How should courts handle 900 claims in Baton Rouge Ponzi scheme lawsuit? It's complicated.

Some 900 investors from Louisiana and three dozen other states who claimed in 2009 that Louisiana financial regulators contributed to their huge losses in the Stanford Trust Co. debacle are inching closer to their day in court — but what that trial might look like was the subject of much argument Monday.

The state Office of Financial Institutions recently filed a motion to break the trial of the class-action lawsuit into two separate phases: first a trial on the issue of liability, and if OFI is found liable, then a second trial on the issues of damages.

During a hearing on the motion in Baton Rouge state court, an attorney for the Stanford victims told a judge Monday that OFI's request would force each of the 900 class members to have individual trials before separate juries as to the amount of damages each incurred.

"The case should be tried to one jury," Phil Preis, who represents the retiree victims, argued to state District Judge Don Johnson during a Zoom hearing. "Otherwise, 900 people are not going to have their day in court."

Read more: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/courts/article_72bf3452-f6f4-11eb-a162-77b164c49679.html