Mary Kay Kane

Group Actions in Civil Procedure: The United States Experience

This report has been prepared for purposes of the XIII Congress of Comparative Law to be held in Montreal, Canada in August, 1990. As summarized in a report by Professors Cappelletti and Garth following the Wurzberg Congress in 1983,1 in the United States four different types of group actions exist and encourage the enforcement of both private and public rights. They include: parens patriae suits by state governments who are allowed to sue for injuries suffered by their citizens;2 actions brought by organizations, some formal and highly structured, such as labor unions, and others less formal and organized for the purposes of fostering certain social or public policies, such as various environmental and consumer groups;3 public actions brought by administrative agencies, such as the Securities Exchange Commission or the Department of Justice, who are charged with ensuring the enforcement of laws within their jurisdiction; and private actions brought as class actions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 or various state counterparts.4 Although each of these forms of group actions continues to be utilized in the United States, the major recent developments that have produced the most observable strain on the existing system involve increased attempts to use private class actions5 to provide