Law Commons^™

Optimal Class Size, Opt-Out Rights, And "Indivisible" Remedies, Jay Tidmarsh, David Betson

Jay Tidmarsh

Prepared for a Symposium on the ALI’s Aggregate Litigation Project, this paper examines the ALI’s proposal to permit opt-out rights when remedies and “divisible,” but not to permit them when remedies are “indivisible.” Starting from the ground up, the paper employs economic analysis to determine what the optimal size of a class action should be. We demonstrate that, in some circumstances, the optimal size of a class is a class composed of all victims, while in other cases, the optimal size is smaller. We further argue that courts should consider optimal class size in determining whether to certify a class, …

Acciones Colectivas Vs Cláusula De Arbitraje, Jorge E. De Hoyos Walther

Jorge E De Hoyos Walther

Análisis de la resolución de la Suprema Corte de Justicia que permite la procedencia una accione colectiva, aun cuando las partes se hayan sometido al arbitraje.

Adequately Representing Groups, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

A Company’S Voluntary Refund Program For Consumers Can Be A Fair And Efficient Alternative To A Class Action, Eric P. Voigt

Eric P. Voigt

Consumer product companies are establishing internal programs where they are voluntarily compensating consumers for damages caused by their products. When a company implements a refund program in response to a threatened or pending class action, may federal courts rely solely on the voluntary refunds in denying class certification? The short answer is yes.

This Article analyzes Rule 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the requirement that a class action be "superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy." The Article argues that courts must compare the superiority of a class action not only …

Class Actions, Heightened Commonality, And Declining Access To Justice, A. Benjamin Spencer

A. Benjamin Spencer

A prerequisite to being certified as a class under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is that there are “questions of law or fact common to the class.” Although this “commonality” requirement had heretofore been regarded as something that was easily satisfied, in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes the Supreme Court gave it new vitality by reading into it an obligation to identify among the class a common injury and common questions that are “central” to the dispute. Not only is such a reading of Rule 23’s commonality requirement unsupported by the text of the rule, but …

The Curse Of Bigness And The Optimal Size Of Class Actions, Alexandra Lahav

Alexandra D. Lahav

How big is too big when it comes to class actions? This short essay, written for the Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc roundtable on Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. examines that question. Size in itself should not be a barrier to certification, but courts may rightly be concerned with variation within the class. Variation causes manageability problems, but in some cases (like Dukes) variation can be managed within the class context by judicious use of statistical methods. I also demonstrate why the related argument that this class ought not be certified because it is too big and Wal-Mart will be …

Procedural Adequacy, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

This short piece responds to Jay Tidmarsh’s article, Rethinking Adequacy of Representation, 87 Texas Law Review 1137 (2009). I explore Professor Tidmarsh’s proposed “do no harm” approach to adequate representation in class actions from a procedural legitimacy perspective. I begin by considering the assumption underlying his alternative, namely that in any given class action both attorneys and class representatives tend to act as self-interested homo economicus and we must therefore tailor the adequacy requirement to curb self-interest only in so far as it makes class members worse off than they would be with individual litigation. Adopting the “do no harm” …

An Historical Analysis Of The Binding Effect Of Class Suits, Geoffrey C. Hazard, John L. Gedid, Stephen Sowle

John L. Gedid

No abstract provided.