We recently wrote about the Dart Cherokee case — particularly about the pleading standard when it comes to the amount in controversy for the sake of removing a case to federal court. As evidenced by this Forbes editorial, legal commentators have also started taking note of the case. In the editorial, author Rich Samp argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should indeed get to the merits and, in doing so, should reverse the district court’s very narrow construction of the amount in controversy requirement under the Class Action Fairness Act.
In other energy-related class action news, law watchers should be very interested in this lawsuit out of Illinois. The Land of Lincoln has evidently adopted a difficult permitting process before drilling can begin. Some landowners have taken umbrage and responded with a very creative argument: the state’s refusal to grant drilling permits — which, the argument goes, has deprived the landowners of royalty payments — is unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment. It will be interesting to see what the state court facing this argument makes of it.
