1 Cappelletti, M., Le pouvoir des juges, Economica, Paris, 1999, at p. 61; from the same author, ‘Vindicating the Public Interest through the Courts: a Comparativist's Contribution, (25) Buffalo Law Review, 1975, pp. 643-690.Google Scholar

2 Terminology used by the EC Commission in its 2013 Recommendations on Common Principles for Injunctive and Compensatory Collective Redress Mechanism in the Member States Concerning Violations of Rights Granted under Union Law, (21), 2013/396/EU, 11 June 2013.

3 Public Consultation (EC), ‘Towards a Coherent European Approach to Collective Redress’, 2011, http://www.ec.europa.eu/competition/consultations/2011_collective_redress/index_en.html (see specifically Question 23: ‘What role should be given to the judge in collective redress proceedings?’).

4 Recommendation (EC), supra note 3; see also: EU Parliament, Resolution ‘Towards a Coherent Approach to Collective Redress’, 2 February 2012.

5 Biard, A.P. & Visscher, L.T., ‘Judges and Mass Litigation: Revisiting the Judicial Cathedral through Rational Choice Theory and Behavioural Economics’, Aansprakelijkheid, Verzekering & Schade, 2014/7, pp. 39–48 Google Scholar.

6 Le Monde, ‘L’Europe à l’épreuve des tribunaux’, interview with A.Vosskuhle, 1 October 2012, translation from the author (his remark was made in a context different than the one hereafter described).

7 ‘Judges do not count’.

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13 C. Eliacheff & D. Soulez-Lariviere, Le Temps des Victimes, Albin Michel, Paris, 2006, 293 p.

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28 B.A. Spellman, ‘On The Supposed Expertise of Judges in Evaluating Evidence’,(157) University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2007.

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36 Arndt, J. & al., ‘Terror Management in the Courtroom: Exploring the Effects of Mortality Salience on Legal Decision-Making’, (11) Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 2005, n°3, pp. 407–438 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also: Jones, M.B. and Wiener, R.L., ‘Effects of Mortality Salience on Capital Punishment Sentencing Decisions’, (33) Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 2011, pp. 167–181 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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39 D.L. Hamilton & S.J. Sherman, supra note 38.

40 Idem.

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44 D.L. Hamilton & S.J Sherman, supra note 38.

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46 Tversky, A. and Redelmeier, R.A., ‘Discrepancy between Medical Decisions for Individuals Patients and for Groups’, (322) The New England Journal of Medicine, 1990, pp. 1162–1165 Google Scholar.

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48 A.E. Tenbrunsel & al., ‘Unethical behaviour directed toward group versus individuals: The Role of Target Type In Promoting Misrepresentation’, unpublished manuscript (cited in: Kogut, T. and Ritov, I., ‘The Singularity Effect of Identified Victims in Separate and Joint Evaluations’, (97) Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 200, pp. 106–116 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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53 Yeazell, S.C., ‘Collective Litigation as Collective Action’, University of Illinois Law Review, 1989, pp. 43–68 Google Scholar.

54 Aggregate is defined as a ‘composite’, ‘a collection of items that are gathered together to form a total quantity’.

55 Interestingly, in Wal-Mart, judges also pointed out the the lack of ‘glue’ holding plaintiffs’ claims together (Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, 564 US, 2011)

56 Smith, R.W. & al., ‘More for the Many: The Influence of Entitativity on Charitable Giving’, (39) Journal of Consumer Research, 2013, pp. 961–976 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Idem.

58 Idem.

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63 Sindell v. Abbot Laboratories, 26 Cal 3d 588 (1980) 607 P. 2d 924 (hereafter ‘Sindell’).

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67 Lickel, B. & al., ‘The Roles of Entitativity and Essentiality in Judgements of Collective Responsibility’, (9) Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2006, pp. 43–61 Google Scholar (As the authors highlight, the term collective responsibility more precisely refers to situations where perceivers ‘assign blame to individuals who were not direct causal agent of negative events, but do share a social association with the wrongdoer’).

68 Lickel, B. & al., ‘Vicarious Retributions: The Role of Collective Blame in Intergroup Aggression’, (10) Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2006, pp. 372–390 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; S.J. Sherman and E.J. Percy, supra note 44, at p. 153.

69 Sindell, supra note 63.

70 The literature on market share liability is extensive. From an example in the American literature, see Murray, R.P., Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories: A Market Share Approach to DES Causation’, (69) California Law Review, 1981, pp. 1079–1203 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an example in the French legal literature, see: J.-S. Borghetti, ‘Responsabilité du fait du DES: En route vers la Market Share Liability’, Revue des Contrats, January 2010, No1, p. 90.

