Law Commons^™

Class Actions And Private Antitrust Litigation, Albert H. Choi, Kathryn E. Sprier

Law & Economics Working Papers

When firms collude and charge supra-competitive prices, consumers can bring antitrust lawsuits against the firms. When the litigation cost is low, firms accept the cost as just another cost of doing business, whereas when the cost is high, the firms lower the price to deter litigation. Class action is modeled as a mechanism that allows plaintiffs and attorneys to obtain economies of scale. We show that class actions, and the firms' incentive to block them, may or may not be socially desirable. Agency problems, settlement, fee-shifting, treble damages, public enforcement, and sustaining collusion through repeat play are also considered.

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, …

Class Actions Suits Vs. Arbitration Clause (Mexico), Jorge E. De Hoyos Walther

Jorge E De Hoyos Walther

On September 24, 2014, the Mexican Supreme Court (SCJN) issued a landmark decision in the world of arbitration and class action suits. In summary, SCJN upheld that it is possible to file a class action suit, even though an arbitration clause is included in the agreement that governs the business relationship

Daños Punitivos En Mexico. Renacimiento De La Responsabilidad Civil, Jorge E. De Hoyos Walther

Jorge E De Hoyos Walther

La Suprema Corte de Justicia reconoce la existencia de los daños punitivos en México. Esta resolución tendrá un impacto importante en las demandas por responsabilidad civil y en los litigios transfronterizos.

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 Price Of Access To The Civil Courts In Australia: Old Problems And New Solutions - A Commercial Litigation Funding Case Study, Camille Cameron

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In the past decade litigation funding companies have assumed an increasingly prominent role in commercial litigation and class actions in Australia. The growth of commercial litigation funding is a predictable response to various features of Australia’s costs and fee allocation rules and practices, including the “loser pays” rule, the prohibition on lawyer’s charging contingency fees, the hourly billing practices of lawyers, and the open-ended and unpredictable nature of much civil litigation. This chapter explores the growth of commercial litigation funding in Australia and uses it as a window through which to view how Australia’s costs and fee allocation rules operate …

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

Journal Articles

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, …

Class Action In Mexico, Jorge E. De Hoyos Walther

Jorge E De Hoyos Walther

In April 2011 the Mexican Parliament approved a legislative package that regulates class actions. The amended laws are six: (1) Federal Code of Civil Proceedings; (2) Federal Civil Code; (3) Federal Law of Economic Competence; (4) Federal Law of Consumer’s Protection; (4) Organic Law of the Federal Judicial Power; (5) General Law of Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection; and (6) Law of Protection to the User of Financial Services. On August 30th 2011, the Federal Official Gazette published this amendment to the federal law.

How Many Plaintiffs Are Enough? Venue In Title Vii Class Actions, Piper Hoffman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article critiques the recent rash of federal district court opinions holding that all named plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit alleging employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 must satisfy the venue requirements in the court where they filed the action. Neither the text nor the history of Title VII requires this prevailing interpretation; to the contrary, requiring every named plaintiff to satisfy venue requirements in the same court undermines the legislative purpose behind both Title VII and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 by creating a new obstacle to employees seeking to enforce …

Aggregation On The Couch: The Strategic Uses Of Ambiguity And Hypocrisy, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, Professor Burbank comments on the essays by Professors Nagareda and Issacharoff. Welcoming the opportunity to revisit the interplay between procedure and substantive law and the question of democratic accountability that Professor Nagareda’s essay presents, Professor Burbank concludes that the parts of that essay are greater than the whole. He finds that Professor Nagareda’s pursuit of unifying themes and a general normative theory leads to inconsistencies in classification between procedure and substance and to an impoverished vision of institutional legitimacy. Professor Burbank voices concern that this quest, which is also evident in the current draft of the American …

Questioning Litigation's Role-Courts And Class Actions In Canada, W. A. Bogart

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Class Actions: Judicial Control Of Defense Communication With Absent Class Members, Donald D. Levenhagen

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.