Mass Tort Litigation Blog

Issacharoff on Assembling Class Actions

Sam Issacharoff (NYU) has posted "Assembling Class Actions" on SSRN.  The article is forthcoming in Washington University Law Journal as part of a symposium on the future of class actions.  Here's the abstract:

Five times in the past two years, the Supreme Court has engaged the propriety of class actions. Taken together, these cases revisit certain core issues in class action law, all turning on the need and justification for treating individuals as part of a collective entity for litigation purposes. When examined from the perspective of legal treatment of individuals as part of a collective – assembling the class action, in the terminology of the title – three distinct aspects of class organization stand out. First, the existence of the litigation entity requires that someone be in charge, and that in turn raises the problem of how to ensure the faithfulness of the appointed agent. Second, the decision to forge a litigation entity necessarily empowers one side of the dispute, and that requires some justification. And, finally, even when litigation entities exist, class action law must come to terms with the range of individual autonomy that should still be recognized, including the ability to contract out of collective representation. As developed in the difficult recent class action cases, the questions of leadership, underwriting, and autonomy help define how modern class action practice endeavors to provide equality of treatment and predictability in the interaction between the individual insults of aggrieved citizens and the undiscriminating consequences of mass society.

ECB

Wasserman on Class Action Waivers

Rhonda Wasserman (Pittsburgh) has posted an article titled "Legal Process in a Box, or What Class Action Waivers Teach Us about Law-Making" on SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

The Supreme Court’s decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion advanced an agenda found in neither the text nor the legislative history of the Federal Arbitration Act. Concepcion provoked a maelstrom of reactions not only from the press and the academy, but also from Congress, federal agencies and lower courts, as they struggled to interpret, apply, reverse, or cabin the Court’s blockbuster decision. These reactions raise a host of provocative questions about the relationships among the branches of government and between the Supreme Court and the lower courts. Among other questions, Concepcion and its aftermath force us to grapple with the relationship between law and politics, the role of legislative history in statutory interpretation, the meaning of legislative primacy, the influence of federal agencies on the development of the law, and competing conceptions of the relationship between the Supreme Court and the lower courts.

ECB

NPR Interview with Ken Feinberg About His New Book

NPR has an extended interview with famed claims administrator Ken Feinberg about his new book, Who Gets What: Fair Compensation After Tragedy and Financial Upheaval.

BGS 

Collective Action Against Copyright Trolls

Not quite mass torts, but interesting from a complex litigation prespective anyway, so I hope our dear readers will forgive me.

This story concerns the use of the litigation system to intimidate small defendants into settling non-meritorious suits.  One of the areas where this has come up is copyright litigation.  Gideon Parchomovsky (Penn) and Alex Stein (Cardozo) recently wrote an article about this called the Relational Contingency of Rights (available on SSRN, forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review).   The basic observation is an important one: legal rights afford no meaningful protection against challengers who can
litigate more cheaply than the rightholder and who can use this advantage to  force the rightholder to give up her entitlement.

It turns out that some able litigants in Israel have taken their ideas and run with them.  Unfortunately, the only link I have describing the litigation is in hebrew (here).   Basically, an individual who refused to surrender to a pressing settlement demand filed a class action for over $10M against an Israeli company associated with a  multinational copyright giant, Getty Images. The claim for the Israeli suit, as far as I can tell, sounds in abuse of process.   Is America next?  A defendant class action bringing lawsuit harassment claims? 

ADL

AALS Workshop on Torts, Environment & Disaster

In June, the Association of American Law Schools will host a major conference in Berkeley, CA, on environmental disasters. The sessions include such cheery topics as "History of Disaster," "Psychology of Disaster," "Disaster Federalism," and "Disaster Justice." Along the way, there will be sessions on tort law, environmental law, and regulatory perspectives on environmental disasters. The disputes arising out of 9/11, Katrina, and the Gulf oil spill leave no doubt that environmental catastrophes present some of the most challenging problems of mass tort litigation in the 21st century.

