Class Action Fairness Act

  • June 20, 2019

Class Action Update from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018-2019 Term

Antitrust Class Actions, Appeals, Arbitration, Class Action Fairness Act, Class Arbitration, Class Certifications, Consumer Class Actions, Privacy Class Actions, Securities Class Actions, Supreme Court
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The 2018-2019 term of the U.S. Supreme Court opened with a newly configured court in which Justice Kavanaugh joined as an Associate Justice following the retirement of Justice Kennedy. Since October of last year, the Court has heard 69 argued appeals, several of which arose from class action litigation. Over the past nine months, the Court has addressed issues relating to class action practice concerning arbitration provisions, federal removal statutes, consumer antitrust law, FDA preemption, and the equitable tolling of interlocutory appeals. Although presented with class action questions related to cy pres awards, data privacy litigation standing, issue class certification, securities laws, and TCPA claims, the Court declined to resolve these issues. Reflective of the Court’s decisions this term at large, rulings were unanimous or sharply divided along ideological lines, with the Court declining to hear a number of controversies. The below summary provides an overview of class action decisions by the Court this term, including recent remands and certiorari decisions.

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  • March 15, 2017

CAFA, PART II?

Class Action Fairness Act
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In February 2017, Representative Goodlatte introduced the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017. The Act, as with its 2015 predecessor, covers a lot of ground. It permits certification of damages classes only where “each proposed class member suffered the same type and scope of injury.” It precludes certain conflicts of interest between class counsel and the named plaintiff. It resolves the Circuit split on ascertainability, adopting the view of the Third and Eleventh Circuits (and perhaps the First Circuit as well, as my colleague Katherine Kayatta recently noted) that the named plaintiff has the burden to show that identifying the class members is administratively feasible. It alters or creates certain procedural and disclosure requirements, such as giving a party an interlocutory appeal as of right of the class certification decision and staying all discovery during the pendency of certain motions. And it clarifies that Rule 23(c)(4) is an administrative tool for making class actions work, not a mechanism to permit evasion of the

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  • December 04, 2016

District of New Hampshire Denies Remand Under CAFA’s Local Controversy Exception

Class Action Fairness Act, US District Court - New Hampshire
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On November 30th, in Brown v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., United States District Judge Joseph Laplante of the District of New Hampshire denied plaintiffs’ motion to remand two related class action lawsuits based on allegations that defendants had caused a release of toxic chemicals from a manufacturing plant that contaminated nearby wells and water supplies.  One lawsuit was brought on behalf of a putative class of current owners of residential properties with private groundwater wells within two miles of the manufacturing site, and sought damages for the alleged diminished values of their properties. The other lawsuit was brought on behalf of a putative class of current and former residents of such properties, and sought to recover the costs of medical monitoring. The defendants are the company that owns the plant and the individual plant manager. They removed the case to federal court under CAFA, and plaintiffs moved to remand, citing CAFA’s local controversy exception.

The local controversy exception requires district courts to decline

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  • April 29, 2016

Pazol v. Tough Mudder, Inc.: Muddying the waters on proof of jurisdictional facts under CAFA?

Class Action Fairness Act
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The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA) was intended to make it easier for defendants to remove class action lawsuits from state court to federal court.  For example, CAFA introduced the concept of minimal as opposed to complete diversity, and waived the absolute one year deadline normally applicable to removal petitions as well as the requirement that all defendants join the petition.  It remains the removing defendant’s burden…

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  • December 19, 2014

Supreme Court Clarifies Defendants’ Evidentiary Burden at Removal Stage as to the Amount in Controversy and Halts Tenth Circuit from Applying More Onerous Requirements on Defendants

Class Action Fairness Act, Supreme Court
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The United States Supreme Court held this week in Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co., LLCv Owens that defendants removing cases from state to federal court, including class action defendants…

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