcome is class action dogma. If certification is granted, then the plaintiff “wins” by settlement because the risk of incurring class-wide liability by going to trial is too great. If certification is denied, the defendant “wins” because the case may not be worth litigating without the possibility of a class-wide recovery. This Note is about where the dogma is wrong. There are now cases where a denial of certification, just like a grant, presents to the defendant the risk of incurring class-wide liability at trial. This is because those cases are capable of …