Q&A With Tony Eliseuson: Parens Patriae Actions Under CAFA

On January 14, 2014, the United States Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Fifth Circuit and held that the Class Action Fairness Act's ("CAFA") mass action provision did not provide for jurisdiction over a parens patriae suit filed by the attorney general of Mississippi. State of Mississippi ex rel. Jim Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., Case No. 12-1036 (U.S. Jan. 14, 2014).

This ruling has important consequences for corporations that face class action litigation because it effectively opens up a loophole in CAFA that will allow private class action plaintiff lawyers to file what are essentially private class actions through state attorneys general and keep those cases in state courts that those attorneys view as plaintiff-friendly.  Indeed, the state attorneys general that most often use the parens patriae device in this manner represent some of the same states whose court systems were subject to the class action abuses that led to CAFA's passage in the first place.