Summary
Sonia Motomayor authored the most radical class action certification decision in US history in 2001. In an antitrust lawsuit by Wal-Mart and other retailers against Visa and MasterCard, she upheld a lower court decision that created the first class action ever between two industroies crucial to the US economy -- 6 million retailers vs. 10,000 bank issues of credit cards. In doing so, she also radically lowered the standards plaintiffs must meet to obtain a certification of a class. Oddly, she based her decision on a class standard for discrimination cases. Her decision was so radical that her court, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, several years later totally repudiated her decision. Sotomayer's decision made the 2nd Circuit the easiest in the US to get a certification. The decision that reversed hers was so sharp that it made the 2nd Circuit the hardest for certifications.
Analysis
Sotomayer's class certiofication decision underlines press reports to the effect that she will often decide cases not on the law or Constitutional principles but in favor of her political leanings, which favor plaintiffs against business interests and especially lawyers who file class actions. Her decision in the Wal-Mart/Visa case suggest a judicial philosophy that favors allowing judges to set legal policies in disregard of statutes. President Obama calls it a sense of "empathy".
