Class Action (class + action)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Terms modified by Class Action

  • class action settlement

  • Selected Abstracts


    Toxic Torts, Politics, and Environmental Justice: The Case for Crimtorts,

    LAW & POLICY, Issue 2 2004
    THOMAS H. KOENIG
    The borderline between criminal and tort law has been increasingly blurred over the past quarter century by the emergence of new "crimtort" remedies which have evolved to deter and punish corporate polluters. Punitive damages, multiple damages, and other "crimtort" remedies are under unrelenting assault by neo-conservatives principally because, under this paradigm, the punishment for wrongdoing can be calibrated to the wealth of the polluter. If wealth-based punishment is eliminated by the "tort reformers," plaintiffs' victories in crimtort actions such as those portrayed in the movies Silkwood, A Class Action, and Erin Brockovich will become an endangered species. [source]


    Product Liability: Beyond Class Action

    AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 4 2000
    Dan Sasaki
    Can punitive product liability enhance economic efficiency? A very simple economic theory, assuming that the probability and the degree of product dissatisfaction are functions only of the producer's not of the consumer's effort, is modelled and analysed in this paper. The qualitative conclusion hinges critically upon whether the legal liability is reflected on price determination. If the price of the product is insensitive to product liability legislation, then punitive liability beyond the class action (i.e., compensatory payments more than proportional representation of potentially dissatisfied consumers) can induce socially desirable levels of effort exerted by the producer firm. This affirmative effect disappears if the price fully reflects all the expected legal liabilities, whereby punitive liability tends to reduce economic efficiency by encouraging costly lawsuit. [source]


    Texas launches new hurricane insurance mediation program

    ALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, Issue 11 2009
    Russ Bleemer
    Riccardo Buizza, of Milan, Italy, updates the status of legislation on new Italian class action and mediation laws. Also: a new Texas-sponsored hurricane relief mediation program opens. [source]


    The Production of Commons and the "Explosion" of the Middle Class

    ANTIPODE, Issue 4 2010
    Massimo De Angelis
    Abstract:, This paper builds on the author's previous theoretical work on the role of processes such as enclosures, market discipline and governance. It discusses the middle class in terms of a stratified field of subjectivity within the planetary wage hierarchy produced by these processes. It discusses the thesis that the middle class, qua middle class, will never be able to contribute to bring about a fundamental change in the capitalist system of livelihood reproduction. The production in common centered on middle class values,however historically and culturally specific they are,is always production in common within the system. Our common action as middle class action, whether as consumers, workers, or citizens, reproduces the system of value and value hierarchy that is the benchmark, the referent point for our cooperation. The paper then discusses some of the implications of the conundrum faced by those who seek alternatives: there will be no "beginning of history" without the middle class, nor there will be one with the middle class. [source]


    Product Liability: Beyond Class Action

    AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 4 2000
    Dan Sasaki
    Can punitive product liability enhance economic efficiency? A very simple economic theory, assuming that the probability and the degree of product dissatisfaction are functions only of the producer's not of the consumer's effort, is modelled and analysed in this paper. The qualitative conclusion hinges critically upon whether the legal liability is reflected on price determination. If the price of the product is insensitive to product liability legislation, then punitive liability beyond the class action (i.e., compensatory payments more than proportional representation of potentially dissatisfied consumers) can induce socially desirable levels of effort exerted by the producer firm. This affirmative effect disappears if the price fully reflects all the expected legal liabilities, whereby punitive liability tends to reduce economic efficiency by encouraging costly lawsuit. [source]


    U.S.-style class actions for France?

    JOURNAL OF CORPORATE ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 6 2006
    James D. Rosener
    International business may have to cope with something new: U.S.-style class-action lawsuits may be coming to France. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


    The Screening Effect of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act

    JOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2009
    Stephen J. Choi
    Prior research shows that the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA) increased the significance of merit-related factors in determining the incidence and outcomes of securities fraud class actions (Johnson et al. 2007). We examine two possible explanations for this finding: the PSLRA may have reduced the incidence of nonmeritorious litigation, or it may have changed the definition of merit, effectively precluding claims that would have survived and produced a settlement pre-PSLRA. We find no evidence that pre-PSLRA claims that settled for nuisance value would be less likely to be filed under the PSLRA regime. There is evidence, however, that pre-PSLRA nonnuisance claims would be less likely to be filed under the PSLRA regime. The latter result, which we refer to as the screening effect, is particularly pronounced for claims lacking hard evidence of securities fraud or abnormal insider trading. We find only limited evidence of a similar screening effect for case outcomes. [source]


    Claims firm overpays tens of millions,and then gets most of it back

    ALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, Issue 2 2008
    Russ Bleemer
    A Brooklyn, N.Y. federal court judge presides over a claims resolution facility that he had ordered to retrieve nearly $60 million in misdirected payments. A negotiation-style conference in the middle of the courtroom retraced the steps of the missing money, and how most of it had been returned in less than a month. Also: Italian law officially changes to allow class actions, providing for an "ADR Chamber of Reconciliation" to hash out payments. [source]