When I was in practice, I worked on a number of cases alleging violations of Section 11 of the Securities Act, but none that had been filed in state court.  (For which I was profoundly grateful; I was always bemused by the fact that I needed to get pro hac’d into federal courts around the country but I was vastly more familiar with their rules and practices than with those of the New York State courts, notwithstanding my admission to the New York State bar).

So, to be honest, I never had any strong feelings about whether plaintiffs should have the right to pursue Section 11 class actions in state court, or whether the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act should be interpreted to permit defendants to remove such cases.  And I didn’t spare much attention when the Supreme Court recently held in Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund that defendants cannot remove them.

But Michael Klausner, Jason Hegland, Carin LeVine, and Sarah Leonard just posted a short empirical analysis of state Section 11 class actions, and the results have captured my interest.  First, they find – unsurprisingly – there has been an increase in state Section 11 filings since Cyan was decided, and very often, state litigation is accompanied by a parallel federal case filed by a competing set of plaintiffs.  Second, they conclude that the state cases are dismissed on the pleadings at far lower rates than federal cases (though the data is a bit muddy; they exclude from analysis any federal cases with a simultaneous Section 10(b) component, which means they may be excluding cases that appear more fraudulent and thus are – perhaps – stronger).  They also analyze settlement sizes and find little difference between federal and state cases, with the caveat that Cyan may have effects further down the road (they also exclude cases filed prior to 2014 to avoid the effects of the financial crisis, which may also distort results).

So this is definitely a fruitful area to keep an eye on – especially with the looming battle over whether the PSLRA discovery stay applies in state court proceedings. See Wendy Gerwick Couture, Cyan, Reverse-Erie, and the PSLRA Discovery Stay in State Court, 47 Sec. Reg. L.J. 21 (2019); see also Post-Cyan Ruling on Discovery Stay.