Class Action Fairness Act of 2005

Forum matters.

The Class Action Fairness Act, twenty-eight USC section one thousand three hundred thirty-two D, requires an aggregate amount in controversy above dollar five million and at least one hundred class members, so a class would need about five thousand members at the dollar one thousand tier before attorney fees to reach federal court on that basis.

TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez two thousand twenty-one requires every class member seeking damages to show concrete harm, and a member whose file arrived late with no resulting injury may lack standing under Spokeo Inc. v. Robins two thousand sixteen.

RCW forty-nine point one two point two six one one A places the action in Superior Court, which is where most of these claims will stay.

You know, a big case that we had in 1999 was the FinFin litigation.

You know, back in the heyday of class actions, and by heyday, I mean before Congress passed the Class Action Fairness Act You know, you could sue national companies and make a kill, and all you had to do was have a local defendant as well.

So, you know, Fen-Phen was fairly easy to accomplish that 'cause there were doctors in West Virginia that were doing pill mills, just like you hear now about OxyContin.

They were doing the same thing with this diet drug.

So, uh, I know we're all excited to talk about the First Amendment today, uh, but I think we should probably start with jurisdiction because it is, after all, jurisdictional.

Um, so the Class Action Fairness Act was enacted by Congress with a particular purpose.

It was to prevent a litigation gamesmanship tactic that would take class action consumer protection cases against nationwide products and try to get around federal courts by suing with a class of people in a particular state in, um, under that state's law.

And so we passed the Class Action Fairness Act.

But Congress recognized at that time that there are class actions that belong in state court because they deal primarily with, uh, issues and victims in that state.

And so there are a trio of exceptions, uh, two of which are mandatory, that I believe are relevant to, uh, removal in this case.