What We Know and What We Don't Know About Modern Class Actions PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download What We Know and What We Don't Know About Modern Class Actions PDF full book. Access full book title What We Know and What We Don't Know About Modern Class Actions by . Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
Last March, two law professors, Theodore Eisenberg and Geoffrey P. Miller, published a Study that examined the relationship between fees and class action recoveries. The Study also made the subsidiary finding that the magnitude of the average class action recovery had remained largely constant over the period of the Study, 1993-2002. In response, The New York Times ran a story on the front of its business section entitled, "Study Disputes View of Costly Surge in Class-Action Suits." The president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America proclaimed, "This empirical study comes out and says the system is working correctly." Senator Russell Feingold referenced the Study as he called the federal Class Action Fairness Act "a solution in search of a problem." This paper analyzes in more depth the Eisenberg-Miller Study and concludes that, rather than undermining arguments for class action reform, Eisenberg and Miller's data strongly support the need for reform. Relevant findings include: Eisenberg and Miller found that the average class action recovery over the ten-year period they studied was $138.6 million. The Study shows that the average recovery of the top 20% of cases was $613 million, and the average for the top 10% equaled $1.08 billion. Just looking at the cases in the Study's sample, aggregate class action recoveries averaged $5.13 billion per year. The Eisenberg-Miller numbers - huge though they are - are significant underestimates of the magnitude of class action litigation overall. Eisenberg and Miller only report data taken from published opinions. Their data set is highly skewed toward securities class action litigation, which constitutes over half their sample. Their data include only 9 civil rights class actions, 23 employment class actions, 22 ERISA class actions, and 7 mass tort class actions. It is simply implausible that, over the ten-year period, in state and federal courts together, these low numbers represent the full volume of class action litigation. The Eisenberg-Miller Study does not address a central concern about the class action mechanism, that mere certification of a class will force defendants to settle rather than betting their company, regardless of the evidence. For example, the Eisenberg-Miller sample includes the silicon breast litigation, which settled for $4.2 billion despite strong scientific evidence showing that implants did not cause the ailments claimed by class plaintiffs. Reform is more, not less necessary, when a problem has proved persistent over a long period of time. An average $138.6 million recovery for each class action over ten years is suggestive of a real problem. If, as is likely, the magnitude of total recoveries is five, ten, or twenty times the Eisenberg-Miller Study's showing of $5.13 billion per year from a very limited sample, class action litigation is imposing extraordinary costs on American society. Such a finding buttresses the case for class action reform. The Class Action Fairness Act, if enacted, would constitute a helpful, but largely a modest reform. Moving class actions involving significant different-state parties from state to federal courts will help but is unlikely to solve the problems created by modern class action litigation. Real tort reform requires a fundamental rethinking and redesign of both our substantive and procedural rules of law.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
Last March, two law professors, Theodore Eisenberg and Geoffrey P. Miller, published a Study that examined the relationship between fees and class action recoveries. The Study also made the subsidiary finding that the magnitude of the average class action recovery had remained largely constant over the period of the Study, 1993-2002. In response, The New York Times ran a story on the front of its business section entitled, "Study Disputes View of Costly Surge in Class-Action Suits." The president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America proclaimed, "This empirical study comes out and says the system is working correctly." Senator Russell Feingold referenced the Study as he called the federal Class Action Fairness Act "a solution in search of a problem." This paper analyzes in more depth the Eisenberg-Miller Study and concludes that, rather than undermining arguments for class action reform, Eisenberg and Miller's data strongly support the need for reform. Relevant findings include: Eisenberg and Miller found that the average class action recovery over the ten-year period they studied was $138.6 million. The Study shows that the average recovery of the top 20% of cases was $613 million, and the average for the top 10% equaled $1.08 billion. Just looking at the cases in the Study's sample, aggregate class action recoveries averaged $5.13 billion per year. The Eisenberg-Miller numbers - huge though they are - are significant underestimates of the magnitude of class action litigation overall. Eisenberg and Miller only report data taken from published opinions. Their data set is highly skewed toward securities class action litigation, which constitutes over half their sample. Their data include only 9 civil rights class actions, 23 employment class actions, 22 ERISA class actions, and 7 mass tort class actions. It is simply implausible that, over the ten-year period, in state and federal courts together, these low numbers represent the full volume of class action litigation. The Eisenberg-Miller Study does not address a central concern about the class action mechanism, that mere certification of a class will force defendants to settle rather than betting their company, regardless of the evidence. For example, the Eisenberg-Miller sample includes the silicon breast litigation, which settled for $4.2 billion despite strong scientific evidence showing that implants did not cause the ailments claimed by class plaintiffs. Reform is more, not less necessary, when a problem has proved persistent over a long period of time. An average $138.6 million recovery for each class action over ten years is suggestive of a real problem. If, as is likely, the magnitude of total recoveries is five, ten, or twenty times the Eisenberg-Miller Study's showing of $5.13 billion per year from a very limited sample, class action litigation is imposing extraordinary costs on American society. Such a finding buttresses the case for class action reform. The Class Action Fairness Act, if enacted, would constitute a helpful, but largely a modest reform. Moving class actions involving significant different-state parties from state to federal courts will help but is unlikely to solve the problems created by modern class action litigation. Real tort reform requires a fundamental rethinking and redesign of both our substantive and procedural rules of law.
