And they found it. The Litigation Daily talked to several lawyers who said that the Dukes ruling will help the class action defense bar in general. (For more on the Dukes case, you can read some of our prior coverage here and here. Click here for Tony Mauro’s article on Monday’s decision for The National Law Journal.)
Wal-Mart’s lead lawyer, Theodore Boutrous Jr. of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said class action plaintiffs of all stripes will now face greater obstacles. “This will apply to all cases,” Boutrous said. “All nine justices agreed that. . . when monetary relief is involved, courts have to apply the stricter standard in Rule 23(b)(3) [of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure].” (That rule requires that a class action be “superior” to other methods of adjudication, among other things.) Also, Boutrous pointed out, expert testimony at the class certification stage will now be scrutinized more rigorously than it has in a lot of courts, thanks to the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Wal-Mart plaintiffs experts’ testimony on discrimination practices.
