Class Action

No Surprise...Labor Law Class Action Lawsuits Hold Top Spot Of Weekly Class Action Lawsuits Filed In California State And Federal Courts

By Michael J. Hassen

In order to allow defense attorneys anticipate the types of class actions against which they will have to defend in California, we provide weekly, unofficial summaries of the legal categories for new class action lawsuits filed in the California state and federal courts located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, San Diego, San Mateo, Oakland/Alameda and Orange County areas. We include only those categories that include 10% or more of the class action filings during the preceding week. This report covers the period from January 30 - February 5, 2009, during which time 47 new class action lawsuits were filed. As we regularly remind readers, labor law class actions generally top the list of new class action filings -- often by a wide margin. This trend proved particuarly true this past week, with the filing of 24 new class action lawsuits alleging employment-related claims (51% of the total number of new class actions filed during the past week). While two other categories satisfied the 10% threshold, the numbers pale in comparison: there were 6 new class actions alleging violations of federal antitrust (13%), and there were 5 class actions alleging violations of California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL), which includes false advertising claims (11%).

Full post as published by Class Action Defense Blog on February 07, 2009 (boomark / email).