Earlier this month, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Lytle v. Nutramax Laboratories, Inc. affirming the certification of a class of owners of elderly dogs, alleging that the...more
Just a decade ago, it was still an open question whether parties could challenge the admissibility of expert testimony in class certification proceedings. The United States Supreme Court recognized the issue in Wal-Mart...more
At Class Certification Stage, Non-Expert Evidence Must Be Reliable, but Not Necessarily Admissible: As the Supreme Court explained 40 years ago in General Telephone Co. of Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 161 (1982),...more
Expectations were high in the class action world for the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo. At first blush, however, Tyson seems to be neither the test case nor the blockbuster decision that...more
On March 22, 2016, the Supreme Court issued a decision permitting class plaintiffs to rely on "representative" or "sample" evidence to satisfy the prerequisites to class certification and certain elements of their claims. ...more
The United States Supreme Court recently ruled in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, No. 14-1146, --- S. Ct. ---, 2016 WL 1092414 (U.S. Mar. 22, 2016), as to when a plaintiff may use statistical sampling in seeking to certify a...more
While the Supreme Court in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo dashed employers’ hopes that the Court would broadly preclude statistical evidence and severely limit wage and hour class actions in a fashion similar to its...more
In Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 577 U.S. __ (2016), the Supreme Court considered whether a case could proceed as a class action under Rule 23(b)(3) when the plaintiffs relied upon statistical, representative evidence to...more
As my colleague, Katherine Kayatta, alluded to in her detailed post earlier this week, much of the initial commentary on the Supreme Court’s Tyson Foods decision has been to the effect that the decision may crack open the...more
As I’ve done in past years, this post and the next one will summarize some takeaways I gleaned from this year’s DRI Class Action Seminar. Impact of Dart Cherokee: Nowell Berreth, who argued this case in the Supreme...more
This month we look at part three of our three part series on Class Actions. In part three, Robert Rachal and M. Todd Mobley address the role of experts in class certification post Wal-Mart and Comcast and how to use and...more
On March 27, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, Case No. 11-864, which tightened class certification requirements in two respects. First, Behrend requires plaintiffs to show a method by which...more
Today the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a pivotal decision, holding that as a prerequisite for certification of a class action, a plaintiff must introduce admissible evidence to show that the case is susceptible to awarding...more