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When a product is recalled, class action lawsuits are not the only threat. Recalled products can also give rise to droves of individual actions. This is the case for Exactech, Inc., a manufacturer of implants, instruments, and technologies for joint replacement.

Following an initial pause in elective procedures at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of hip arthroplasty surgeries has grown at a steady pace. These procedures commonly use acetabular liners to increase the stability of the total hip arthroplasty. Now, Exactech, a manufacturer of acetabular liners, is under fire nine months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) announced a Class II recall of the Exactech Connexion GXL acetabular polyethylene liner in June 2021. A Class II recall involves situations in which consumers may experience temporary or medically reversible health consequences or the likelihood of serious adverse health consequences is remote.
Continue Reading Recall Litigation Report: Exactech Joint Replacement Products

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Recent years have seen federal courts applying increased scrutiny to proposed “multistate” class actions that invoke a hodgepodge of state consumer-protection laws. The main reason: The variations among these state laws are not only extensive but often case-determinative, preventing class representatives from proving their claims on a classwide basis.

These decisions have, in turn, raised another question that has divided judges, commentators, and practitioners: Does the same high bar apply to the certification of nationwide classes that are purely vehicles for settlement—meaning that the court will never have to address the practical and legal difficulties of managing an actual classwide trial involving fifty (or more) state laws? In late January the Ninth Circuit weighed in to answer that it does, in a potentially seminal opinion that could, in the words of one dissenting judge, strike a “major blow” to multistate class action settlements.

Continue Reading Don’t Settle for Less: Ninth Circuit Rules That Courts Must Consider Variations Among State Laws Before Certifying Nationwide Settlement Classes

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© iStock

Last month, our colleague Joshua Foust analyzed the then-newly introduced Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017.  The bill, sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), amends procedures used in federal court class action and mass tort litigation.  Last week, on March 9, just one month after Chairman Goodlatte (R-VA) introduced the bill, the full House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 220-201.  The legislation will now be considered by the Senate.   

Now that the bill has passed the House, we have drafted an alert providing additional analysis. Click here to read the alert on Crowell.com or read below.

The U.S. House Sets Out To Reform Class and Mass Actions

Continue Reading Update: Class Action Reform Bill Passes House 220-201

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Just a week before Congress began its first extended recess of 2017, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee took a step towards dramatically changing the landscape of class action litigation. On Thursday, February 9, Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) introduced a bill (H.R. 985) that would “amend the procedures used in Federal court class actions” by adding a number of new hurdles to class certification in federal court.

Chairman Goodlatte was a principal author of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, which considerably expanded federal diversity jurisdiction over interstate class actions. He was also behind another class action reform bill introduced in 2015 that failed to clear the Senate. His new bill, dubbed the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017, is in much the same vein—and, if passed, would represent the most sweeping revision of federal class action law to date.

Highlights from the bill:
Continue Reading Class Dismissed? New House Bill Could Transform Federal Class Action Law

In a pro-business and pro-arbitration decision, the United States Supreme Court on April 27 struck down as preempted by federal law the California rule that class arbitration waivers in consumer adhesion contracts are unconscionable and thus unenforceable.  The Court’s decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. ___ (2011), hinged on Section 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), which provides that agreements to arbitrate are “valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.”  In a 5-4 decision, the divided Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Scalia, concluded that the FAA prohibits states from conditioning the enforceability of certain arbitration agreements on the availability of class arbitration procedures.  The majority reaffirmed its recent pro-arbitration leanings, while at the same time seeming to reject arbitration as an appropriate venue for class claims.

The named plaintiffs, Vincent and Liza Concepcion, alleged that they entered into an agreement with AT&T Mobility LLC to purchase mobile phone service that was advertised as including free phones.  The Concepcions sought to represent a class of AT&T Mobility customers and alleged that AT&T Mobility had engaged in false advertising by charging sales tax based on the value of the phones it advertised as free.Continue Reading Supreme Court Upholds Arbitration Agreement Waiving Customers’ Ability to Bring Class Actions