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Full-Text Articles in Law

Adequacy Of Representation In Argentina: Federal Supreme Court’S Case Law, Bills Pending Before Congress And The Preliminary Draft Of A New Civil Code, Francisco Verbic Dec 2012

Adequacy Of Representation In Argentina: Federal Supreme Court’S Case Law, Bills Pending Before Congress And The Preliminary Draft Of A New Civil Code, Francisco Verbic

Francisco Verbic

The paper describes how adequacy of representation has recently arrived to Argentina’s legal system in the field of representative litigation. First of all, in the FederalSupreme Court’s case law. Then, in some bills which are nowadays pending before Congress. Lastly, in the Preliminary Draft of a new Civil Code recently announced by the President and the Chief Justice of the Federal Supreme Court. I take a critical approach towards the issue, particularly because of the little attention paid to such a relevant aspect of representative proceedings


Financiers As Monitors In Aggregate Litigation, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch Oct 2012

Financiers As Monitors In Aggregate Litigation, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

This Article identifies a market-based solution for monitoring large-scale litigation that proceeds outside of Rule 23’s safeguards. Although class actions dominate the scholarly discussion of mass litigation, the ever-increasing restrictions on certifying a class mean that plaintiffs’ lawyers routinely rely on aggregate litigation (through multidistrict litigation and liberal joinder devices like Rules 20 and 42) to seek redress for group-wide harms. Despite sharing key features with its class-action counterpart, lik fe attenuated attorney-client relationships, attorney-client conflicts of interest, and high agency costs, no monitor exists in aggregate litigation. Informal group litigation not only lacks Rule 23’s judicial protections against attorney …


Identity Crisis: Class Certification, Aggregate Proof, And How Rule 23 May Be Self-Defeating The Policy For Which It Was Established, J. Britton Whitbeck Oct 2012

Identity Crisis: Class Certification, Aggregate Proof, And How Rule 23 May Be Self-Defeating The Policy For Which It Was Established, J. Britton Whitbeck

Pace Law Review

Class actions suits developed in the United States as a form of “group litigation,” an alternative to the impracticability or inequities of separate, individual actions of a similarly situated class of plaintiffs and, eventually, defendants. Congressional passage of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA) provided the federal courts with expounded diversity jurisdiction for the purpose of “assur[ing] fairer outcomes for class members and defendants.” However, recent circuit splits regarding class certification under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) and the use of aggregate proof in certifying classes have, in an ironic twist of legal …


Consumer Class Actions In Argentina And Brazil. Comparative Analysis And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments, Francisco Verbic Jul 2012

Consumer Class Actions In Argentina And Brazil. Comparative Analysis And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments, Francisco Verbic

Francisco Verbic

No abstract provided.


Merging Roles: Mass Tort Lawyers As Agents And Trustees, Charles Silver Apr 2012

Merging Roles: Mass Tort Lawyers As Agents And Trustees, Charles Silver

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Exxon Mobil Corp. V. Allapattah Services, Inc.: The Wrath Of Zahn. The Supreme Court's Requiem For "Sympathetic Textualism", Gunnar Gundersen Mar 2012

Exxon Mobil Corp. V. Allapattah Services, Inc.: The Wrath Of Zahn. The Supreme Court's Requiem For "Sympathetic Textualism", Gunnar Gundersen

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Class Action (Un)Fairness Act Of 2005: Could It Spell The End Of The Multi-State Consumer Class Action?, Michael Isaac Miller Feb 2012

The Class Action (Un)Fairness Act Of 2005: Could It Spell The End Of The Multi-State Consumer Class Action?, Michael Isaac Miller

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Why Is The Highway Closed? The Unreasonable Restriction Imposed On The Legal Services Corporation Regarding Class Action Suits, Francisco Verbic Feb 2012

Why Is The Highway Closed? The Unreasonable Restriction Imposed On The Legal Services Corporation Regarding Class Action Suits, Francisco Verbic

Francisco Verbic

In this paper I discuss the prohibition imposed by the US Congress on the Legal Services Corporation regarding the use of class action suits to provide free legal assistance to the poor. I deal with the creation of the Legal Services Corporation in the US, the scope and advantages of class actionssuits (particularly in terms of access to justice), and the role this kind of procedure can play in a context of a deep economic crisis that have deepened the gap in access to the civil justice system. I argue that the aforementioned prohibition to use class actions is unreasonable …


Why American Express V. Italian Colors Does Not Matter And Coordinated Pursuit Of Aggregate Claims May Be A Viable Option After Concepcion, Gregory C. Cook Jan 2012

Why American Express V. Italian Colors Does Not Matter And Coordinated Pursuit Of Aggregate Claims May Be A Viable Option After Concepcion, Gregory C. Cook

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

This Comment suggests that the upcoming decision by the Supreme Court in American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant will not change the class action landscape. While the plaintiff bar contends that certain public policy goals will be lost as a result of American Express and AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, this Comment argues that, in the correct circumstances, coordinated individual arbitrations can address at least some of these public policy goals and plaintiff counsel should focus on such coordination efforts (including, for instance, ethically recruiting actually-injured plaintiffs, the use of common plaintiff counsel, the use of common experts, and …


Judges! Stop Deferring To Class-Action Lawyers, Brian Wolfman Jan 2012

Judges! Stop Deferring To Class-Action Lawyers, Brian Wolfman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

I represent a national non-profit consumer rights organization, as an amicus, in a federal appeal challenging a district court’s approval of a class-action settlement of claims under the federal Credit Repair Organization Act (CROA). My client maintains that the district court erred in finding that the settlement was “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” which is the standard for class-action settlement approval under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In particular, we argue that the district court committed a reversible legal error when it deferred to the class-action lawyers’ recommendation to approve the settlement because, in those lawyers’ view, it was fair, …


Class Actions, Heightened Commonality, And Declining Access To Justice, A. Benjamin Spencer Jan 2012

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 …


Proof Of Classwide Injury, Sergio J. Campos Jan 2012

Proof Of Classwide Injury, Sergio J. Campos

Articles

No abstract provided.


Cruises, Class Actions, And The Court, David Korn, David Rosenberg Jan 2012

Cruises, Class Actions, And The Court, David Korn, David Rosenberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

As the Carnival Triumph debacle splashed across the national consciousness, lawyers shook their heads. Sensationalist news coverage exposed common knowledge in the legal community: cruise passengers have little recourse against carriers, and, as a result, they often bear the brunt of serious physical and financial injuries. Cruise lines, escaping legal accountability for their negligence, sail off undeterred from neglecting passenger safety on future voyages. While its previous decisions helped entrench this problem, a recently argued case presents the Supreme Court with another opportunity to address it.