Class Actions in the United States and Israel: A Comparative Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alon Klement ◽  
Robert Klonoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
The Many ◽  
Action Procedure

Abstract Unlike most countries, the United States and Israel have employed the class action procedure for decades. This Article compares the two countries’ class action regimes and examines how the device has evolved in those countries. It examines the current procedures, as well as proposed reforms. It also compares class action statistics in the two countries relating to filings and outcomes. We demonstrate the many common features between the United States and Israeli class action procedures. As we illustrate, these common features have led to robust class action practices in both countries. At the same time, there are profound differences between the types of class actions filed and their outcomes. Thus, while Israel has many more class actions than the United States on a per capita basis, the cases are much less consequential from a monetary and subject matter perspective. We explore possible explanations for these observations. Furthermore, this study identifies features — utilized by the United States and Israel — that can serve as models for other countries that are adopting or amending their own class action regimes.

scholarly journals Standing to Sue and Multiple Defendant Class Actions in Australia, Canada, and the United States

1969 ◽  
pp. 295
Author(s):  
Vince Morabito
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
Action Procedure

Recent decisions by appellate courts in Australia, Canada, and the United States provide an ideal opportunity to explore an important issue concerning the class action procedure, which has been largely ignored by legal commentators in Australia and Canada and has received, in the author's opinion, inadequate attention in the United States. The issue in question concerns the availability of the class action device where the representative plaintiff is seeking to initiate a class proceeding against more than one defendant but does not have individual standing to sue all of the proposed defendants.

scholarly journals TURNING THE SPOTLIGHT ON CLASS REPRESENTATIVES -EMPIRICAL INSIGHTS FROM DOWN UNDER

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Caruana ◽  
Vince Morabito
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
Legal Literature ◽  
Action Procedure

Ten months before Ontario became the first Canadian common law province to authorise American-style class actions, class actions became available in the Federal Court of Australia. In these two countries and in the United States, the named plaintiffs, commonly referred to as class representatives, are the only claimants formally in charge of the litigation, on the plaintiff side, whilst the outcome of class actions binds not only them and their opponents but also the claimants that they represent, the absent class members. And yet, to date, there have been no comprehensive studies of class representatives in these three countries. The aim of this article is to partly address this significant lacuna in the international legal literature by providing the findings of an empirical study, that the authors have undertaken, of the persons that acted as class representatives in the class actions that were filed in the first 17 years of the operation of the class action procedure in the Federal Court of Australia. It is hoped that this article will prompt Canadian scholars to undertake similar studies with respect to Canadian class representatives.Dix mois avant que l’Ontario devienne la première province de common law canadienne à autoriser les recours collectifs à l’américaine, la Cour fédérale d’Australie autorisait ceux-ci. Dans ces deux pays, ainsi qu’aux États-Unis, les demandeurs nommés, communément appelés représentants, sont les seuls demandeurs formellement mêlés au litige du côté de la partie demanderesse, tandis que l’issue des recours collectifs lie non seulement les représentants et leurs adversaires, mais aussi les demandeurs qu’ils représentent, c’est-à-dire les personnes inscrites au recours collectif qui sont absentes. Pourtant, il n’y a eu à ce jour aucune étude approfondie sur ces représentants de groupes dans ces trois pays. L’objet du présent article est de combler en partie cette importante lacune dans la littérature juridique internationale en fournissant les conclusions d’une étude empirique effectuée par les auteurs et portant sur les représentants dans le cadre des recours collectifs introduits dans les 17 premières années du régime des recours collectifs devant la Cour fédérale d’Australie. Il est à espérer que le présent article incitera les chercheurs canadiens à entreprendre de telles études en ce qui concerne les représentants de groupes canadiens.

The Dilemmas of Civil Litigation

1983 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Jolowicz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
American Law ◽  
Time Lead ◽  
Made In

If an English lawyer looks at modern American literature on civil procedure, his first reaction tends to be one of incredulity or incomprehension; the literature deals with subjects of which he has never heard and seeks solutions to questions he has never thought of asking. After some reflection, however, it probably dawns on him that American scholars are writing against a background of assumptions about the process of litigation which he does not share and that those assumptions stem from developments which have occurred in the United States but which have not yet occurred in England or, for that matter, in the other countries of Western Europe. No one in England could write an article such as I received recently from the United States on “Conflict and Dissent in Class Actions” for the simple reason that the class action as it exists in the United States has not yet developed on our side of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, it is now clear that new demands are being made in Europe on the process of litigation, demands which may in time lead to developments such as have already occurred in the United States, and it is these demands which lead to the dilemmas to which my title refers. I want, therefore, to draw attention to two such demands—both very broadly stated—and to the dilemmas they produce, limiting myself mainly to England but with occasional glances elsewhere. This is not a lecture on American law, but it could perhaps be described as one on “pre-American” law.

Can and Should the New Third-Party Litigation Financing Come to Class Actions?

