Mass Tort Litigation Blog

BP, the Gulf Coast Claims Fund, and MDL Plaintiffs' Lawyers

All that in the recent interesting op-ed from New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera -- BP Makes Amends.

BGS

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

Russell Jackson's 2012 Consumer Class Action and Mass Tort Predictions

Russell Jackson, a partner at Skadden Arps who runs an excellent blog on mass tort and consumer class actions, has a post up discussing his predictions for 2012.  Jackson is always worth reading on mass torts.  Interestingly enough, Jackson's second prediction came true somewhat with the Court's opinion in CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood, which came out yesterday.  There the Court concluded that the Credit Repair Organizations Act's "right to sue" language does not preclude the use of arbitration.   I am currently working on a project that briefly touches on arbitration issues, and will continue to follow Jackson's blog to learn of more developments.

SJC

Suggested Articles from 2011

Here is a non-definitive list of articles published in 2011 that I can recommend.  If there are others our readers wish to recommend, or if I missed your excellent article, send along a recommendation! (Note that articles posted to SSRN but not yet published aren't listed here)

The Top Mass Tort Articles (...drumroll please...):

Symposium on Aggregate Litigation, 79 Geo. Wash. L. Rev.  (2011)

Howard Erichson & Benjamin Zipursky, Consent versus Closure, 96 Cornell L. Rev. 265 (2011)

Nora Freeman Engstrom, Sunlight and Settlement Mills, 86 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 805 (2011)

Adam Zimmerman, Distributing Justice, 86 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 500 (2011)

Charles Silver, The Responsibilities of Lead Lawyers and Judges in Multidistrict Litigations, 79 Fordham L. Rev. 1985 (2011)

Articles I plan to read (so can't yet evaluate but think they look good)

Edward F. Sherman, The BP Oil Spill Litigation and Evolving Supervision of Multidistrict Litigation Judges, 30 Miss. C. L. Rev.237 (2011)

Byron Stier, The Gulf Coast Claims Facility as Quasi-Public Fund: Transparency and Independence in Claim Adminsitrator Compensation, 30 Miss. C. L. Rev. 255 (2011)

Linda Mullenix, Prometheus Unbound: The Gulf Coast Claims Facility as a Means for Resolving Mass Tort Claims -- a Fund Too Far, 71 La. L. Rev. 819 (2011)

Hari Osofsky, Multidimensional Governance and the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, 63 Fla. L. Rev. 1077 (2011)

Alexandra Rothmann, Note: Bringing an End to the Trend: Cutting Judicial "Approval" and "Rejection" Out of Non Class Settlement, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 319 (2011)

And on the class action front, I recommend:

Judith Resnik, Fairness in Numbers: A Comment on AT&T v. Concepcion, Wal-Mart v. Dukes and Turner v. Rogers, 125 Harv. L. Rev. 78 (2011)

Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Optimal Lead Plaintiffs, 64 Vanderbilt L. Rev. 1109 (2011)

David Marcus, Flawed but Noble: Desegregation Litigation and its Implications for the Modern Class Action, 63 Fla. L. Rev. 657 (2011)

Not quite about mass torts, not at all class actions, but also recommended:

Benjamin Ewing and Douglas Kysar, Prods and Pleas: Limited Government in an Era of Unlimited Harm, 121 Yale L. J. 350 (2011)

Anthony J. Sebok, The Inauthentic Claim, 64 Vand. L. Rev. 61 (2011)

Lee Ann Fennell, Unbundling Risk, 60 Duke L. J. 1285 (2011)

 ADL

Class Action Countermeasures on the 10 Most Interesting Class Action Articles of 2011

You can find a list of the 10 best class actions articles according to class action countermeasures here.   Our own Beth Burch gets praise for her latest piece Financiers as Monitors, which I also thought is a great contribution to the literature.

While I don't agree with Mr. Trask's assessment of my own work, legal academia or what people ought to write about, his wish list of articles is a great starting place for students looking to write a note on class action related topics.

ADL

Zimmerman on 9/11

Adam Zimmerman (St. John's) has a two new posts up on Prawfsblawg that are worth reading.  In one he analyzes the differences between the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and the new fund crated to compensate first responders.  In the other he discusses an alternative to aggregation - "flash mob litigation" in small claims court.  Both worth reading.

ADL

Zimmerman on Aggregate Litigation and Social Networks

Adam Zimmerman is guest blogging on Prawfsblawg this month, and has an interesting post on the potential effect of social media on aggregate litigation, particularly on settlements.  Zimmerman, who worked with Ken Feinberg in distributing the 9/11 Victim's Compensation Fund, has written a number of excellent articles on aggregate litigation.  He is definitely worth reading!

SJC

New Treatises on Drug and Device Litigation

The first is Mark Herrmann & David B. Alden, Drug And Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (Oxford 2012).

The other is James M. Beck & Anthony Vale, Drug and Medical Device Product Liability Deskbook (Law Journal Press 2011) 

Here's a post by Mark Herrmann reviewing both books.  These promise to be very useful treatises.

ADL

Information About the Junior Faculty Fed Courts Workshop

On Prawfsblawg procedural scholar extraodrinaire Howard Wasserman has some information here about the upcoming Junior Faculty Federal Courts Workshop.  The workshop is scheduled for February 2-4 in sunny Miami, FL.  This year's workshop includes a panel on "Structuring Litigation," which may be of interest to those who work on mass torts.

SJC