Law Commons^™

State Securities Litigation May No Longer Be A Class Act: Federal Preemption Looms On The Horizon, Susan J. Becker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

State courhouse doors may soon be closed to class actions by shareholders of nationally traded stocks seeking redress for alleged misstatements and omissions in the issuer's financial forecasts.

Will New Legislation Preempt State Court Class Actions?, Susan J. Becker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Proponents of 1995's federal securities litigation reform are proposing new legislation to prevent plaintiffs from using state court class actions to circumvent the restrictive federal rules. This article reviews these legislative proposals.

Toward The Proper Role For Mass Tort Class Actions, Mary J. Davis

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article seeks to advance the use of mass tort class actions and proposes that they are not only appropriate, but desirable, when evaluated against the backdrop of substantive tort law policies. Moreover, the substantive goals of tort law as applied in the mass tort context support the conclusion that the individualized case-by-case adjudication standard, as applied through our adversary system as it is presently constituted, fails to further the search for fairness as well as truth in the mass tort context, and therefore, does not achieve the fairness or justice that we seek through our judicial process.

The guiding …

Contracting Access To The Courts: Myth Or Reality? Bane Or Boon?, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Many scholars of the dispute resolution system perceive a sea change in attitudes toward adjudication that took place in the mid-1970s. Among the events of the time included the Pound Conference, which put the Chief Justice of the United States and the national judicial establishment on record in favor of at least some refinement, if not restriction, on access to courts. In addition, Chief Justice Burger, the driving force behind the Pound Conference, also used his bully pulpit as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to promote ADR, particularly court-annexed arbitration. The availability of judicial adjuncts such as court-annexed arbitration …

Fraud And Federalism: Preempting Private State Securities Fraud Causes Of Action, Michael A. Perino

Faculty Publications

The passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 has engendered a significant forum shift in class action securities fraud litigation, from federal to state court. This unintended by-product of the Act has reignited debate over our dual federal-state system of securities regulation and in turn has inspired a discussion as to whether Congress should now preempt state securities fraud causes of action. This article argues that preemption is an appropriate, but not the only, solution to these concerns. To support this argument, this article first traces the history of dual state-federal securities regulation within the context of …

The (Cloudy) Future Of Class Actions, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

The past, both proximate and remote, is often consulted in attempts to predict the future. Of course extrapolation from past to future is at best an uncertain art. Extrapolation, however, is not the only problem. Lessons from the recent past are distorted by lack of perspective. Lessons from the distant past are distorted by distance. The first step is to choose which of the competing pasts to consult. Selfishly, I choose to consult the recent past, as it continues through the present and on into the near-term future, from the perspective of the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of …

The Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act Of 1998: The Sun Sets On California's Blue Sky Laws, David M. Lavine, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

It is often said that California sets the pace for changes in America's tastes. Trends established in California often find their way into the heartland, having a profound effect on our nation's cultural scene. Nouvelle cuisine, the dialect of the Valley Girl and rollerblading all have their genesis on the West Coast. The most recent trend to emerge from California, instead of catching on in the rest of the country, has been stopped dead in its tracks by a legislative rebuke from Washington, D.C. California's latest, albeit short-lived, contribution to the nation was a migration of securities fraud class actions …