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Risk Tolerance ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Carry Over ◽  
Substantive Law ◽  
Transfer Device

Abstract In the United States, there has been tremendous growth in a form of third-party litigation financing where investors buy pieces of lawsuits from plaintiffs. Many scholars believe that this new financing helps to balance the risk tolerance of plaintiffs and defendants and thereby facilitates the resolution of litigation in a way that more closely tracks the goals of the substantive law. In this Article, I ask whether these risk-balancing virtues of claim investing carry over into class action cases. This is a question that has not yet been addressed by scholars because many think it is not possible for financiers to buy pieces of class action lawsuits in the United States. But I show that such investments are neither impractical nor unethical; indeed, it appears that they are already here. It is therefore worth considering whether the investments confer the same social benefits they do in other cases. I argue that although class members do not need a risk transfer device in class action cases because they are almost always risk-neutral in light of their small losses, their lawyers do need such a device. Although this does not necessarily mean that claim investing is socially desirable overall in class actions, the social costs that have thus far been identified with claim investing seem modest compared to the benefits.

CANADIAN REFLECTIONS ON THE TOBACCO WARS: SOME UNINTENDED CONSEQUE5NCES OF MASS TORT LITIGATION

2004 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 579-604
Author(s):  
Jeff Berryman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Large Impact ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Mass Tort ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
Tort Litigation ◽  
Mass Torts

During the 1990s many Commonwealth legislatures enacted ‘class action’ or ‘representative proceedings’ legislation.1The main justification for these initiatives was to increase access to justice for claimants particularly where the injury was widespread but the harm suffered by any particular individual was small. Much of this legislation built on developments in the United States, which had developed a sizable jurisprudence in the area. ‘Mass torts’, those defined as having a large impact engaging multiple claimants, have often formed the cause of action in US class actions. A review of the website ‘Big Class Actions‘,2which lists over one hundred current suits in the United States, is instructive on how the class action industry has grown in that country.

Class action: a common form of representative litigation in the United States of America Special reference to the validity of class action waivers and class actions regulation under Spanish law

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Enrique Fernández Fernández
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Spanish Law ◽  
Class Actions

El presente artículo es una introducción a las demandas colectivas de los EE. UU. bajo la Regla 23 de las Reglas Federales de Procedimiento Civil. Las demandas colectivas han sido una parte integral del sistema judicial de los EE. UU. durante décadas. Este artículo describe tanto los beneficios de este recurso como las principales críticas al mismo. Se presta especial atención a las cláusulas de arbitraje preceptivo preestablecidas y a la validez de las renuncias a ejercitar demandas colectivas. Todo ello es analizado desde una perspectiva práctica basada en casos reales que ilustran las tendencias reales de los Tribunales de Justicia estadounidenses. Finalmente, incluye un breve análisis de las demandas colectivas en España para proporcionar al lector una visión general de este recurso procesal, tanto bajo la perspectiva de la legislación de los Estados Unidos como de la UE.

scholarly journals Class action certification and constitutional claims: The South African case

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 636-659
Author(s):  
Theo Broodryk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South African ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The South ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
Public Character ◽  
The Government ◽  
Certification Requirement

This article considers whether, in the case of South African, there is a valid basis for requiring certification of certain types of class actions only. Specifically, the article will consider whether a preliminary certification requirement should apply to constitutional claims against the government in the same way it applies to other class actions. To determine this issue, the purpose of certification is considered with a view to establishing whether said purpose is only given effect to in certain circumstances. If certification would serve no purpose in the context of Bill of Rights claims or claims which display a public character, it may be prudent not to require class action certification in such cases. Conversely, if certification would still serve a purpose in those types of cases, it should remain part of class proceedings. To assist in making this determination, the position in several European jurisdictions, Ontario and the United States is considered.

scholarly journals Dura’s Effect on Securities Class Actions

2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Scotland M. Duncan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Action ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Ceteris Paribus ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Practical Implications

On April 19, 2005, the United States Supreme Court rendered a unanimous decision in Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo, which had been described as “the most important securities case in a decade.” Simply put, the decision raises the pleading standard for Rule 10b-5 cases asserting fraud-onthe-market; instead of requiring a showing of ex ante losses, such as inflation at the time of purchase, Dura requires a showing of ex post losses, such as market decline resulting from a corrective disclosure. This paper assesses the decision’s practical implications by examining and empirically testing whether the Supreme Court’s enhanced pleading requirements have impacted the frequency and magnitude of post-Reform Act (PSLRA) class action securities cases. Specifically, this paper examines Dura’s effect on the filing and settling of cases, as well as on settlement amount. In particular, the results suggest that Dura, ceteris paribus, has had a statistically significant impact on both the filing and settlement of class actions, suggesting a reduction in frivolous litigation.

Applying the Devil's Works in a Holy Cause: Working-Class Popular Culture and the Salvation Army in the United States, 1879-1900

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-223
Author(s):  
Lillian Taiz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
Salvation Army ◽  
Public Meeting ◽  
The Many ◽  
Sunday Evening

Forty-eight hours after they landed in New York City in 1880, a small contingent of the Salvation Army held their first public meeting at the infamous Harry Hill's Variety Theater. The enterprising Hill, alerted to the group's arrival from Britain by newspaper reports, contacted their leader, Commissioner George Scott Railton, and offered to pay the group to “do a turn” for “an hour or two on … Sunday evening.” In nineteenth-century New York City, Harry Hill's was one of the best known concert saloons, and reformers considered him “among the disreputable classes” of that city. His saloon, they said, was “nothing more than one of the many gates to hell.”

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