The speakers include many of the leading scholars in torts, environmental law, complex litigation, and related fields, including Tom Baker, David Dana, Daniel Farber, Sheila Foster, Myriam Gilles, Michael Green, Laura Hines, Keith Hylton, Gregory Keating, Douglas Kysar, Jonathan Masur, John Nagle, Adam Scales, Peter Schuck, Anthony Sebok, Catherine Sharkey, Jed Shugerman, Stephen Sugarman, and many others (and me!). I will speak on a panel about principles for compensation programs and mass settlements.

The conference will take place June 8-10 at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. The brochure is here. A TortsProf plug for the conference is here. 

HME

Introducing... Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation

Stanford has an exciting announcement: the creation of the first scholarly law journal devoted to complex litigation!  Stanford law students interested in complex litigation and mass torts will now have the opportunity not only to study under Stanford's Deborah Hensler, but also to edit the Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation.  

Below is a note from the journal's first editors-in-chief, Nick Landsman-Roos and Matt Woleske.

BGS

***

Re: Announcing the Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation! 

Dear Authors: We are proud to announce the founding of the Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation (SJCL). Beginning in the 2012-2013 academic year, SJCL will publish articles and essays that are timely and make a significant, original contribution to the field of complex litigation. We are currently seeking article and essay manuscripts on a range of topics including the rules of civil procedure, aggregate litigation, mass torts, jurisdictional disputes, complex litigation reform, actions by private attorneys general, and transnational litigation. 

We hope you will consider publishing with SJCL for a few reasons: 

    ·         Specialization: SJCL is the first student-edited journal devoted exclusively to topics relating to complex litigation. Publishing with SJCL will ensure your important contribution will be read within the broader field it is engaging. SJCL will serve as a forum for dialogue on complex litigation issues. We also expect that because SJCL is devoted exclusively to complex litigation, it will quickly become a source of guidance for courts and practitioners.   

·         Expedited publishing: Because we are currently accepting submissions for the first volume of SJCL, we will be able to publish many of the submissions we accept in our fall issue. That means you can expect your article with SJCL to be in print faster than almost any other journal. There will be no need to update through a lengthy editing process. 

·         Modified peer review: SJCL will follow a modified peer-review system. Meaning, after a first-level review by SJCL’s editorial staff, any submission that is a candidate for publication will be submitted to at least one scholar in the field of complex litigation or civil procedure who will review the piece. We will take any unanimous decision from our peer reviewers as a binding decision on publication. This will ensure that SJCL is publishing significant contributions to this field.   

·         “Light edit”: Our editorial policy is to afford substantial deference to authors, in both tone and substance. As a result, all articles must be well written, well cited, and completely argued at the time of submissions. SJCL will only edit to ensure readability and Bluebook compliance, which means that the editing process will be faster but also requires that authors vouch for the accuracy of their citations. 

·         Outreach: We are committed to generating interest in the articles published with SJCL. That is why we will actively promote all scholarship we publish at symposia and on the blogosphere. We are also committing to distributing hundreds of copies of our first issue to grow our readership base. 

·         Volume 1: There is something to be said for publishing in the very first volume of a journal. We hope you appreciate this significance and decide to submit your manuscript to SJCL. 

We review and accept articles year-round on a rolling basis. SJCL strongly prefers electronic submissions through the ExpressO submission system, which can be found online at http://www.law.bepress.com/expresso. You may also e-mail your manuscript to sjcl_submissions@lists.stanford.edu. We do not accept submissions in hard copy. 

SJCL is also seeking faculty with expertise in areas such as civil procedure or complex litigation to serve as reviewers. If you are interested, please contact sjcl_editors@lists.stanford.edu. 

A website with more information is forthcoming. For the time being please refer to our Stanford Law School site: http://www.law.stanford.edu/publications/journals/sjcl/. 

Please contact us with any questions. We look forward to working with you. 

Regards, 

Nick Landsman-Roos & Matt Woleske

Editors-in-Chief, Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation

sjcl_editors@lists.stanford.edu 

McKenzie on the Bankruptcy Model for Mass Torts

Troy McKenzie (NYU) has posted "Toward a Bankruptcy Model for Non-Class Aggregation."  I look forward to reading it.  Here is the abstract:

In recent years, aggregate litigation has moved in the direction of multidistrict litigation followed by mass settlement without certification of a class action — a form commonly referred to as the “quasi-class action.” Driven by increased restrictions on class certification, the rise of the quasi-class action has been controversial. In particular, critics object that it overempowers lawyers and devalues the consent of individual claimants in the name of achieving “closure” in litigation. This Article presents two claims.

