For those of you who follow class actions and/or securities litigation, today’s Second Circuit decision, vacating the order by Judge Shira Scheindlin and ruling that the massive initial public offering securities litigation could not proceed as a class action, is huge news. Among other things, the decision brings the Second Circuit in line with the other Circuits to address the question of the standard of proof and the proper methods of weighing evidence in determining whether to certify a lawsuit as a class action, and required the panel to explicitly repudiate a number of prior opinions written by the members of the panel to get there.
Full disclosure: my firm represents one of the defendants, and I worked on the appeal (it’s the reason I’ve been checking and refreshing the Second Circuit website like a rat trying to get the last pellet ever since the case was argued in June). I have a much lengthier summary of what this all means, but that’s for the paying clients 😉
5 thoughts on “No Class”
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Maybe one day we can learn from the enlightened Europeans and abolish Rule 23 altogether. 🙂
Crank,
Congratulations on the big win and thanks for the post. I have an opposition to a Rule 23(f) petition due on Thursday and I can use this case. Also, Visa Check was an abomination.
WD
If you worked on the appeal, your name should be on the opinion, but it doesn’t seem to be there. Law firm partners should give credit on the brief for people who did the work, unless too many of them worked on the brief. I, too, check and refresh the Second Circuit website looking for pending cases. Your case can appear at any time. Like a police car hiding behind a billboard on the highway.
Steve – Ordinarily that’s true but this case had a bazillion lawyers on it from many firms. The briefs mainly reflected the names of the people who worked on the case from soup to nuts, rather than those of us who were involved specifically in the appeal. I don’t mind, I get my name on more than enough briefs.
A few years back we represented a couple big banks in a huge, MDL Federal Securities Case. As plaintiffs, my one & only time on that side of the aisle (which is fun, by the way).
Let’s just say we were all BIG fans of Judge Shira during the inbvestigative and Motion to Dismiss phases of the case. One of her opinions, Gabriel something, I think, made up about half of the legal argument in one of my briefs against a particulary well-insulated defendant.
There’s no judge I’m aware of who has more cases piercing holes in the PSLRA than Sheindlin.