July 3, 2009

"2009 Mid-Year Review - Securities Litigation and Enforcement"

Securities Docket is presenting a webcast at 2 p.m. Eastern July 9 with panelists Kevin LaCroix (D&O Diary); Tom Gorman (SEC Actions) Francine McKenna (re: the Auditors); and Lyle Roberts (10b-5 Daily).

July 2, 2009

Madoff sentencing: "A retiree who spoke at the rally"

That's how the New York Times described attorney Helen Davis Chaitman, but Christopher Fountain, looking into the matter, finds that description less than adequate.

Also, Joseph Nocera in the Times on Madoff-victim compensation: "the government is not in the business of reimbursing for robberies".

June 29, 2009

Toward fairer class action settlements

Ted Frank, a contributing blogger here as well as at Overlawyered, has a new project -- and a blog -- with the aim of reducing class action abuse by sticking up for the interests of class members at settlement-approval time. Check it out today. [Center for Class Action Fairness]

June 25, 2009

Class action against litigation/settlement funding firm

Kelly Holleran at the Madison County Record reports that attorneys Thomas Maag and Peter Maag have filed a putative class action against Whitehaven Settlement Fund, a litigation funding firm that lent money to Illinois litigants in defiance (they say) of Illinois policy against assigning litigation claims. They say the firm employed a choice-of-law clause purporting to bring the dealings under New York law, as well as a requirement that disputes be arbitrated in New York. Apparently this is not the first class action to be aimed at a litigation settlement funding firm; Popehat cites the 2005 North Carolina case of Odell v Legal Bucks LLC, which led to this mixed ruling last September by an appeals court in that state.

June 24, 2009

Litigation groups: Continuous expansion is the key to profits

Reviewing the American Association for Justice's schedule for its summer convention in San Francisco, we see a brace of proposed litigation groups, those AAJ mutual aid societies for lawyers wanting to learn the tricks of product liability and class action trade. So might these new targets be?

• Fleet Phospho-Soda Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Chinese Drywall Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Denture Cream Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Durom Cup Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Bankruptcy Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Outbreak of Disease Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Hydroxycut Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Reglan Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Cable Set-Top Box Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting
• Yaz/Yasmin Litigation Group (Proposed) Meeting

Chinese drywall and bankruptcy are obvious enough choices, and others are familiar from lawyers' web ads. But there's always something new. Cable set-top boxes. Denture cream. Huh. Guess there's some fan of The Lawrence Welk Show just waiting to cash in.

June 15, 2009

Kafka 1, CAFA 0

To get around the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) and its requirements that most interstate class actions be taken to federal court, just couch your class action as a counterclaim in response to some low-amount collections proceeding. You can even implead (perhaps as your real targets) new defendants who were not the ones who filed the original claim and thus had no role in selecting the state-court forum. That logic was enough to convince the Fourth Circuit, over a dissent from Judge Niemeyer, who also dissented from denial of en banc rehearing. [Dan Himmelfarb (Mayer Brown), "Fourth Circuit Ruling Permits Broad Circumvention of Class Action Fairness Act" (PDF), Washington Legal Foundation]

June 12, 2009

Federalist Society "Class Action Watch", May

A few highlights from the new issue, dated last month:

• Troy Yoshino and Patrick Perez, "Recent Wave of Case Law Rejects "Concealed Defect" Class Actions";
• Karl Neudorfer and Erika Birg, "After Bridge: RICO Class Actions at a Crossing";
• Randy Maniloff, "Fifth Circuit Expands False Claims Act Qui Tam Provisions in Time for Debate over Stimulus Package Fraud".

And other topics: CAFA & Katrina; certification in the Third Circuit; "foreign-cubed" actions; and mortgage-backed securities. The full issue is available in PDF form here.

June 10, 2009

Around the web, June 10

• Legal scholarship too often irrelevant to legal practice? Prof. Aaron Twerski's remarks on winning award from ABA's torts/insurance section [O'Hear, Prawfsblawg]
• Indiana high court might be chipping away at collateral source rule [Maryland Injury Lawyer]
• A defense of the emerging litigation finance industry [Max Kennerly]
  
• NYU's Catherine Sharkey on federalism and the next rounds in the battle over preemption [SSRN, Beck & Herrmann]
• Wisconsin businesses continue to rally against return of full joint and several liability [ShopFloor, earlier, more]
• Europe eyes class actions: "The American Export You Don't Want" [Lisa Rickard, U.S. Chamber]

June 8, 2009

Crunchberries and 17200

I was particularly interested in Michael Krauss's Crunchberries posts (here and here), not only because I happen to like artificially sweetened cereals but also because I take special interest in consumer-fraud class actions. In this instance, the class action is based on California's infamous section 17200, about which we have previously written at length.

That the plaintiffs' lawyer in this case actually thought his claim was sufficiently meritorious to warrant urging Michael to take another look at the case demonstrates just how pernicious that statute remains, even after Twombly, and even after the 2004 passage of Proposition 64, which purported to limit such abusive suits by enacting actual injury requirements. Indeed, the Ninth Circuit last year overturned a district court's dismissal of a similarly silly claim launched against Gerber's "Fruit Juice Snacks." In that case, the court felt that "the statement that Fruit Juice Snacks was made with 'fruit juice and other all natural ingredients' could easily be interpreted by consumers as a claim that all the ingredients in the product were natural, which appears to be false."

The American Tort Reform Association has published this extensive report on consumer fraud class actions, and the Manhattan Institute discussed section 17200 at this conference in 2002, before Proposition 64 was passed.

Around the web, June 8

• Overexposure to zinc from denture cream eyed as new mass tort [Maryland Injury Lawyer, WSJ Law Blog, Qualters/NLJ]
• The donations of Madison County: "Metro East Litigation Giant Floods [Illinois] Senate Candidate Giannoulias with Cash" [Post-Dispatch courtesy American Towns, Madison County Record]
• Proposed expansion of federal gratuities statute could criminalize much innocuous behavior in dealings with public officials [Brian Walsh, Heritage]
• "Supreme Court of Canada Deals Setback to Nationwide Class Action Settlements" [Karlsgodt]
• Wachovia pays $39 million to settle stockbroker overtime class action [Bronstad, NLJ]
• Noteworthy amicus brief in Santa Clara case: California District Attorneys Association weighs in against government retention of contingent-fee counsel [Lisa Perrochet, Nuisance Blog]