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Class Action

Mass Tort Litigation Blog

Law professors discuss mass tort and class action lawsuits.

Post Frequency: 9.9/day

Last Entry: March 29, 2011 at 17:41:19

Does Regulation = Litigation?

Posted on April 15, 2009
A very intriguing analysis just posted on bepress calls into question whether litigation is a substitute for regulation. See Eric Helland and Jonathan Klick, The Relation Between Regulation and Class Actions: Evidence from the Insurance Industry, available here...

Scholarship on Damage Caps

Posted on April 15, 2009
Catherine Sharkey (NYU) and Jonathan Klick (Penn) have posted an article entitled "What Drives the Passage of Damage Caps?" on SSRN. The article is available here. Here is the abstract: A number of states have passed caps on non-economic and...

The "Hair Club for Men" Theory for Regulating Food Safety

Posted on April 11, 2009
Ian Ayers (Yale law) and Peter Siegelman (UConn Law) have posted a suggestion for regulating food safety: establish that the company CEO uses the product. In other words, "I'm not only the president, I'm also a client." See the idea...

Wall Street Journal on Plaintiffs' Lawyers Hired for Contingency Fee by State of Pennsylvania

Posted on April 08, 2009
Editorial in the Wall Street Journal -- The State Lawsuit Racket: A case study in the politician-trial lawyer partnership. Here's an excerpt: State Attorneys General regularly hire private plaintiffs lawyers on a contingency-fee basis to prosecute cases...

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Mark Lanier Expanding Plaintiffs' Tort Law Firm

Posted on April 07, 2009
Article by Alison Frankel in AmLaw Litigation Daily -- Texas Torts Firm Says Business Is Booming, Expands Houston Office. The article has some interesting quotes from Mark Lanier about asbestos litigation. Here's an excerpt from the article: In asbestos, Lanier's...

Wall Street Journal Editorial on Silicosis Fraud Follow-Up

Posted on April 07, 2009
Here's an excerpt from the Journal's editorial, The Silicosis Abdication: A scam that deserves as much scrutiny as Lerach and Scruggs: It is going on four years since a Texas judge blew the whistle on widespread silicosis fraud, exposing a...

Sheila Scheuerman on Statutory Damages and Class Actions

Posted on April 05, 2009
Professor Sheila Scheuerman (Charleston; picture, left) has posted on SSRN her article, Due Process Forgotten: The Problem of Statutory Damages and Class Actions, Mo. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2009). Here's the abstract: This article analyzes the due process problem that arises...

5th Circuit Permits "Learned Intermediary" Defense in Zyprexa

Posted on April 03, 2009
Alison Frankel, of the American Lawyer, reports that the Fifth Circuit has given the green light to the "learned intermediary defense" in the Zyprexa product liability suits. The defense is based on the doctor (the learned intermediary) warning the patient...

"A Practical Solution to the Reference Class Problem"

Posted on April 01, 2009
An article by Edward Cheng (Brooklyn Law) called "A Practical Solution to the Reference Class Problem" has just been posted on SSRN. The "reference class problem" is a key issue in mass tort cases. For example, say a judge wants...

Philip Morris Cert Dismissed as Improvidently Granted

Posted on March 31, 2009
As per Scotusblog: The Court has released the opinion in Philip Morris USA, Inc. v. Williams (07-1216), on tobacco punitive damages. In a per curiam opinion, available here, the writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted. ADL

Klonoff, Herrmann, & Harrison on Making Class Actions Work: The Untapped Potential of the Internet

Posted on March 27, 2009
Bob Klonoff (Lewis & Clark), Mark Herrmann (Jones Day) and Brad Harrison have posted their article, Making the Class Action Work: The Untapped Potential of the Internet, on SSRN. Here's their abstract: Over twenty years ago, the Supreme Court recognized...

En Banc Rehearing in Wal-Mart Class Certification

Posted on March 25, 2009
Granted, the Wal-Mart class action isn't a mass tort, but the Ninth Circuit's previous decision that upheld certification of the largest class action to date bears significantly on class action law in general. In its original opinion, the Ninth Circuit...

Defense Verdict in Gelep Tobacco Case in Florida

Posted on March 24, 2009
More as details unfold... Gelep is one of the post-Engle individual-plaintiff cases. UPDATE #1- Here's the press release from Altria on today's verdict in Gelep. For context, here's Altria's press release on the prior Hess verdict in Florida that went...

