The fairness and effectiveness of class litigation has been questioned by courts in recent years. In Inside the Agency Class Action law profs Michael Sant'Ambrogio and Adam Zimmerman argue that aggregation techniques criticized by courts have been used fairly and effectively in agency class actions (such as EEOC class actions). Here is the abstract: Federal agencies in […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
Law profs Craig Konnoth and Seth Kreimer have written Spelling Out Spokeo. Here is the abstract: For almost five decades, the injury-in-fact requirement has been a mainstay of Article III standing doctrine. Critics have attacked the requirement as incoherent and unduly malleable. But the Supreme Court has continued to announce “injury in fact” as the bedrock […]
Writing in today's New York Times, Erik Eckholm explains in Court Costs Entrap Nonwhite, Poor Juvenile Offenders that Fines, fees and restitution mandates are levied on juvenile offenders to varying degrees in every state, a new national survey of these practices has found. The effects are greatest on the poor and racial minorities, creating a two-tiered system […]
Is it a good idea to label genetically modified foods to indicate that they include ingredients that have been genetically modified? And, more generally, when should the government require precautionary labeling? Those are the topics of On Mandatory Labeling, With Special Reference to Genetically Modified Foods by law prof Cass Sunstein. Here is the abstract: As a […]
That's pretty much the topic of The Limits of Comprehensive Peace: The Example of the FLSA by Lonnie Hoffman and Christian Ward. Here is the abstract: Normally, cases can be settled on broad terms that release all related claims. Although there are added protections that must be satisfied when a settlement is proposed in the class action […]
Read this article by Russ Mitchell and Tracey Lien. Here's an excerpt: The robot cars aren’t coming. The robot cars are here. A fleet of Fords and Volvos, capable of driving themselves, is fully equipped and ready to hit the streets of Pittsburgh within weeks. The cars will be deployed by Uber, the ride-hailing company. Experimental robot cars already […]
The Supreme Court's decisions in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), heightened the standard for fact pleading in federal court. These cases were generally understood to mean that plaintiffs would have to plead facts more specifically than they had been to avoid dismissal of their federal-court […]
Mitch Zeller, the head of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Tobacco Products, has posted Protecting the Public and Especially Kids from the Dangers of Tobacco Products, Including E-Cigarettes, Cigars and Hookah Tobacco. Here's an excerpt: This month, for the first time, FDA will be able to help protect the public, and especially kids, from […]
The Federal Trade Commission has created this webpage with a bunch of information about how consumers can recover under its settlement with Volkswagen. (As you will recall, Volkswagen told its customers that many of its cars emitted low levels of harmful pollutants, but that was a lie.) Here's an excerpt: Volkswagen will provide up to $10 billion […]
As explained in this article by Stacy Cowley, Massachusetts has become the first state to bar employers from asking job applicants about what they earned at their prior jobs. This excerpt explains why: By barring companies from asking prospective employees how much they earned at their last jobs, Massachusetts will ensure that the historically lower wages and […]