First, the debate about the proper scope and form of the quasi-class action too frequently relies on the class action as the touchstone for legitimacy in aggregate litigation. References to the class action, however, are more often misleading than helpful. The basic assumptions behind the class action are different in degree and in kind from the reality of the quasi-class action. Overreliance on the class action as the conceptual framework for aggregation carries the significant risk of unintentionally shackling courts in their attempts to coordinate litigation. The very reason the quasi-class action emerged as a procedural device — the ossification of the class action model of litigation — suggests that courts and commentators should look for another reference model when assessing what is proper or improper in quasi-class actions.

Second, bankruptcy serves as a better model for judging when to use, and how to order, non-class aggregation of mass tort litigation. The entirety of bankruptcy practice need not be imported to realize that bankruptcy may provide a useful lens for viewing aggregation more generally. That lens helps to clarify some of the most troubling concerns about the quasi-class action, such as the proper role of lawyers and the place of claimant consent. Bankruptcy serves as a superior reference model because it starts with an assumption that collective resolution is necessary but tempers the collective with individual and subgroup consent as well as with institutional structures to counterbalance excessive power by lawyers or particular claimants.

ADL

Sherry on Concepcion and Dukes

Suzanna Sherry (Vanderbilt) has posted a copy of her forthcoming article, "Hogs Get Slaughtered at the Supreme Court," on SSRN.  Here's the abstract: 

Class action plaintiffs lost two major five-to-four cases last Term, with potentially significant consequences for future class litigation: AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion and Wal-Mart v. Dukes. The tragedy is that the impact of each of these cases might have been avoided had the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the lower courts, and the dissenting Justices not overreached. In this Article, I argue that those on the losing side insisted on broad and untenable positions and thereby set themselves up for an equally broad defeat; they got greedy and suffered the inevitable consequences. Unfortunately, the consequences will redound to the detriment of many other potential litigants. And these two cases are not isolated tragedies; they provide a window into a larger problem of Rule 23. When plaintiffs’ lawyers chart a course for future litigants, they may be tempted to frame issues broadly for the “big win” – with disastrous consequences. I suggest that it is up to the courts, and especially to those judges most sympathetic to the interests of class-action plaintiffs, to avoid the costs of lawyers’ overreaching. That is exactly what the dissenting Justices (and the judges below) failed to do in these cases.

ECB

Cheng on Trial Sampling in Mass Torts

Edward Cheng (Vanderbilt) has posted his paper, "When 10 Trials are Better than 1000: An Evidentiary Perspective on Trial Sampling," on SSRN.  It's also available through Penn's website.  Here's the intro on Penn's website:

In many mass tort cases, individual trials are simply impractical. Take, for example, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, a class action employment discrimination suit that the Supreme Court reviewed last Term. With over 1.5 million women potentially involved in the litigation, the notion of holding individual trials is fanciful. Other recent examples of the phenomenon include the In re World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation and the fraud litigation against light cigarette manufacturers, in which Judge Weinstein colorfully noted that any “individualized process . . . would have to continue beyond all lives in being.”

Faced with an unserviceable number of plaintiffs, courts have proposed sampling trials: rather than litigating every case, courts would litigate a small subset and award the remaining plaintiffs statistically determined amounts based on the results. But while sampling is standard statistical practice and often accepted as evidence in other legal contexts, appellate courts have balked— based on due process concerns—at the notion of court-mandated, binding trial sampling.

Despite this appellate reluctance, the controversy continues unabated. Trial courts have soldiered on by using nonbinding sampled trials (dubbed “bellwether trials”) to induce settlement, and a few brave appellate courts, including the Ninth Circuit in Dukes, have even hinted at an increased receptivity to sampling. Given that trial courts have few practical alternatives, one wonders if it is just a matter of time before their appellate brethren recognize the necessity of sampling.