Split FDA into Separate Food Administration and Drug Administration?

Posted on March 22, 2009
According to this article in today's L.A. Times, pharmaceutical companies are quietly pushing to break up the FDA into separate entitites, in hopes of speedier drug approvals. President Obama yesterday appointed a group to reassess the FDA, so there may...

Higbee Denies Class Cert for N.J. Vioxx Users

Posted on March 20, 2009
Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee of New Jersey denied class certification to Vioxx users in Kleinman v. Merck & Co., Inc. Plaintiffs alleged that Merck violated New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act by deceptive marketing practices. The proposed class definition included...

Albany Law School Symposium on Off-Label Prescription of Drugs

Posted on March 20, 2009
As I previously briefly noted, Albany Law School is hosting on Friday, March 27 a symposium entitled, Regulating the Cure: Topics Arising Out of the Prescription of Drugs Off-Label. I will be speaking about liability from off-label promotion of drugs...

Managing Mass Tort MDLs

Posted on March 18, 2009
A new article on managing mass tort multidistrict litigations -- Charles Silver and Geoffrey Miller, The Quasi-Class Action Method of Managing Multidistrict Litigation -- has just been posted on SSRN. If any mass tort lawyers reading this blog have a...

Margaret Hamburg Picked to Head FDA

Posted on March 17, 2009
Article in the Wall Street Journal -- Hamburg, Pick for FDA, Faces an Agency in Crisis, by Alicia Mundy. Here's an excerpt: President Barack Obama's choice to lead the Food and Drug Administration faces several crises at the beginning of...

William Rubenstein Joins Mass Tort Litigation Blog as Co-Editor

Posted on March 15, 2009
Welcome to Professor William Rubenstein (picture, left) of Harvard Law School, who joins the Mass Tort Litigation Blog as co-editor! We're delighted he's joined us -- welcome aboard! BGS

Burch on Litigating Groups

Posted on March 14, 2009
I've just posted a draft of my article, "Litigating Groups," on SSRN. It is the beginning of a new approach to nonclass aggregation, one that is based principally on group cooperation and social norms. Although it's principally a theoretical piece,...

13 Deaths Tied to Medtronic Heart Device

Posted on March 14, 2009
Despite reports circulating as early as 2004 about problems with the Sprint Fidelis cable, Medtronic's medical device is still in widespread use. Barry Meier of the New York Times reports that along with roughly 13 fatalities, the FDA has received...

Richard Nagareda on The Law of Class Actions and Other Aggregate Litigation

Posted on March 12, 2009
Professor Richard Nagareda (Vanderbilt) has published The Law of Class Actions and Other Aggregate Litigation (Foundation Press 2009). Here's the book description from Foundation Press: Nagareda?s new casebook is the first to situate as a cohesive whole the ways in...

DePaul Symposium on Rising Stars: A New Generation of Scholars Looks at Civil Justice

Posted on March 11, 2009
DePaul University College of Law is hosting the 15th Annual Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Social Policy. This year's topic is Rising Stars: A New Generation of Scholars Looks at Civil Justice. The symposium will take place on Thursday,...

Panel on New Book, Regulation by Litigation, by Andrew Moriss, Bruce Yandle, and Andrew Dorchak

Posted on March 11, 2009
The Federalist Society is hosting a panel on the new book, Regulation by Litigation (Yale Univ. Press 2008), co-authored by Professor Andrew Morriss (Illinois), Professor Bruce Yandle (Clemson, Economics Dep't), and Andrew Dorchak (Case Western, Law Library)...

Klonoff, Herrmann, and Harrison on Using the Internet to Make Class Actions Work

Posted on March 09, 2009
Dean Robert Klonoff (Lewis & Clark), Mark Herrmann (Jones Day), and Bradley Harrison (Jones Day) have published Making Class Actions Work: The Untapped Potential of the Internet, 69 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 727 (2008). BGS

Crowd Modeling

Posted on March 08, 2009
The Economist has an article, Model Behaviour, about the use of increasingly sophisticated computer technology to model the interaction of large numbers of individuals. While the technology has been used for graphics in movies like Lord of the Rings, it's...

Medical Device Safety Act of 2009

Posted on March 06, 2009
After the Supreme Court rejected Wyeth's preemption claim in Wyeth v. Levine, Congress took steps to reverse the Supreme Court's earlier preemption decision, Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc. House representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) introduced the Medical...

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