Mass Torts vs. Class Actions: A Tale of Two Strategies
Eighth Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Putative Class Claims
Class Action | Eleventh Circuit Reinstates No Hire Antitrust Claims Against Burger King
John Lewis of BakerHostetler Discusses Use of Social Media in Gawker Class Action
Wearables and the Future of Intellectual Property Law
On March 12, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (covering Alabama, Florida, and Georgia) affirmed the dismissal of a putative class action wage and hour lawsuit brought by three golf course attendants...more
In Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, the Supreme Court of the United States resolved a circuit split over whether district courts must stay proceedings while an interlocutory appeal of a denial of a motion to compel arbitration is...more
On October 24, 2022, the Sixth District issued a decision in in Camp v. Home Depot, handing employees a major win in the wage and hour arena by holding that Home Depot’s practice of rounding hourly employees’ total daily...more
The California Court of Appeal has definitively resolved an issue that was until now somewhat ambiguous: Can volunteers in fact volunteer their time for nonprofit organizations without receiving pay or other forms of...more
Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, 2021 WL 2965438 (July 15, 2021) - On July 15, 2021, the California Supreme Court issued a long-awaited decision, Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, regarding the rate at which premium...more
This week, we take a look at two Ninth Circuit decisions concerning the employer-employee relationship. In the first, the Court let the lawsuit against the NFL for its negligent handling of drug distribution to its injured...more
Coming on the heels of the U.S. Department of Labor recently issuing its final regulations clarifying the fluctuating workweek (FWW) method of overtime compensation under the FLSA, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals just issued...more
Upsetting what many considered settled precedent, a California Court of Appeal has held that a mandatory service charge may qualify as a “gratuity” under California Labor Code Section 351 that must be distributed to the...more
California employers have long grappled with two wage and hour questions: ..What rate of pay should be used to calculate meal and rest period premiums in California? ..Does the facially neutral “rounding” of employee...more
In a pair of opinions issued on Aug. 20, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit expressly overruled its 35-year precedent that Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) disputes were not arbitrable. The...more
On July 2, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed a significant victory to New York’s home care industry. In Abdullayeva v. Attending Home Care Services, the appellate court reversed a lower court’s...more
When is time compensable under California law? In a recent decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Sali v. Corona Regional Medical Center, the court explained that there are two categories of compensable time: (1) the...more
Employee's Inability To Work For A Particular Supervisor Does Not Constitute A "Disability" - Higgins-Williams v. Sutter Med. Found., 237 Cal. App. 4th 78 (2015) - Michaelin Higgins-Williams worked as a clinical...more
The Impact of National Same-Sex Marriage for Employers - Why it matters: How will employers feel the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges? The landmark ruling that the Fourteenth...more
A state appellate court in California reversed a trial court’s decision to deny defendant Santa Lucia Preserve Company’s (“Santa Lucia”) motion to compel arbitration, holding that plaintiffs failed to prove that the...more
For the second time, the Fourth Circuit has determined that African-American employees at a South Carolina steel plant are entitled to Rule 23 class certification. In Brown v. Nucor Corporation and Nucor Steel-Berkeley,...more
Valdez v. Santa Lucia Preserve Co., No. H040685 (March 23, 2015): In an unpublished opinion, the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District overturned a trial court’s ruling denying an employer’s motion to...more
Roberto Martinez and three other current or former employees of Joe’s Crab Shack (“JCS”) filed this putative class action asserting that they and similarly situated salaried managerial employees had been misclassified as...more
In Bower v. Inter-Con Security Systems, Inc., No. A135940, published December 31, 2014 (Bower), the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District held that a defendant employer waived its right to arbitration based on...more
Rebolledo v. Tilly’s Inc., No. G048625 (July 8, 2014): In a recent decision, a California Court of Appeal held that an employer cannot compel arbitration of a wage claim when the language in the parties’ arbitration agreement...more
In Hall v. Rite Aid Corp., the Fourth Appellate District reversed the trial court’s decertification of a putative class of cashiers who challenged their employer’s policy of requiring them to stand while checking out...more