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

Author(s):  
Enrique Fernández Fernández

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.

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alon Klement ◽  
Robert Klonoff

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.


1969 ◽  
pp. 295
Author(s):  
Vince Morabito

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.


1983 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Jolowicz

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
Brian T. Fitzpatrick

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.


2004 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 579-604
Author(s):  
Jeff Berryman

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.


Koedoe ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Van Riet

Definition of the Concept "Wilderness"The Wilderness Act of September 1964, of the United States of America, states that "... wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognised as an area where the earth and its community of life are not influenced by man and where man himself is a visitor who does not remain55 (Nash 1967). The Act also states that a wilderness "... must retain its primeval character and influence and that it must be protected and managed in such a way that it appears to have been effected primarily by the forces of nature.”


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