INTRODUCTION
For the last several years, the life sciences industry has been
fertile ground for class action and aggregate litigation.
Developments in this area have driven several trends, including
state consumer fraud claims, securities class actions, antitrust
class actions, and aggregate litigation brought by private
healthcare insurers and state attorneys general. These recent
trends have been driven, in part, by legislative and doctrinal
developments. For example, in 2005—based on legislative
findings of abuse in class action practice in state
courts—Congress enacted the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA),
permitting defendants to remove to federal court putative class
actions that previously may have been subject to less stringent
standards in state court. In Standard Fire Insurance Co. v.
Knowles,1 the U.S. Supreme Court held that a
plaintiff's stipulation that he would not accept more than $5
million in damages could not be used to avoid CAFA's amount
