The ink is starting to dry on the Pioneer Electronics decision, and there is already plenty of commentary to read.
- The UCL Practitioner sees it as a very pro-class action case.
- CalBizLit, which we might add to the blogroll, says "I think there are occasions, and consumer information, that can be distinguished. But my goodness, you can't call this a defense win" but called the ruling one that allowed" fishing for plaintiffs." I don't read the case that broadly, but maybe someday I'll want to fish for a plaintiff and I'll try to use Pioneer Electronics to do it. We'll see then whether the defense bar thinks it can be used to fish for plaintiffs.
- Overlawyered, which might still be waiting to see the first lawsuit it thinks has merit, compared and contrasted this case with a stripper's privacy case.
- The San Francisco Chronicle observed that this was also a victory for plaintiffs in employment and civil rights cases.
- Mofo was quick to put up an alert declaring that "although the Pioneer Electronics decision reaffirms a trial court’s broad discretion to weigh and balance the competing interests in the cases before them, the case likely will present the starting point from which they will perform their analysis."
Before the oral argument was conducted in Pioneer Electronics, we did not know a single defense lawyer who professed any concern about this case. Even after the argument, which we thought telegraphed at least a 7-2 decision in favor of the plaintiffs (it actually ended up a unanimous opinion), most defense lawyers told me they thought the Court of Appeal decision would be affirmed. In that respect, this decision feels a lot like the Sav-On class certification case felt. Defense firms are expressing the same confidence in Murphy, and once again, we are among the minority of optimists. Hopefully, that decision will be out some time in 2007.
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