Class Action

Wide Range Of Class Action Filed During Past Week But Labor Law Class Action Filings Maintain Top Spot Of New Class Action Lawsuits Filed In California State And Federal Courts

By Michael J. Hassen

To assist class action defense attorneys anticipate the types of cases against which they may have to defend in California, we provide weekly, unofficial summaries of the legal categories for new class action lawsuits filed in California state and federal courts in the 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 relevant timeframe. This report covers the time period from April 16 - 22, 2010, during which time 49 new class actions were filed in these California state and federal courts. Labor law class actions generally account for more than half of the new class action filings in any particular week, though has not been true for the past several weeks. During this past week, a wide range of class actions were filed but only 16 of them were labor law class actions, representing only 33% of the total number of new class actions filed. The only other categories to break the 10% threshold involved class actions alleging violations of California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL), which includes false advertising claims, with 7 new filings (representing 14% of the total number of new class actions filed), class actions alleging violations of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), with 6 new filings (12% of the total number of new class actions filed) and 5 class actions (10% of the total number of new class actions filed) alleging antitrust violations, each of which were transferred into California as part of the In re Optical Disk Drive Products Antitrust Litigation action.

Full post as published by Class Action Defense Blog on April 24, 2010 (boomark / email).