More than a year after its enactment, the Class Action Fairness Act has largely succeeded in forcing potentially costly class actions out of state courts and into federal courts—but procedural battles over keeping litigation in the federal system have made defending such cases more expensive, at least for the time being.
“CAFA has raised the cost to both plaintiffs and defendants by 10 to 30 percent, depending on the case and who’s involved,” says Anthony Rollo of the law firm McGlinchey Stafford. “Congress’ objective is being met in the sense that more class action suits are filed in federal court or going to be removed to federal court, but part of the transaction cost of that broad objective is the friction that comes from litigating each of these little jurisdictional provisions.”
