Beyond the Class Action: Lawyer Loyalty and Client Autonomy in Non-Class Collective Representation

Howard M. Erichson
2003 Social Science Research Network  
2003: tlement leverage. Not only lawyers and the press are captivated, but so are the judges, policymakers, and academics who have spent a decade lavishing attention on class actions. Courts, including the Supreme Court on several recent occasions, have rendered prominent decisions on a range of class action issues.! Federal rulemakers have pored over the class action rule, producing several rounds of provocative ideas that resulted this year in a package of proposed reforms. Congress has
more » ... d in actual and attempted class action reform. 3 The academic literature has burgeoned, offering insights on the dangers of settlement class ' See, for example, Devlin v Scardelletti, 536 US 1 (2002) (holding that unnamed class member who objected in a timely manner to approval of class action settlement at the fairness hearing had the power to bring an appeal without first intervening); Ortiz v Fibreboard Corp, 527 US 815 (1999) (holding that certification of mandatory settlement class on limited fund requires showing that fund is limited independently of agreement by the parties, and that the class include all those with claims unsatisfied and the time of settlement with intraclass conflicts addressed); Amchem Products, Inc v Windsor, 521 US 591 (1997) (holding district court faced with request for settlement-only certification need not inquire whether case would present intractable problems of trial management, but other requirements must still be satisfied); Matsushita v Epstein, 516 US 367 (1996) (holding that plaintiffs who are members of both state and federal classes, and neither opted out of settlement nor appeared at hearing to contest settlement, could not subsequently relitigate claims barred by the state court settlement in federal court); In Re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc,
doi:10.2139/ssrn.389161 fatcat:bsudo55mnbclzmh2sxhju2ry5e