And here's the SSRN abstract:

In many mass tort cases, separately trying all individual claims is impractical, and thus a number of trial courts and commentators have explored the use of statistical sampling as a way of efficiently processing claims. Most discussions on the topic, however, implicitly assume that sampling is a “second best” solution: individual trials are preferred for accuracy, and sampling only justified under extraordinary circumstances. This Essay explores whether this assumption is really true. While intuitively one might think that individual trials would be more accurate at estimating liability than extrapolating from a subset of cases, the Essay offers three ways in which the “second best” assumption can be wrong. Under the right conditions, sampling can actually produce more accurate outcomes than individualized adjudication. Specifically, sampling’s advantages in averaging (reducing variability), shrinkage (borrowing strength across cases), and information gathering (through nonrandom sampling), can result in some instances in which ten trials are better than a thousand.

ECB

Class Action Blawg on the Case Against "Trial by Formula"

The Class Action Blawg has a post citing useful caselaw against the concept of trial by formula - that is, the use of statistical analysis to determine either apportionment of damages (less controversial) or liability (more controversial).  Thanks to our own Sergio Campos for the tip.

I just published a paper on this very topic called The Case for "Trial by Formula."  In this defense of the use of statistics, I show the benefits for statistical analysis in mass tort cases for the promotion of equality between plaintiffs.  "But what about defendants' due process rights?" the authors over at CAB, Justice Scalia and others might rightly ask.  This is a very good question.  Take Wal-Mart v. Dukes and the defense argument that the use of statistics to conduct Teamsters hearings would violate the defendants' right to assert individualized affirmative defenses.  I wonder whether the defendant would actually be able to marshall the indivdualized proof against each individual plaintiffs' claims as they said they wanted to do.  I'd like to see a court call the defendants' bluff in one of these cases and actually see if defendants have enough evidence to exercise their right to assert individualized defenses in at least a sampling of cases -- not to dispose of the whole litigation, but just to inject some realism into the proceedings.  There's also a deeper issue - what is due process anyway? Is the touchstone tradition? If so, new developments in statistics and probability theory are useless to the doctrine; due process is really horse and buggy process which requires an individual hearing.  Or is it about what process is due from either a participatory, accuracy or other metric?  If so, there might indeed be something to talk about. 

ADL

BP Today, Tomorrow and Into the Future

Gentle Readers,

You don't need the Mass Tort Litigation Blog to tell you that the imminent BP trial has been stayed pending settlement talks.  In the meantime, here are some thoughts from the ever relevant George Conk. Special shout out for his poetic references:  Diving Into the Wreck: BP and Kenneth Feinberg's Gulf. 

I was just at a wonderful conference at the Charleston School of Law on Mass Torts and the Federal Courts where Feinberg spoke.  One of the key questions at the conference is the extent to which claims facilities (BP, 9/11, etc.) are unique and unlikely to be repeated or the wave of the future.  The interesting thing about BP is that it shows the interaction between claims facilities and litigation - its not one or the other.  Speakers mentioned how companies trying to get ahead of a litigation may well look to the BP model.   Others questioned whether BP was really special because the company was prepared to admit liability (although not gross negligence). 

I was especially interested by the remarks of Sheila Birnbaum, currently running the 9/11 Fund for first responders and who mediated settlements for the 94 families who chose not to participate in the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.  Even the families who wanted a public trial to find out what happened ultimately settled because of the uncertainty of trial.  This raises important questions about the purpose of litigation for individuals: is it ultimately to get compensation? How important is it to get to the "truth"?  How important is vindication?  Punishment?  When people settle (or waive their right to litigate prior to filing suit), what kind of consent do we want and does money ultimately satisfy?  Lynn Baker, who was at the conference, referred me to the following article that addresses some of these questions: Gillian Hadfield, Framing the Choice Between Cash and the Courthouse: Experiences with the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.  This continues to be relevant, especially if Funds become a model rather than a one-off.