71 Sindell, supra note 63.

72 ‘Selected Item from the FDA Bulletin : Diethylstilboestrol contraindicated in pregnancy: Drug's Use Linked to Adenocarcinoma in the Offspring, California Medicine – The Western Journal of Medicine, November 1971, p. 85

73 S.C. Yeazell, supra note 53.

74 J.-S. Borghetti, supra note 70.

75 F. G’Sell-Macrez., ‘La Preuve du lien de causalité : comparaisons franco-américaines à propos des arrêts Distilbène’, Les Petites Affiches, 29 Octobre 2010, p. 6.

76 Cass.civ. 1e, 24 September 2009, pourvois n°08-10081 and n°08-16305.

77 H. Lecuyer, ‘En Route Vers la Market Share Liability ? Quelles suites à la Jurisprudence relative à la responsabilité du fait du DES ?, Petites Affiches, 22 mai 2012, p. 3.

78 Paris Court of Appeal, 26 October 2012, n°10/18297; G'Sell, F., ‘DES Daughters Cases: Cour de Cassation 24 September 2009 and 24 January 2010 and CA Paris 26 October 2012’, (2) European Review of Private Law, 2013, pp. 587–590 Google Scholar.

79 Also developed in: A.P. Biard and L.T. Visscher, supra note 5.

80 D.J. Sheskin, ‘Outlier’, in: N.J.Salkind (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Research Design, 2010.

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88 Idem (emphasis added)

89 Slovic, P. & al,, ‘Rational Actors or Rational Fools: Implications of the Affect Heuristic for Behavioural Economics’, (31) Journal of Socio-Economics, 2002, pp. 329–342 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Slovic, P. & al., ‘The Affect Heuristic’, (177) European Journal of Operational Research, 2007, pp. 1333–1352 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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91 O'Neill, K., ‘Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in The Courts – Book Review’, (15) Review of Law and Social Change, 1986-1987, pp. 415–428 Google Scholar

92 K. O’Neill, idem. Judge Weinstein for instance insisted in keeping the government as a party to the litigation even though it had been dismissed by the preceding judge and even though a majority of litigants did not want to sue the government.as pointed out by the author, judge Weinstein fiercely ‘believed that the government had neglected the veterans and was determined to force it to participate in a benefit program for them’. Additionally, Novey observed that judge Weinstein's great involvement in the lawsuit was fiercely criticized by many US veterans who considered that the final settlement was ‘almost entirely his own construction’ (see Novey, L.B. ‘Collective Judicial Management of Mass Toxic Tort Controversies: Lessons and IssuesFrom the Agent Orange Litigation’, (27) Social Science & Medicine, 1988, n°10, pp. 1071–1084 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed).

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94 Sunstein, C.R. & Kuran, T., ‘Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation’, (51) Stanford Law Review, 1999, pp. 683–768 Google Scholar (taking as example the Love Canal Affair where the starting point appeared to be ‘frightening stories in the Niagara Falls Gazette’, at p. 692).

95 Bailis, D.S. & Mc Coun, R.J., ‘Estimating Liability Risks With the Media as Your Guide: A Content Analysis of Media Coverage of Tort Litigation’, (20) Law and Human Behaviour, 1996, n°4, pp. 419–429 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 Idem, at p. 427.

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101 See E.J.Cabraser, supra note 99 (highlighting: ‘the function of the court as a fiduciary is a hallmark of formal class action litigation and mass litigation deemed quasi class actions are treated as if they are class actions, from the standpoint of protecting the rights and dignity of an otherwise depersonalized mass of plaintiffs/claimants’, at p. 521).

102 T.C. Schelling, supra note 30.

103 R. Nisbett and L. Ross, Human Inferences: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgement, Prentice Hall, 1980, 334 p. (here p. 43-620, ‘assigning weights to data: the “vividness criterion”’).

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113 R. Hamill , T.D. Wilson & R.E. Nisbett, Ignoring Sample Bias: Inferences about collectivities from Atypical cases, unpublished manuscript, university of Michigan, 1979 (the content and conclusions of this experiment was reported in Nisbett and Ross, supra note 104, at p. 57-58).

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116 Idem.

117 In several mass proceedings, judges sit en banc. For instance, in High Courts of First Instance (tribunal de grande instance), French judges usually sit in panel. They will also do so in the framework of the new group action procedure ('action de groupe’) recently adopted.

118 Bartels, B.L., ‘Top-Down and Bottom-Up Models of Judicial Reasoning’, in: Klein, D. and Mitchell, G. (ed.), The Psychology of Judicial Decision Making, Oxford University Press, 2010 Google Scholar (observing: ‘the possibility of having to justify one's decision to another person or group leads to more careful scrutinizing of the attributes and information specific to the context, and less of a reliance on the potentially biasing predisposition one brings to the case’, at p. 45).

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128 Ford, R.T., ‘Beyond Good and Evil in Civil Rights Law: The Case of Wal-Mart v. Dukes’, (32) Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labour Law, 2011, pp. 513–529 Google Scholar.

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