Law Commons^™

Commonality And The Constitution: Applying Wal-Mart To State Court Cases, Joseph Seiner

Faculty Publications

In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011), the Supreme Court concluded that the allegations of pay discrimination in a case brought by over a million female employees lacked sufficient commonality to warrant class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a). Though the case was expressly decided under the federal rules, some well-known employer groups have begun to advance the argument that Wal-Mart was decided on constitutional grounds. These advocates maintain that the Supreme Court’s decision creates a commonality standard for all class-action plaintiffs — regardless of whether those litigants bring their claims in federal or …

Is The Price Right? An Empirical Study Of Fee-Setting In Securities Class Actions, Michael A. Perino, Lynn A. Baker, Charles Silver

Faculty Publications

Every year, fee awards enable millions of people to obtain access to justice and strengthen the deterrent effect of the law by motivating lawyers to handle class actions. But little research exists on why judges award the amounts they do or whether they size fee awards correctly. The process remains a black box. Through a detailed study of 431 securities class actions that settled in federal district courts from 2007 through 2012, this Article presents the first empirical study to peer inside that black box. In contrast to prior analyses, this study relies on the actual court filings in each …

Cross-Border Collective Redress And Individual Participatory Rights: Quo Vadis?, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article fills a critical gap in the commentary by undertaking a rights-based analysis of the various issues that arise in cases involving large-scale international litigation, focusing in particular on the Brussels I Regulation and what may be called ‘individual participatory rights’. In so doing, the discussion considers the nature and scope of individual participatory rights in collective litigation as well the ways in which these rights should be weighed and considered. Although the analysis is set in the context of European procedural law, this discussion is of equal relevance to parties outside the European Union, either because they will …

Weathering Wal-Mart, Joseph Seiner

Faculty Publications

In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2531 (2011), the Supreme Court held that a proposed class of over a million women that had alleged pay and promotion discrimination against the nation’s largest retailer could not be certified. According to the Court, the plaintiffs had failed to establish a common thread in the case sufficient to tie their claims together. The academic response to Wal-Mart was immediate and harsh: the decision will serve as the death knell for mass employment litigation, undermining the workplace protections provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). …

Antitrust Law And Economic Theory: Finding A Balance, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

Over the past forty years, the federal courts have relied more and more on economic theory to inform their antitrust analyses. Economic theory has indeed provided guidance with respect to antitrust issues and assisted the courts in reaching rational outcomes. At the same time, infusion of economic evidence into antitrust cases has made these cases more complex, lengthier, more expensive to litigate, and less predictable.

This Article argues that courts need to restore the balance between facts and economic theory in undertaking antitrust analysis. The problem is not that judges and juries cannot reach good outcomes in antitrust cases, but …

Cross-Border Collective Redress In The European Union: Constitutional Rights In The Face Of The Brussels I Regulation, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article considers the various issues associated with the creation of a system of collective relief in a region that has traditionally been hostile to the provision of large-scale private litigation. In so doing, the discussion focuses on the clash between certain constitutional rights relating to the ability of the plaintiff to choose the time, place and manner of bringing suit and the European Union’s primary form of legislation concerning cross-border procedure, Council Regulation 44/2001 on jurisdiction and on recognition and enforcement of civil and commercial judgments, commonly known as the Brussels I Regulation.

Regulatory Litigation In The European Union: Does The U.S. Class Action Have A New Analogue?, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article is the first to consider the European resolution from a regulatory perspective, using a combination of new governance theory and equivalence functionalism to determine whether the European Union has adopted or is in the process of adopting a form of regulatory litigation. In so doing, the article considers a number of issues, including the basic definition of regulatory litigation, how class and collective relief can act as a regulatory mechanism and the special problems that arise when regulatory litigation is used in the transnational context. The article also includes a normative element, providing a number of suggestions on …

European Analogues To The Class Action: Group Action In France And Germany, William B. Fisch

Faculty Publications

For the civil proceduralist in the United States the most perplexing problems of recent years have been presented by claims of large numbers of persons against large economic interests. A single error in manufacturing design can cause a relatively small injury to each of a large number of consumers; a misrepresentation in national advertising for such goods can have similar consequences; the polluting effects of a single enterprise can be dispersed among a large neighboring population. The result is that the stake of each potential claimant in the outcome of the litigation can be greatly outweighed by the magnitude of …

Notice, Costs, And The Effect Of Judgment In Missouri's New Common-Question Class Action, William B. Fisch

Faculty Publications

On December 1, 1972, the Missouri Supreme Court greatly expanded the potential usefulness of the class action device in our state courts by adopting the most recent version of the federal class action rule.