ADL

Catherine Sharkey on the Vicissitudes of Tort

Professor Catherine Sharkey (NYU) has posted to SSRN her article, The Vicissitudes of Tort: A Response to Professors Rabin, Sebok & Zipursky.  Here is the abstract:

This response essay probes three themes that tie together three articles submitted for a tort symposium on “The Limits of Predictability and the Value of Uncertainty.” First, I explore the use of unpredictability as a code word for an assault on tort doctrine in response to an out-of-control tort system. In his historical account of the evolution of tort, Professor Rabin focuses on the canonical “no duty” rules of the nineteenth century and the contemporary rules-based limitations on open-textured liability in the twentieth century. But largely missing from this account is the story of rules promoting tort liability, such as strict liability, vicarious liability, negligence per se, and the like. Second, I probe the link between unpredictability and insurance. I argue that Professor Sebok’s efforts to distinguish champerty from illegal gambling and to analogize it to a form of insurance will inevitably fall short of establishing social acceptance or embrace of the practice. Third, I highlight the role of the U.S. Supreme Court and its incursions into the state law domain of tort in the name of predictability. Professor Rabin is doubtful that the U.S. Supreme Court will achieve great strides in its endeavor to quell unpredictability in punitive damages. Professor Zipursky has considerable angst about the Court’s making inroads into privacy and emotional distress torts. Such incursions are in keeping with the Court’s longer-term project of procedural reform of the civil litigation system in the name of unpredictability, but are novel in their ambition to launch frontal attacks.

BGS

Ronald Brand on Access-to-Justice Analysis on a Due Process Platform

Ronald Brand (Pittsburgh) has posted to SSRN his article, Access-to-Justice Analysis on a Due Process Platform.  Here is the abstract:

In their article, Forum Non Conveniens and The Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, Christopher Whytock and Cassandra Burke Robertson provide a wonderful ride through the landscape of the law of both forum non convenience and judgments recognition and enforcement. They explain doctrinal development and current case law clearly and efficiently, in a manner that educates, but does not overburden, the reader. Based upon that explanation, they then provide an analysis of both areas of the law and offer suggestions for change. Those suggestions, they tell us, are necessary to close the “transnational access-to-justice gap” that results from apparent differences between rules applied in a forum non conveniens analysis and rules applied to the question of recognition of foreign judgments. While the analysis is good, it ignores core differences among legal systems, particularly the due process core of U.S. jurisdictional jurisprudence and the “access to justice” approach to jurisdiction, particularly of European civil law systems (from which most other civil law systems draw their origins). This distinction involves a fundamental difference, with U.S. doctrine focusing on the rights of the defendant and the civil law doctrine focusing on the rights of the plaintiff. So long as this difference exists, it will not be possible to wrap the process of declining jurisdiction and the process of recognition of foreign judgments in the same cloak of doctrine in order to provide common or connected analysis.

BGS

Rhonda Wasserman on Secret Class Action Settlements

Professor Rhonda Wasserman (Pittsburgh) has posted to SSRN her article, Secret Class Action Settlements.  Here is the abstract:

This Article analyzes the phenomenon of secret class action settlements. To illustrate the practice, Part I undertakes a case study of a class action lawsuit that recently settled under seal. Part II seeks to ascertain the scope of the practice. Part II.A examines newspaper accounts describing class action settlements from around the country. Part II.B focuses on a single federal judicial district – the Western District of Pennsylvania – and seeks to ascertain the percentage of suits filed as class actions that were settled under seal. Having gained some understanding of the scope of the practice, the Article then seeks to assess it normatively. Part III analyzes the policy debate surrounding secret settlements of civil suits in general, fleshing out the competing policy objectives served by public access to, and confidentiality of, settlement agreements. Finally, Part IV examines the statutory, logistical and policy-based constraints that call into serious question the legality, efficacy and wisdom of secret class action settlements

BGS

Daniel Klerman on Personal Jurisdiction and Products Liability

Daniel Klerman (USC) has posted to SSRN his article, Personal Jurisdiction and Products Liability: An Economic Analysis.  Here is the abstract:

This article is the first sustained economic analysis of personal jurisdiction. It argues that plaintiffs should be able to sue where they purchased a product which caused injury. Such a rule allows manufacturers to set prices which take into account the quality of the forum state’s courts. If the courts are biased against out-of-state corporations, have overly generous judges or juries, or apply substantive law which is excessively pro-consumer, manufacturers can, through contracts with distributors and retailers, charge a higher price to consumers in that state. This prevents judges and juries from engaging in inter-state redistribution and gives states an incentive to provide efficient substantive rules and adjudicative institutions. In contrast, a rule which required suit in a place more fully under the control of the defendant – such as the place of manufacture or the location of the distributor – would encourage manufacturers to select inefficiently pro-defendant jurisdictions for their activities. Because consumers are unlikely to know where products are manufactured or distributed and are unlikely to be able to evaluate the quality of the law in those states, it is implausible to think that the market will give manufacturers incentives to locate their jurisdiction-triggering activities in states with efficient laws and institutions. This analysis is particularly important, because the Supreme Court has recently deadlocked on personal jurisdiction in product liability cases.

BGS 

Zamir, Medina, and Segal on the Uniformity of Lawyers' Contingent Fee Rates

Eyal Zamir (Hebrew Univ.), Barak Medina (Hebrew Univ.), and Uzi Segal (Boston College, Economics) have posted to SSRN their article, The Puzzling Uniformity of Lawyers’ Contingent Fee Rates: An Assortative Matching Solution.  Here is the abstract:

Lawyers’ Contingent Fee (CF) rates are rather uniform, often one-third of the recovery. Arguably, this uniformity attests to collusion in the market, resulting in clients paying supra-competitive fees. This paper challenges this common argument.

Uniform CF rates are not necessarily superior to negotiable ones; yet they provide clients with an important advantage. They result in clients making a defacto “take-it-or-leave-it” offer. It precludes lawyers from exploiting their private information about the lawsuit’s expected value and the amount of work it requires. The uniformity of CF rates enables clients to hire the best available lawyer, either directly, if clients know lawyers’ ranking, or indirectly, through the referral system. This uniformity thus fosters a positive assortative matching of lawyers and clients. Finally, the fact that both direct clients and clients obtained through paid-for referrals pay the same CF rate does not attest to cross-subsidization, as the cases a lawyer gets through referrals are quite different than those she gets directly.

 BGS

Martin Redish on Pleading, Discovery, and the Federal Rules

Professor Martin Redish (Northwestern) has an article, Pleading, Discovery, and the Federal Rules: Exploring the Foundations of Modern Procedure, in the January 2012 issue of the Federalist Society's Engage.

BGS

2011 Choice of Law Survey

Symeon Symeonides has posted the latest update to "Choice of Law in the American Courts in 2011: Twenty-Fifth Annual Survey," to SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

This is the 25th Annual Survey of American Choice-of-Law Cases. It is intended as a service to fellow teachers and students of conflicts law, both within and outside the United States. The Survey covers cases decided by American state and federal appellate courts in 2011. The following are some of the cases discussed:
• Three Supreme Court decisions, one on general jurisdiction, one on specific jurisdiction, and one holding that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state court rulings that protected consumers by refusing to enforce certain class-arbitration waivers.
• Two state supreme court cases refusing to enforce arbitration clauses that waive tort claims arising from gross negligence and criticizing the Supreme Court for 'tendentious reasoning' and for creating new doctrines 'from whole cloth.'
• A New York case struggling with the Neumeier rules in a case involving the same pattern as Schultz, and a California case worthy of Traynor’s legacy in delineating the extraterritorial reach of California statutes.
• A Delaware case holding that Delaware has an interest in 'regulating the conduct of its licensed drivers,' even when they drive in states with lower standards; a conflict between a dram shop act and an anti-dram shop act; and a product liability case in which a driver who crushed his car after taking a sleeping pill prevailed on the choice-of-law question.
• A case enforcing a foreign arbitration and choice-of-law clause prospectively waiving a seaman’s federal statutory rights, even though there was little possibility for a subsequent review of the arbitration award.
• Several cases illustrating the operation of four competing approaches to statutes of limitation conflicts.
• A case rejecting a claim that a Sudanese cultural marriage was invalid because the groom had paid only 35 of the 50 cows he promised as dowry to the bride's father.
• Two cases recognizing Canadian same-sex marriages. 
• A case holding that the court had jurisdiction to terminate a father’s parental rights without in personam jurisdiction over him, as long as the children were domiciled in the forum state.
• A case holding that a state's refusal to issue a revised birth certificate listing two unmarried same-sex partners as the child's parents after an adoption in another state did not violate the Full Faith and Credit clause.
• A case characterizing as penal and refusing to recognize a sister-state judgment imposing a fine for a violation of zoning restrictions.
• Several cases involving sex offenders required by sister-state judgments to register their place or residence, or terminating the obligation to register.
• Four federal appellate decisions holding that corporate defendants can be sued under the Alien Tort Statute for aiding and abetting in the commission of international law violations.

