Patent Infringement: Successful Litigation Stays the "Course"
A district court in the Seventh Circuit recently granted a motion to compel arbitration and stay proceedings in a putative class action involving Hyundai’s Blue Link crash assistance program. Tamburo v. Hyundai, No....more
Two DoorDash delivery drivers filed a class action against the company and two of its employees alleging violations of federal and state wage and hour laws. After removal of the case to the Southern District of New York, the...more
Evenskaas v. California Transit Inc. reversed a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s denial of an employer’s motion to compel arbitration of a former employee’s wage and hour class action. The trial court had concluded that the...more
As litigation costs continue to explode, more and more businesses have been including arbitration clauses in contracts with employees and customers. These clauses, which frequently include class action waivers, allow...more
On May 23, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved in Morgan v. Sundance whether a litigant seeking to establish waiver had to show prejudice resulting from an opposing party’s failure to timely enforce an arbitration provision under...more
Nearly four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held that employers can enforce arbitration agreements that waive an employee’s right to joining a class action lawsuit. Since then, many companies have avoided what would be...more
Courts have struggled through the years when considering the enforceability of mandatory class action waivers and arbitration provisions contained within Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) plans and other...more
Kec v. Superior Court, 2020 WL 3869721 (Cal. Ct. App. 2020) - Nichole Kec brought individual, class and Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims against her employer, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., et al. Kec had signed a...more
Many employers strongly prefer arbitration to litigating with their employees in court. Employers often believe—and the Supreme Court has agreed—that arbitration of employment disputes has many benefits, including potential...more
It’s no secret that many employers have employees sign arbitration agreements with class and collective action waivers in the hopes of avoiding the massive wage-hour lawsuits that have become so prevalent in the past two...more
The Ninth Circuit recently denied a motion to compel arbitration after concluding that an arbitration agreement “buried” in difficult to access terms for a smartphone app did not put users on constructive notice that they...more
It is a legal maxim that arbitration is a creature of contract. A recent District of Massachusetts decision explores critical questions about when that creature can exist outside of the confines of a binding agreement to...more
On November 4, 2019, in Wainblat v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, et. al., No. 19-cv-10976, the District of Massachusetts ordered that a consumer privacy class action against Comcast must be arbitrated on an individual...more
In our previous blog we wrote about California’s Assembly Bill 51, which largely impacts arbitration agreements by prohibiting employers from requiring employees or applicants for employment to agree to arbitrate claims for...more
The Ninth Circuit, in back-to-back opinion and memorandum decisions in Dorman v. Charles Schwab Corp., overruled long-standing precedent that ERISA claims are not arbitrable. The plaintiff, a former Schwab employee, filed a...more
As this blog has previously discussed, the availability of class arbitration has been significantly restricted after a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions. However, we have also noted that express preclusion of class...more
For an arbitration agreement to be enforceable, the parties must have a reasonable opportunity to understand its terms. See Fagerstrom v. Amazon.com, Inc., 141 F. Supp. 3d 1070 (S.D. Cal. 2015). With this principle in mind,...more
Last year, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a significant decision upholding the use of individual arbitration agreements that include class action waivers. The Epic Systems’ Decision provided clarity to...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In a must-read decision and case of first impression at the federal appellate level, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held late last week that a district court may not approve sending notice of an FLSA...more
Employers may choose to implement arbitration programs to manage the costs and risks of employment-related litigation. Arbitration may minimize negative publicity, and may further assist employers to keep costs low and reduce...more
In 2011, a former employee of Waterstone Mortgage Corporation filed a class action against Waterstone alleging violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and breach of contract. Originally published in the ABA-Section of...more
GC Services Limited Partnership (“GC Services”), a debt collector hired by a bank to collect an allegedly unpaid balance on a credit card, advised plaintiff Francina Smith (“Smith”) that it would commence a collection...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit, following the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, has upheld the validity of class-action waivers in Uber’s arbitration agreement, and has held that a named...more
In a major victory for ride-share company Uber Technologies, Inc. ("Uber"), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its much anticipated opinion in O'Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc., Case No....more
On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year in Epic Systems Corporation v. Lewis, which held that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) does not bar class or collective action waivers in arbitration...more