Stare decisis ruled the day at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a price-fixing case against makers of liquid-crystal display panels, even if not all the judges were particularly happy about it. In an 18-page decision, the appellate court ruled that a group of LCD makers could remove the litigation from state to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act, even though the case was brought by Mississippi’s attorney general and not by a proposed class of LCD purchasers.
Mississippi’s AG sued AU Optronics Corporation, Hitachi, LG Display Company, Samsung Electronics, Sharp Electronics Corporation, Toshiba Corporation and other LCD makers in March 2011, alleging that they conspired to fix prices in violation of state consumer protection and antitrust laws. The defendants sought to transfer the case to federal court under CAFA, which was passed in 2005 to clamp down on forum-shopping and provides that suits brought on behalf of more than 100 plaintiffs qualify as “mass actions” and can be removed to federal court.
