Litigation
Cal. Litig. 2014, Volume 27, Number 3
Content
- Table of Contents
- Past Editors-in-Chief
- To Demur or Not in Slapp Cases: Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot
- Experiences of a New Lawyer
- A New Aggregate Litigation Model Emerges - Technology-Driven Mass Actions
- Court Reporters Transcripts in a Digital World: Yesterday's Rules Don't Fit Today's Technology
- Summary Contempt and Due Process: England, 1631, California, 1888
- Litigation Section Executive Committee Past Chairs
- Recent Activity in Frivolous Appeals
- Editor's Foreword Show and Tell: Food Fight in the Courtroom
- Have a Voice! Weighing In On Prospective California Judges Through the Jne Commission
- McDermott On Demand: the Rules of Procedure or the Rule of Law?
- Masthead
- From the Section Chair
- Court Filings: Time to Sign Out of the Signature Requirement?
- Letters to the Editor
- Confidence Before the Court: How to Find It
A New Aggregate Litigation Model Emerges – Technology-Driven Mass Actions
By Ray E. Gallo
Today’s technology automates client screening, interviewing, signing, and communications, among other things, enabling the cost-effective mass litigation of smaller cases than ever before.
Plaintiffs’ class action work never has been an easy game, or one for the faint-hearted. But the last few years have brought new impediments to those seeking mass justice. Decisions by the United States Supreme Court have tightened class certification requirements and made it harder to challenge arbitration agreements. (See, e.g., Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes (2011) 131 S.Ct. 2541; AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (2011) 131 S.Ct. 1740.) To those who think wrongs deserve remedies, and that mass wrongs deserve remedies at least as much as one-offs, these decisions are signs of bad times. Like Proposition 64, which narrowed the application of California’s Unfair Competition Law, these rulings impede efforts to hold businesses accountable for wrongs they commit, even where injustice inarguably results. There were always wrongs with no remedy. Now there are more.
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