Last week, the District of Massachusetts denied class certification in a building products case in which Pierce Atwood represented the seller of a composite decking product. You can find a brief summary of the decision here.
Recently, I had the privilege of moderating a panel in Boston discussing hot topics in class actions. We had a terrific group of panelists, including three (besides myself) who represent defendants in class actions and one who represents plaintiffs. This imbalance was attributable to the nature of the organization sponsoring the program as a business-oriented legal foundation.
The First Circuit’s split decision last week affirming class certification in the Nexium antitrust case is sure to receive much attention in product defect class actions. Over the last several years, a chief battleground in such actions has been the import of the fact that many of the people that bought the particular product – indeed, often an overwhelming majority of those people – had no problem at all with it after many years of use…
In a November 30, 2013 post, we wrote about the District of Massachusetts’ class certification decision in the antitrust case, In re Nexium. There, the district court certified a class of c…
In early 2001, I was asked to argue in opposition to a class certification motion in federal court on behalf of the prominent owner of an automobile distributorship. The case was brought on…
In December 2008, a major ice storm caused massive and lengthy power outages in several towns in Massachusetts. Twelve residential and business customers of Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light…
The home mortgage crisis of the last several years has spawned its share of new government regulation and litigation. On September 4th, Judge Rya Zobel denied plaintiffs’ motion for class c…
Concepcion in Massachusetts: The Feeney and Machado Decisions
Arbitration, Class Arbitration, Consumer Class Actions, Employment Class Actions, Massachusetts Decisions
Authors:
Last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued two long-awaited decisions concerning the enforceability of class action waivers in arbitration agreements. Feeney v. Dell, Inc. (…
On March 27th, the Supreme Court issued a notable opinion addressing not only the interplay between class certification and merits issues, but also the relationship between Rule 23(b)(3) pre…
The patchwork of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions construing our consumer protection statute (Chapter 93A) has created a great deal of confusion, particularly over the last dec…