a California-centric collection of comments and resources about complex litigation and class action practice
The RICO Trend in Class Action Warfare looks at the use of RICO suits against plaintiffs' counsel in mass action and class action filings, concluding that the tactic incorrectly attacks aggregate litigation procedures rather than specific, underlying fraudulent conduct.
I take this opportunity to say I told you so. "We clarify today that when an attorney fee is awarded out of a common fund preserved or recovered by means of litigation (see Serrano III, supra, at p. 35), the award is not per se unreasonable merely because it is calculated as a percentage of the common fund." Laffitte, et al. v. Robert Half International, Inc., et al., at p. 2 (August 11, 2016). See the rest if you have the time, but this should put an end to the spreading nonsense that lodestar is the method for calculating fees in common fund class action settlements.
The Complex Litigator reports on developments in related areas of class action and complex litigation. It is a resource for legal professionals to use as a tool for examining different viewpoints related to changing legal precedent. H. Scott Leviant is the editor-in-chief and primary author of The Complex Litigator.
