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Palmer v. Friendly Ice Cream Corp.

This appeal in the Supreme Court of Connecticut concerned the extent to which consumers and other plaintiffs can obtain review of decisions denying certification of a class action. Working with Connecticut lawyer Dan Blinn, we represented restaurant workers complaining of violations of the state minimum-wage laws, whose attempts to certify a class had been rebuffed. We argued that all of the relevant considerations — the efficiency rationales of class action litigation, the separate and distinct nature of the class action proceeding, the risk that denials of certification will constitute the “death knell” of the litigation, and the need to protect the rights of absent plaintifs — favored allowing immediate appeals. Public Citizen argued the appeal on September 2007. In February 2008, the court released an opinion adopting the majority rule and denying immediate appeals from class-certification orders.