ECB

Southwestern Law School Symposium on Transnational Litigation and Civil Procedure

Below is the announcement from Southwestern Law School, and here is the brochure.

BGS

***

Our Courts and the World: Transnational Litigation and Civil Procedure

Southwestern Law School

February, 3, 2012

 

On Friday, February 3, 2012, Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, California and the Southwestern Journal of International Law are hosting a symposium entitled, Our Courts and the World: Transnational Litigation and Civil Procedure.   The symposium is co-sponsored by the American Society of International Law, the Junior International Law Scholars Association (JILSA), the Los Angeles County Bar Association -  International Law Section, and the State Bar of California - International Law Section.

 

This one-day symposium will bring together leading scholars from Canada and the United States to discuss the procedural issues that arise in transnational civil litigation cases. It will also assess how receptive courts are to transnational litigation and explore issues related to transnational class actions. The proceedings and papers from this symposium will be published in the Southwestern Journal of International Law.

 

What:	Southwestern Journal of International Law presents Our Courts and the World: Transnational Litigation and Civil Procedure
When:	Friday, February 3, 2012, 9:00 a.m. – 5:15 p.m.
Where:	Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles, California
	Panelists include (in alphabetical order): ·          Samuel P. Baumgartner, Professor of Law, University of Akron School of Law ·           Vaughan Black, Professor of Law, Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law ·           Gary B. Born, Partner, WilmerHale, Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School ·           Stephen B. Burbank, David Berger Professor for the Administration of Justice, University of Pennsylvania Law School ·           Montré D. Carodine, Associate Professor of Law, University of Alabama School of Law ·           Donald Earl Childress III, Associate Professor of Law, Pepperdine University School of Law ·           Paul R. Dubinsky, Associate Professor of Law, Wayne State University Law School ·           Allan Ides, Christopher N. May Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles ·           Thomas Orin Main, Professor of Law, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law ·           Erin O’Hara O’Connor, Professor of Law and Director of Graduate Studies, Law & Economics PhD Program, Vanderbilt Law School ·           Cassandra Burke Robertson, Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University School of Law ·           Linda J. Silberman, Martin Lipton Professor of Law, New York University School of Law ·           Linda Sandstrom Simard, Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law School ·           Adam N. Steinman, Professor of Law and Michael J. Zimmer Fellow, Seton Hall University School of Law ·           Janet Walker, Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School       ·           Rhonda Wasserman, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law                                                                                                 Moderators include: ·           William E. Thomson, Partners, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP ·           James H. Broderick, Jr., Partner, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP ·           Marcus S. Quintanilla, Counsel, O’Melveny & Myers LLP ·           Ray D. Weston Jr., Vice President and General Counsel, Taco Bell Corp.   Symposium Co-Chairs: Austen Parrish, Professor of Law and Vice Dean, Southwestern Law School Christopher A. Whytock, Acting Professor of Law and Political Science, University of California, Irvine

 

Mark Hermann on Class Actions on Above the Law

Mark Hermann has posted "Torpedoing Class Actions" in his column on Above the Law which highlights Martin Redish's book "Wholesale Justice" and my book review "Are Class Actions Unconstitutional?"

Hermann asks why class action defense lawyers aren't bringing up Redish's arguments more in courtrooms across the nation.  More thoughts on this later...in the meantime, I recommend his post. 

ADL