Mass Tort Litigation Blog

Publicly Funded Objectors

With House Bill 985 (the "Fairness" in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017), the controversy over current class action practice has escalated.  I've been an outspoken critic of the cozy relationships that plaintiffs' lawyers and defense lawyers have developed not only in class actions, but in multidistrict litigation, too.  Yet, as I (along with a number of other academics) have discussed, HR 985 doesn't fix what's ailing the system.  Instead, it seeks to eliminate most class actions, tramples bipartisan consensus in the appellate courts and federal rules committee, and ineptly tells judges how to do their jobs.

This past January, I attended a conference at Tel Aviv University called Fifty Years of Class Actions--A Global Perspective.  As part of that conference, I wrote a paper titled Publicly Funded Objectors, which calls for data collection and suggests that if the U.S. is truly serious about fixing what ails class actions, then it needs to publicly fund those who police them best--nonprofit organizations.  I posted the paper on SSRN today. 

Now that we have 50 years of class action practice under our belt, we know that practice suggests the need for tune-ups: sometimes judges still approve settlements rife with red flags, and professional objectors may be more concerned with shaking down class counsel than with improving class members’ outcomes.  The lack of data on the number of opt-outs, objectors, and claims rates fuels debates on both sides, for little is known about how well or poorly class members actually fare. This reveals a ubiquitous problem—information barriers confront judges, objectors, and even reformers.

Rule 23’s answer is to empower objectors.  At best, objectors are a partial fix.  They step in as the adversarial process breaks down in an attempt to resurrect the information-generating function that culture creates.  And, as the proposed changes to Rule 23’s handling of objectors reflect, turmoil exists over how to encourage noble objectors that benefit class members while staving off those that namely seek rents from class counsel. 

Our class-action scheme is not the only one that relies on private actors to perform public functions: citizens privately fund political campaigns, and private lobbyists provide research and information to lawmakers about public bills and policies.  Across disciplines, the best responses to those challenges have often been to level up, not down.  As such, this Essay proposes a leveling up approach to address judges’ information deficit such that they can better perform their monitoring role.  By relying on public funds to subsidize data collection efforts and nonprofit objectors’ information-gathering function, we can disrupt private class counsel’s disproportionate influence.  

Put simply, we keep the baby and just throw out the bathwater.

Academic Roundup on HR 985

Academics have been busy this week providing commentary on HR 985, the "Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017."  Here's a round-up of the commentary thus far (and please do let me know if I've missed someone).

John Coffee (Columbia):   Download Coffee - How Not to Write a Class Action “Reform” Bill _ CLS Blue Sky Blog

Howard Erichson (Fordham): Download Erichson-hr985-letter

Myriam Gilles (Cardozo):  Download Gilles Letter to James Park on HR 985

And mine, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch (Georgia):  Download Burch Final Comments on Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act

For those of you who like up to the minute commentary, several academics and reporters keep very active twitter accounts that track the bill: @adam_zimmerman, @elizabethcburch, @HowardErichson, @PerryECooper

 

H.R. 985: An Attempt to Undermine Class Actions & MDL

Class actions and MDL have real problems that need fixing. I have written about these problems at length, most recently in Aggregation as Disempowerment. But the new bill that just passed the House Judiciary Committee does not fix any of the real problems. Instead, it is a crass attempt to undermine any effort by plaintiffs to seek justice in mass disputes.

The bill, H.R. 985, the "Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017," seeks to reduce defendants' exposure to liability for mass harms by tightening the standard for class certification, imposing an ascertainability requirement, delaying the payment of class counsel fees, limiting the use of issue class actions, expanding diversity jurisdiction, mandating Lone Pine orders in MDL, banning trials in MDL, and capping MDL personal injury attorneys' fees at 20%, among other things. As Beth Burch noted, the bill does not make things fairer for those who have been wronged.

I would like to see thoughtful reforms to help courts distinguish meritorious from non-meritorious claims. I would like to see thoughtful reforms to protect claimants from unfair settlements in both class actions and MDL. And I would like to see thoughtful reforms to ensure that fees reflect what lawyers actually accomplish, not inflated settlement valuations. The abuses in class actions and non-class mass litigation happen mostly in settlement, not litigation and adjudication. But that is not what this bill would address. Instead, its provisions are aimed mostly at protecting defendants from the kinds of class actions and mass litigation that actually empower consumers, employees, citizens, and others to fight corporate and government wrongdoing.

Even where the bill aims at real problems (such as its provision to expand diversity jurisdiction to reach plaintiffs suing diverse defendants but who join with a non-diverse plaintiff), it goes too far, failing to match its solution to the problem of magnet jurisdiction in nationwide mass disputes. 

In my letter to Congressional leaders, I attempt to explain which of the provisions of H.R. 985 are especially problematic, and why. If you're interested, you can find the letter here:

Download Erichson HR985 letter

 

"Fairness" in Class Action Litigation Act

The U.S. House of Representatives is considering a bill that would substantially curtail the usefulness of class actions and multidistrict litigation, but would not make things "fairer" for class members.  

Alison Frankel has a great write-up on the proposal that includes my preliminary comments along with Professor Myriam Gilles's comments.  I'm heartened that representatives are reaching out to academics, because I have a number of concerns with the bill's proposals.  If you are likewise concerned, then you should weigh-in, too.  The House is marking up the bill on Wednesday.

My comments are available here: Download Final Comments on Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act