Publication | ICLG Class and Group Actions Laws and Regulations 2021
The Use of Statistical Evidence in Class Action Litigation
E. Allen Jacobs, Kelly Lear Nordby, Michael J. McDonald, and Dubravka Tosic
E. Allen Jacobs, Kelly Lear Nordby, Michael McDonald, and Dubravka Tosic contributed a chapter in ICLG’s Class and Group Actions Laws and Regulations 2021.
In the US, the decision of whether to certify a class, or how to determine the appropriate class, is determined increasingly by statistical evidence generated by economic and statistical methods. This article will discuss analytical methods used to provide statistical evidence in US antitrust, commercial, consumer product, and employment class action litigation and the standards established by recent court decisions with respect to the acceptance of the statistical evidence. The methods discussed, which are not without controversy, include statistical sampling, consumer surveys, regression analysis, and statistical tests.