Author: Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022665933X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Get Book Here
Book Description
Since the 1960s, the class action lawsuit has been a powerful tool for holding businesses accountable. Yet years of attacks by corporate America and unfavorable rulings by the Supreme Court have left its future uncertain. In this book, Brian T. Fitzpatrick makes the case for the importance of class action litigation from a surprising political perspective: an unabashedly conservative point of view. Conservatives have opposed class actions in recent years, but Fitzpatrick argues that they should see such litigation not as a danger to the economy, but as a form of private enforcement of the law. He starts from the premise that all of us, conservatives and libertarians included, believe that markets need at least some rules to thrive, from laws that enforce contracts to laws that prevent companies from committing fraud. He also reminds us that conservatives consider the private sector to be superior to the government in most areas. And the relatively little-discussed intersection of those two beliefs is where the benefits of class action lawsuits become clear: when corporations commit misdeeds, class action lawsuits enlist the private sector to intervene, resulting in a smaller role for the government, lower taxes, and, ultimately, more effective solutions. Offering a novel argument that will surprise partisans on all sides, The Conservative Case for Class Actions is sure to breathe new life into this long-running debate.
Author: Nicholas M. Pace
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833042696
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Get Book Here
Book Description
Class actions, which are civil cases in which parties initiate a lawsuit on behalf of other plaintiffs not specifically named in the complaint, often make headlines and arouse policy debates. However, policymakers and the public know little about most class actions. This book presents the results of surveys of insurers and of state departments of insurance to learn more about class litigation against insurance companies.
Author: Linda S. Mullenix
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Get Book Here
Book Description
Class actions have been a feature of the American litigation landscape for over 75 years. For most of this period, American-style class litigation was either unknown or resisted around the world. Notwithstanding this chilly reception abroad, American class litigation has always been a central feature of American procedural exceptionalism, nurtured on an idealized historical narrative of the class action device. Although this romantic narrative endures, the experience of the past twenty-five years illuminates a very different chronicle about class litigation. Thus, in the twenty-first century American class action litigation has evolved in ways that are significantly removed from its golden age. The transformation of class action litigation raises legitimate questions concerning the fairness and utility of this procedural mechanism, and whether class litigation actually accomplishes its stated goals and rationales. With the embrace of aggregative non-class settlements as a primary - if not preferred - modality for large scale dispute resolution, the time has come to question whether the American class action in its twenty-first century incarnation has become a disutilitarian artifact of an earlier time. This article explores the evolving dysfunction of the American class action and proposes a return to a more limited, cabined role for class litigation. In so doing, the article eschews alternative non-class aggregate settlement mechanisms that have come to dominate the litigation landscape. The article ultimately asks readers to envision a world without the twenty-first century American damage class action, limiting class procedure to injunctive remedies. In lieu of the damage class action, the article encourages more robust public regulatory enforcement for alleged violation of the laws.
Author: Lester Brickman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139497189
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 585
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book is a broad and deep inquiry into how contingency fees distort our civil justice system, influence our political system and endanger democratic governance. Contingency fees are the way personal injury lawyers finance access to the courts for those wrongfully injured. Although the public senses that lawyers manipulate the justice system to serve their own ends, few are aware of the high costs that come with contingency fees. This book sets out to change that, providing a window into the seamy underworld of contingency fees that the bar and the courts not only tolerate but even protect and nurture. Contrary to a broad academic consensus, the book argues that the financial incentives for lawyers to litigate are so inordinately high that they perversely impact our civil justice system and impose other unconscionable costs. It thus presents the intellectual architecture that underpins all tort reform efforts.
