Jackson v. Unocal Corp.

At issue in this land damages class action are the standards a trial court applies when deciding whether to certify a class pursuant to C.R.C.P. 28. C.R.C.P. 28 provides trial courts with a procedural tool for consolidating claims and managing them as a class action. The rule provides that the class certification decision must be made "(als soon as practicable" and "may be conditional." C.R.C.P. 28(c). In this appeal, we clarify three aspects of the class certification procedure. First, due to the fact-driven nature of class certification, a trial court must rigorously analyze the evidence…