The number of class actions filed in California state courts climbed by about 39 percent between 2000 and 2005, but the passage of the federal Class Action Fairness Act in 2005 likely means that local superior courts now see fewer class actions come through their doors, according to a report released Wednesday by the state Administrative Office of the Courts.
The report is the first of four that the AOC hopes to publish about class action litigation trends in California.
We pull out some of the interesting bits about these old class actions, after the jump ...
The study covered 12 superior courts that account for about three-quarters of the state's unlimited civil filings: Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma, and Ventura. Other highlights from the report:
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There were 460 class action filings in 2000 and 833 in 2004. In 2005, the year the CAFA passed, that number dropped to 751.
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But the study downplays the effect of the CAFA, which went into effect on Feb. 18, 2005, but allows that the act does appear to have had an impact. The CAFA made it easier for cases to be removed from state to federal court. The number of class action filings in 2005 declined by 9.8 percent from 2004, but the study suggests that the slow-down could represent “normalization” from the 29.5 percent filing jump that occurred over the previous year.
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More than half of the class actions (56.7%) were employment or business tort cases, and while filing trends for most categories were level or on the decline by 2005, employment class actions jumped up -- from 29 filings in 2000 to 120 in 2005.
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Of the 1,294 class actions that had reached a "disposition" by mid-2007, only 0.7 percent ended with a trial verdict. The caveat here is that the study counted many stages in the life of a class action as a “disposition,” including removal to federal court, consolidation and coordination.
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The average time a case lasted until “disposition” was 16 months.
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Settlement was the end of the road for about 31.9 percent of the studied class actions and was the most common type of disposition. Rounding out the other most likely outcomes were: dismissed with prejudice (16.8%), dismissed without prejudice (12.6%), coordinated (10.9%), removed to federal court (9.4%), consolidated (9.3%) and summary judgment for the defendant (3.9%). Those cases most likely to end in settlement were construction defect, employment and securities claims, while those least likely to settle were civil rights, antitrust and product liability claims.
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Attorneys were paying close attention to the CAFA, the study suggests. Thirty-two class actions were filed in the four days before it became law, with 12 coming the day before –- the largest single-day filing number the study could find.
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The percentage of class actions that were removed to federal court increased, from 6.6 percent between January 2000 and January 2005 to 19.2 percent in the months after the CAFA became law. That increased removal rate meant that each superior court in the study handled about nine fewer class actions in 2005 than they did each year before it.
— Evan Hill
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