The American Lawyer Publishes Akin Gump Review of the Year in Class Action Law

The American Lawyer has published the article “Assessing an Action-Packed Year in Class Action Law,” written by Akin Gump litigation partner Neal Marder, counsel Andrew Jick, associate Kelly Handschumacher and law clerk Shelly Kim. The article looks at some of the most noteworthy class action court decisions from the past year and their likely impact on litigants and practitioners.

The authors begin with a look at the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court, which held that a California court “lacked jurisdiction over the claims of nonresidents where Bristol-Myers was not a ‘citizen’ of California and the nonresident claims lacked any connection to California.” District courts have diverged on this question, they write, and the issue could eventually have a “major impact on the continued viability of nationwide and multistate class actions.”

The article also addresses a case involving the Telephone Consumer Protection Act as well as a ruling by the Supreme Court in Spokeo v. Robins that plaintiffs asserting claims based on statutory violations must nonetheless satisfy the “concrete injury” requirement of Article III of the Constitution.

Other issues likely to come up in 2019, according to the authors, include the viability and settlement of nationwide class actions, tolling individual claims and state court jurisdiction. Marder, Jick, Handschumacher and Kim conclude by observing that these developments will all surely deliver “additional significant developments in the field of class action litigation.”

To read the full article, please click here.