Author: Thomas A. Dickerson
Publisher: Law Journal Press
ISBN: 9781588520456
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 616
Get Book Here
Book Description
Class Actions thoroughly takes you through identifying a class action; determining ex parte class certification; conducting pre-certification discovery; selecting a class representative, and more.
Author: Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226816737
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Get Book Here
Book Description
Since the 1960s, the class action lawsuit has been a powerful tool for holding businesses accountable. Yet years of attacks by corporate America and unfavorable rulings by the Supreme Court have left its future uncertain. In this book, Brian T. Fitzpatrick makes the case for the importance of class action litigation from a surprising political perspective: an unabashedly conservative point of view. Conservatives have opposed class actions in recent years, but Fitzpatrick argues that they should see such litigation not as a danger to the economy, but as a form of private enforcement of the law. He starts from the premise that all of us, conservatives and libertarians included, believe that markets need at least some rules to thrive, from laws that enforce contracts to laws that prevent companies from committing fraud. He also reminds us that conservatives consider the private sector to be superior to the government in most areas. And the relatively little-discussed intersection of those two beliefs is where the benefits of class action lawsuits become clear: when corporations commit misdeeds, class action lawsuits enlist the private sector to intervene, resulting in a smaller role for the government, lower taxes, and, ultimately, more effective solutions. Offering a novel argument that will surprise partisans on all sides, The Conservative Case for Class Actions is sure to breathe new life into this long-running debate.
Author: Katherine Porter
Publisher: Aspen Publishing
ISBN: 1454860855
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 851
Get Book Here
Book Description
Modern Consumer Law is a lively, concise, problem-focused text on contemporary consumer law. It is the only text on the market conceptualized after Dodd-Frank and its creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The book takes a functional approach to consumer law, looking at types of transactions such as mortgages as well as kinds of laws such as disclosure rules. It examines core theoretical questions in an accessible way, revealing consumer law as a series of statutes built on the common law foundations of contract and tort. Organized into 28 class-sized assignments, the book is easy to adapt to a teacher’s preferences in terms of focus and class credits. The problems provide students with the opportunity to apply statutes to realistic situations and ask them to consider the perspectives of consumers, businesses, and lawmakers. Katherine Porter is a national expert in consumer law and a co-author of Wolter Kluwer’s The Law of Debtors and Creditors.
Author: Deborah R. Hensler
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833043943
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 635
Get Book Here
Book Description
Class action lawsuits--allowing one or a few plaintiffs to represent many who seek redress--have long been controversial. The current controversy, centered on lawsuits for money damages, is characterized by sharp disagreement among stakeholders about the kinds of suits being filed, whether plaintiffs' claims are meritorious, and whether resolutions to class actions are fair or socially desirable. Ultimately, these concerns lead many to wonder, Are class actions worth their costs to society and to business? Do they do more harm than good? To describe the landscape of current damage class action litigation, elucidate problems, and identify solutions, the RAND Institute for Civil Justice conducted a study using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The researchers concluded that the controversy over damage class actions has proven intractable because it implicates deeply held but sharply contested ideological views among stakeholders. Nevertheless, many of the political antagonists agree that class action practices merit improvement. The authors argue that both practices and outcomes could be substantially improved if more judges would supervise class action litigation more actively and scrutinize proposed settlements and fee awards more carefully. Educating and empowering judges to take more responsibility for case outcomes--and ensuring that they have the resources to do so--can help the civil justice system achieve a better balance between the public goals of class actions and the private interests that drive them.
Author: Joanne Blennerhassett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509905308
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Get Book Here
Book Description
This monograph addresses the phenomenon of mass harm and how it may be resolved through collective redress. It examines particularly how such redress may be achieved through mechanisms such as multi-party actions (MPAs). In order to do this, an analytical framework is created against which to evaluate various multi-party procedures. This is illustrated through the experience of a selection of common law jurisdictions in dealing with mass harm – namely that of England and Wales, Canada, Australia and the United States, as well as that of EU collective redress. It examines multi-party action laws benchmarked against the objectives identified in the analytical framework. The phenomenon of environmental mass harm in particular is explored as a case study, as it illustrates some of the difficulties that may arise in mass harm litigation. Also, this work explores where the best solutions for mass harm redress may lie in the future – perhaps in collective actions or through alternatives such as regulation and alternative dispute resolution or a combination of these. Finally, the experience of mass harm litigation in Ireland is examined, as currently this jurisdiction does not have an effective mechanism for dealing with mass harm.
