Class Actions in the Second Circuit: Do Plaintiffs Have Unfair Advantage?

Last month, in Roach v. T.L. Cannon Corp., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a district court’s order that denied certification of a class of restaurant employees alleging labor-law violations. Roach is an important decision for class-action lawyers who practice in the Second Circuit, as it held that classes may (sometimes) be certified even if the assessment of damages will require individualized, person-by-person fact-finding. But perhaps as significant as Roach’s holding was a single, easy-to-miss sentence in its standard-of-review paragraph: "We review a district court’s class certification determination for abuse of discretion, applying a ‘noticeably less deferential’ standard when the district court has denied class certification."

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