This article provides commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision relating to classwide waivers in arbitration clauses in American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, and immediate reception of the Court’s decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In one of the most...

Commentary an analysis of the problem whether an objector to a shareholders’ derivative class action settlement must intervene in order to appeal from a court order approving the settlement. The article focuses on a case pending before the Supreme Court that raises this issue: California...

It is spring, and as the early crocuses annually blossom forth, so yet another collateral order doctrine case flowers on the Supreme Court's docket. In one of the longest-running riffs on doctrinal law, the Supreme Court in Digital Equipment is hearing its eighth case in seven years involving...

This article previews the issues and arguments in the Supreme Court’s 2010-11 Term case, Astra USA, Inc. v. Country of Santa Clara, Cal. Santa Clara County brought a class action in California federal court on behalf of public health care providers and other similar entities against a number...

One of the major purposes of the Supreme Court's decision in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins was to eliminate or drastically curtail the evil of forum shopping. Forum shopping continues, however, notwithstanding the well-known strictures of Erie. Indeed, in recent years, federal courts have been...

There can be little doubt that the most controversial amendment among the 1993 civil rule revisions is the new Rule 26(a) provision requiring early mandatory disclosure of discovery information. As the draft rule worked its way through the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, large segments of the...

In Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk, the Court will consider whether the trial court’s dismissal of Symczyk’s claim before the court certified a collective FLSA action mooted the case and prevented adjudication of the claims of others similarly situated. Symczyk brought a lawsuit under...

The twenty-first century may very well mark both the advent and triumph of fund approaches to resolving mass tort litigation. After more than forty years of attempted class action resolution of mass tort claims ― with often controversial and problematic results ― the use of no-fault...

On September 11, 2019, Judge Dan Aaron Polster of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division approved a novel negotiation class certification in the massive Opiate MDL. Merely one year later September 24, 2020, the Sixth Circuit reversed Judge...