Wednesday, November 28, 2007

JDS Uniphase Wins Class Action Trial

The fact that the JDSU class action was going to trial was big news a while back, since so few class actions make it to a jury.

The bigger news is that there was a defense verdict. JDSU and its four executives who were named in the suit received a complete win, with the jury denying the plaintiff's 18 billion (no typo) in damage claims.

Maybe some of these "indefensible" class actions really are defensible? Maybe, just maybe, there needs to be a re-examination of the common wisdom that large cases, the "bet the company" type of cases have to settle.