Elizabeth J. Cabraser · October 2014
82 GEO. WASH. L. REV. ARGUENDO 82 (2014)
This Essay surveys the recent class certification decisions authored by Judge Posner, reaching the following conclusions: (1) Judge Posner has postulated a practical test for predominance and defined precisely the purpose and policy of the class action in factual terms, and (2) he has done so without resource to analyses of politics or corporate governance, and without agonizing over inadequate representatives or disloyal agents. Together, this Essay argues, these Posner opinions provide a superficially paradoxical yet reasonably consistent account of how class actions can succeed, and why they fail. Every class action proponent should be sure to review them, take them to heart, take the medicines they prescribe as directed, and quote them profusely.
