New! H2O now has access to new and up-to-date cases via CourtListener and the Caselaw Access Project. Click here for more info.

Main Content

Casebook Read Credits
Corporations
Resource 10 . 1 . 1
30 minutes

Basic Inc. et al. v. Levinson et al.

Holger Spamann

  1. How does the fraud-on-the-market theory relate to reliance? Why is this important for class certification?
  2. According to the fraud-on-the-market theory, who relies on what? Why do they trade?
  3. What social good, if any, do private securities fraud class actions generate? In other words, what is the policy justification, if any, for allowing this costly litigation to proceed?
  4. In particular, how does the measure of damages relate to the social harm (as opposed to the private harm suffered by a subset of traders)?

Supreme Court of the United States
485 U.S. 224, 99 L. Ed. 2d 194, 108 S. Ct. 978, SCDB 1987-046, 1988 U.S. LEXIS 1197
No. 86-279
1988-03-07

This book, and all H2O books, are Creative Commons licensed for sharing and re-use with the exception of certain excerpts. Any excerpts from the Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, and the Model Penal Code are copyright by The American Law Institute. Excerpts are reproduced with permission, not as part of a Creative Commons license.