June 20, 2014
Dougls J. McNamara co-authored, “Reexamining the Seventh Amendment Argument Against Issue Certification,” 34 Pace Law Review, 1041 (2014), along with Blake Boghosian, George Washington University Law School, and Leila Aminpour, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Issue certification is a controversial means of handling aggregate claims in Federal Courts. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) 23(c)(4) provides that “[w]hen appropriate, an action may be brought or maintained as a class action with respect to particular issues.” Issue certification has returned to the radar screen of academics, class action counsel,
and defendants. The Supreme Court’s decision regarding the need for viable damage distribution models in Comcast v. Behrend may spur class counsel in complex cases to bifurcate liability and damages. The successes of tobacco-injury plaintiffs in Florida’s Engle v. Liggett Group cases show that personal injury actions can make use of issue class actions.
Read Reexamining the Seventh Amendment Argument Against Issue Certification.