Class Actions—The Nebraska Procedure

The class action represents an exception to the fundamental legal principle "that one is not bound by a judgment in personam in a litigation in which he is not designated as a party or to which he has not been made a party by service of process." Invented by the courts of equity, class actions were preserved by the drafters of the Field Code by an amendment adopted in 1849. Nebraska remains one of the few states that continue to use procedural statutes based on the Field Code, and its class action statute, section 25-319 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes, is almost identical to the class action provision of the Field Code. This article will first briefly discuss the historical development of class actions. It will then analyze the Nebraska statute and relevant case law, with particular emphasis on the types of class actions that are maintainable under Nebraska law.

This article shows that the Nebraska class action statute is much more restrictive than Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and has seldom been applied by the Nebraska Supreme Court in a manner favorable to the plaintiff.