BNA "Class Actions Moving To Federal Courts As Result Of New Legislation, Study Shows", Legal News, Volume 75, No. 10, Sept. 19, 2006.

As previously reported by the CAFA Law Blog, the Federal Judicial Center, the research arm of the federal judiciary, conducted a study over the six month period following the enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act that showed a substantial increase in class action filings and transfers to federal court. This BNA article provides a concise summary of the study’s results and just enough background to put it in context.

If you missed our first analysis on this study, here is a quick summary: The study examined over 10,000 class action filings in federal district courts from July 1, 2001- June 30, 2005. After CAFA’s enactment date, February 18, 2005, the percentage of class actions removed to federal court increased from 18% to 23 %. From February 18, 2005- June 30, 2005, the percentage of class actions filed in federal district courts decreased from 82% to 77%. Contract based cases increased by 4.5 %, however tort claims have only increased 4 %, not a statistically significant increase, according to the study.

Stay tuned for the FJC’s next report in the Spring of 2007 (we don’t know about you, but we can’t wait)  analyzing class actions filed or removed to federal court between July 1, 2005- June 30, 2006.

Bottom Line: If you are not familiar with the FJC study showing that CAFA is actually having it’s intended effect, this article will provided you with a high altitude look at the study’s results.