The decision in Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles was 9-0, Justice Breyer writing for the Court, and signals’ Justices’ impatience with lawyerly gamesmanship intended to evade CAFA (the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005). I’ve got a short commentary at Cato, which filed an amicus brief on the side that prevailed [decision in PDF, background at SCOTUSBlog, earlier here etc., my new Cato post; more on stage hooks](& SCOTUSBlog, Ted Frank/PoL (“Miller County [Arkansas] trial lawyers had collected hundreds of millions of dollars of legal fees from forum-shopped class-action settlements; the class members whom they purportedly represented likely didn’t even get 10% as much.”))

More: Andrew Trask (“The Supreme Court is envisioning the class action as a procedural aggregation device, rather than a corporate deterrent or a trust-like entity. This is good news for defendants.”); Alison Frankel, Reuters. And I’m quoted on the case in Alex Daniels’ account in the March 20 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (sub-only).

Filed under: Arkansas, Class Action Fairness Act, Supreme Court