People who follow class action litigation are doubtless familiar with the “smelly washer” cases (see also here and here). The Sixth Circuit and the Seventh Circuit (per Judge Posner) allowed consumer class actions based on alleged washing machine design defects to go forward, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the cases for reconsideration in light of the hugely important Comcast Corp. v. Behrend decision (written by Justice Scalia), and the lower court panels reaffirmed their pre-remand decisions.
Now the cases are going back up to the Court, courtesy of two petitions (Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Butler and Whirlpool Corp. v. Glazer) filed by my colleagues at Mayer Brown LLP. It’ll be interesting to see what the Justices will do with these; see here for an admittedly opinionated analysis of the matter, from one of the coauthors of the petitions.