Bending in the Breeze: American Class Actions in the Twenty-First Century

It is always better to have breeze at your back, but that surely has not recently been case for class action proponents. At risk of overstating, there is certain fin de siecle flavor to current procedural discussions, at least among academics; it seems that several foundational principles of late twentieth century procedural ordering have come under attack in twenty-first century. Although not alone among those principles, class actions have prominent role. Dean Robert Klonoff has recently written of The Decline of Class Actions, and Professor Linda Mullenix has written of Ending Class Actions as We Know Them. Professor Arthur Miller-who was present at creation of modern class action-has suggested that we face the death of aggregate litigation by thousand paper cuts. But he, at least, sees some rays of light that indicate it will survive. It is likely an overstatement to claim that any of these prominent academics foresees imminent demise of American class But as we shall see, lawyers sometimes view things in more apocalyptic terms. At same time, most or all would probably agree with Judge Boyle about increasing headwinds that plaintiffs face.Without questioning in least idea that proponents of class action have suffered some reverses recently, I intend to argue that Professor Miller's optimism about American aggregate litigation is justified. Like Confucius' green reed, class action is likely to bend in breeze and survive current, cold climate. In significant part, this attitude stems from an appreciation of exceptional character of American class actions in particular and American bench and bar in general. As Professor Christopher Hodges of Oxford began his study of European techniques for affording relief in court to groups, lawmakers in Europe sought to avoid a US-style court-based mechanism. And Canadian Professor Janet Walker introduced an international panel on group litigation in Moscow by noting that everyone, at least outside United States, seems also to agree that they do not want to adopt U.S.-style class actions in their legal systems.Against this background, it does not seem that American aggregate litigation in general, and class actions in particular, are in danger of extinction. Indeed, one book published in 2014 on European group litigation worries in its title whether they-compared to American aggregate litigation-are squeaking mice, and Dean Klonoff has recently explained why most nations do not have U.S.-style class actions.

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