The emerging judicial hostility to the typical damages model employed by plaintiffs in securities class action lawsuits

In securities class action lawsuits, it is not uncommon for plaintiffs' counsel to proffer expert testimony in support of their claims that the respective shareholder classes have been damaged in amounts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Recently, however, the damages model typically employed by the plaintiffs' bar in securities class actions has been subjected to renewed judicial scrutiny. This Article suggests that several recent court decisions reflect the judiciary's growing intolerance for the untested, speculative nature of the plaintiffs' damages model. In light of this increasing judicial skepticism, defendants may well elect to press their challenges to the model's more sweeping assumptions, suspect methodologies, and dubious conclusions.