by Brian Wolfman
The Federal Judicial Center (FJC) has just released the most recent in a series of reports to the Federal Civil Rules Advisory Committee concerning the operation of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA). Read the report here. The report represents the beginning of phase two of the FJC's study on CAFA, which will concentrate on litigation activity and outcomes in class actions filed before and after CAFA. This initial report examines a sample of diversity class actions filed in or removed to federal courts in the two years before CAFA's effective date.
It seemed clear when CAFA was enacted that the law would have its intended jurisdictional effect: comparatively more diversity class actions would end up in federal court as opposed to state court. To be sure, it is important to know whether the total number of filings was affected by CAFA. But the bigger question, to me, is what affect CAFA has had on class certification decisions, settlements, fees, and other case outcomes.This strikes me as a really hard question to answer, and I'm glad that the FJC is trying to do it.
We hope to have a guest post next week by one of the report's authors.
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