Overruling Erie: Nationwide class actions and national common law

University of Pennsylvania Law Review

Volumn 156, Issue 6, 2008, Pages 2135-2142

  Sherry, Suzanna ^a  

^a VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

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EID: 54549088856     PISSN: 00419907     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (43)

1. Pub. L. No. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4 (codified in scattered sections of 28 U.S.C).
2. Linda Silberman, The Role of Choice of Law in National Class Actions, 156 U. PA. L. REV. 2001 (2008).
3. 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 1 (1842).
4. Judith Resnik, Lessons in Federalism from the 1960s Class Action Rule and the 2005 Class Action Fairness Act: "The Political Safeguards" of Aggregate Translocal Actions, 156 U. PA. L. REV. 1929, 1935 (2008).
5. See Stephen B. Burbank, Aggregation on the Couch: The Strategic Uses of Ambiguity and Hypocrisy, 106 COLUM. L. REV. 1924, 1943 & n.129 (2006) ("[T]here is evidence that in enacting CAFA, Congress did not intend to alter the ordering of federal and state lawmaking authority established by Erie v. Tompkins and its progeny.");
6. Stephen B. Burbank, The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 in Historical Context: Preliminary View, 156 U. PA. L. REV. 1439, 1529 (2008) (quoting S. REP. NO. 109-14 (2005) for the proposition that CAFA does not change the application of Erie);
7. Richard L. Marcus, Assessing CAFA's Stated Jurisdictional Policy, 156 U. PA. L. REV. 1765, 1812 (2008) (deeming the argument that CAFA displaces Erie both too broad and too narrow).
8. See Samuel Issacharoff & Catherine M. Sharkey, Backdoor Federalization, 53 UCLA L. REV. 1353, 1419-20 (2006) (explaining that federal courts will need to develop "incremental decisional law").
9. 304 U.S. 64 (1938).
10. By "national-market cases" I mean to invoke Issacharoff's definition of national-market activity: "conduct that arises from mass produced goods entering the stream of commerce with no preset purchaser or destination." Samuel Issacharoff, Settled Expectations in a World of Unsettled Law: Choice of Law After the Class Action Fairness Act, 106 COLUM. L. REV. 1839, 1842 (2006).
11. Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 413 (1821).
12. See Edward A. Purcell, Jr., The Class Action Fairness Act in Perspective: The Old and the New in Federal Jurisdictional Reform, 156 U. PA. L. REV. 1823, 1833 (2008) (explaining that the constitutional framers and ratifiers provided litde rationale for adopting diversity jurisdiction).
13. See, e.g., David Marcus, Erie, the Class Action Fairness Act, and Some Federalism Implications of Diversity Jurisdiction, 48 WM. & MARY L. REV. 1247, 1265-70 (2007) (citing several sources to explain that federal courts were thought to better appreciate the needs of an interstate economy).
14. Linda J. Silberman, Shaffer v. Heitner: The End of an Era, 53 N.Y.U. L. REV. 33, 88 (1978).
15. Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, § 34, 1 Stat. 73, 92 (current version at 28 U.S.C. § 1652).
16. 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (2000).
17. See WILFRED J. RITZ, REWRITING THE HISTORY OF THE JUDICIARY ACT OF 1789, 126-48 (Wythe Holt & L.H. LaRue eds., 1990);
18. Patrick J. Borchers, The Origins of Diversity Jurisdiction, the Rise of Legal Positivism, and a Brave New World for Erie and Klaxon, 72 TEX. L. REV. 79, 105-06 (1993).
19. Ritz, supra note 15, at 148.
20. Id.
21. CAFA § 2(b)(2), 28 U.S.C. § 1711 note (Supp. V 2005).
22. Howard M. Erichson, CAFA's Impact on Class Action Lawyers, 156 U. PA. L. REV. 1593, 1606 (2008).
23. Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Elec. Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487 (1941).
24. Silberman, supra note 2, at 2002.
25. See, e.g., William F. Baxter, Choice of Law and the Federal System, 16 STAN. L. REV. 1, 32-42 (1963); Borchers, supra note 15, at 124-31;
26. Michael H. Gottesman, Draining the Dismal Swamp: The Case for Federal Choice of Law Statutes, 80 GEO. L.J. 1, 23 (1991);
27. Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., Has the Erie Doctrine Been Repealed By Congress?, 156 U. PA. L. REV. 1629 (2008); Issacharoff, supra note 8, at 1865-66;
28. Friedrich K. Juenger, Mass Disasters and the Conflict of Laws, 1989 U. ILL. L. REV. 105, 121-22;
29. Richard A. Nagareda, Aggregation and Its Discontents: Class Settlement Pressure, Class-Wide Arbitration, and CAFA, 106 COLUM. L. REV. 1872, 1918-22 (2006);
30. Richard A. Nagareda, Bootstrapping in Choice of Law After the Class Action Fairness Act, 74 UMKC L. REV. 661, 678-83 (2006).
31. Silberman, supra note 2, at 2033.
32. CAFA § 2(b)(1), 28 U.S.C. § 1711 note.
33. See, e.g., Burbank, Aggregation on the Couch, supra note 5, at 1941-43 (calling the expressed purposes of CAFA "window dressing" to the true goal of preventing the certification of some classes that state courts might certify);
34. Alan B. Morrison, Removing Class Actions to Federal Court: A Better Way To Handle the Problem of Overlapping Class Actions, 57 STAN. L. REV. 1521, 1528-31 (2005) (acknowledging efforts of potential class action defendants - often corporations - to push CAFA through in order to stay out of unfair state courts).
35. 443 U.S. 193 (1979).
36. Id. at 209.
37. Id. at 201-02 (internal citations omitted).
38. Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78-80 (1938).
39. See, e.g., John Hart Ely, The Irrepressible Myth of Erie, 87 HARV. L. REV. 693, 704-05 (1974);
40. Paul J. Mishkin, Some Further Last Words on Erie - the Thread, 87 HARV. L. REV. 1682, 1688 (1974); see also Resnik, supra note 4, at 1943.
41. For a prior example of such judicial innovation followed by successful congressional adoption, see Suzanna Sherry, Haste Makes Waste: Congress and the Common Law in Cyberspace, 55 VAND. L. REV. 309, 312-13 (2002), describing the path from judicial receiverships to federal bankruptcy law.
42. Burbank, Class Action Fairness Act, supra note 5, at 1525-28; Marcus, supra note 5, at 1806.
43. Silberman, supra note 2, at 2023 (internal quotation marks and footnote omitted).