Assessing the Consequence of Amchem (810F)
As advanced civ pro and global lit students know, in 1997 the US Supreme Court vacated class certification for a proposed asbestos worker class. The broadly written decision was widely interpreted as the death knell for personal injury class actions and thereafter mass personal injury claims shifted onto the multidistrict litigation docket. Yet in years since, at least a handful of federal personal injury class actions have been certified without challenge. In the wake of rising criticism of the MDL process, corporate counsel are wondering whether the class action approach to resolution of these cases was not fairer and less expensive.
For this short turn-around project for the RAND Institute for Civil Justice students will review the Amchem decision, and conduct case studies of the subsequently certified PI class actions, using online sources and potentially interviews with plaintiff and defense lawyers, to assess whether the fears that underlay Amchem were or were not manifested in these later cases. Preliminary findings will be presented at a RAND conference on Oct. 23 and the final report will be published by RAND either as a stand alone document or as a section of RAND’s conference volume 1.
Elements used in grading: Research participation and contributions to final report.
CONSENT APPLICATION: To apply for this course, students must complete and submit a Consent Application Form available at SLS Registrar https://registrar.law.stanford.edu/.