The Northern District of Illinois recently denied a motion for class certification based largely on the inexperience of class counsel, and simultaneously denied the defendant’s motion to deny class certification. ...more
10/18/2018
/ Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Conciliation ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Ford Motor ,
FRCP 23(a) ,
Hostile Environment ,
Sexual Harassment
The District Court for the Northern District of California denied a motion for preliminary approval of a proposed settlement, citing the plaintiffs’ disregard of the court’s guidelines and various concerns as to whether the...more
The Second Circuit, in keeping with its recent decision in Waggoner v. Barclays, reaffirmed that defendants must satisfy the burden of persuasion by a preponderance of the evidence to rebut the presumption established by the...more
1/31/2018
/ Appeals ,
Barclays ,
Burden of Persuasion ,
Burden of Production ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Collateralized Debt Obligations ,
Conflicts of Interest ,
FRCP 23(b)(3) ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Material Misstatements ,
Preponderance of the Evidence ,
Rule 10(b) ,
Rule 10b-5 ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Securities Fraud ,
Securities Violations ,
Stocks
The Fifth Circuit recently vacated a class action settlement that included unsecured and uncollateralized future payments to the plaintiffs, while providing a swift and complete payout of fees to class counsel. The case...more
A North Carolina district court recently held that Dish Network (“Dish”) willfully violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) when Satellite Systems Network (SSN) made more than 50,000 telemarketing and sales calls...more
The Northern District of California recently renewed hope in a minor league baseball player class action wage dispute by granting the plaintiffs class certification after they narrowed the class. The court had previously...more
3/27/2017
/ Baseball ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Employment Litigation ,
FRCP 23 ,
FRCP 23(b)(2) ,
FRCP 23(b)(3) ,
MLB ,
Motion for Reconsideration ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Wage and Hour
Within roughly three weeks, the Second Circuit issued two opinions applying the Supreme Court’s Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez decision to class action cases involving Rule 68 offers of judgment. On February 15, 2017, in Leyse...more
The Third Circuit affirmed an order denying class certification because the plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient evidence of classwide antitrust impact, and thus, could not satisfy Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement....more
The Ninth Circuit affirmed certification of putative class actions brought against ConAgra Foods, Inc. (“ConAgra”) by consumers who claimed that ConAgra’s “100% Natural” labels on Wesson cooking oils were false or misleading....more
1/18/2017
/ Administrative Feasibility ,
Ascertainable Class ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
ConAgra ,
Food Labeling ,
Food Manufacturers ,
FRCP 23 ,
FRCP 23(f) ,
Natural Products ,
Putative Class Actions
The Ninth Circuit affirmed certification of putative class actions brought against ConAgra Foods, Inc. (“ConAgra”) by consumers who claimed that ConAgra’s “100% Natural” labels on Wesson cooking oils were false or misleading....more
The Sixth Circuit recently affirmed approval of a class action settlement agreement, holding that “a post-settlement change in the law does not alter the binding nature of the parties’ settlement agreement, nor does it...more
The Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc of its September order holding that the district court erred in deciding whether two drivers who sued Uber Technologies, Inc. (“Uber”) on behalf of themselves and a putative class...more
1/4/2017
/ Arbitration ,
Background Checks ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Pre-Employment Agreements ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Sharing Economy ,
Uber
Ernst & Young’s (“E&Y”) employment agreements contained “separate proceedings” and arbitration provisions, which together required that disputes be resolved individually through arbitration, rather than collectively through...more
9/6/2016
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Collective Actions ,
Ernst & Young ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Section 7
The Northern District of Illinois vacated its grant of fees to class counsel for work performed following an initial fee award, finding that Rule 23(h) required notice to the class regarding counsel’s new fee request, even...more
A Second Circuit panel rejected the settlement reached between defendants Visa, MasterCard, and various banks, and plaintiffs, approximately 12 million merchants who alleged the principally identical network rules of Visa and...more
7/6/2016
/ Anti-Competitive ,
Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
Class Action ,
Credit Cards ,
Due Process ,
Fourteenth Amendment ,
FRCP 23(b)(2) ,
FRCP 23(b)(3) ,
MasterCard ,
Merchants ,
Settlement ,
Sherman Act ,
Visa Inc
The Seventh Circuit affirmed a class action coupon settlement involving “clear sailing” and “kicker” clauses and a fee award based on the lodestar analysis rather than the value of the redeemed coupons, and notwithstanding a...more
The Supreme Court recently granted Tyson Foods’ petition for certiorari which presents to the Court two important class action issues:
(1) Whether differences among individual class members may be ignored and a class...more
6/15/2015
/ Algorithms ,
Article III ,
Campbell Ewald v Gomez ,
Certiorari ,
Class Action ,
Comcast v. Behrend ,
Doffing ,
Donning ,
Due Process ,
Dukes v Wal-Mart ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Protective Gear ,
Rules Enabling Act ,
SCOTUS ,
Spokeo v Robins ,
Trial-by-Formula ,
Tyson Foods v Bouaphakeo ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
Through a pair of opinions issued the same day, the Ninth Circuit attempted to clarify the evidence required for a defendant to meet its burden of showing that the amount in controversy exceeds CAFA’s $5 million threshold...more
The Supreme Court has held that a notice of removal requires only a “plausible allegation that the amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional threshold,” and confirmed that a notice of removal need not include evidence...more
A California federal district court denied certification of two nationwide classes, each asserting a price-fixing conspiracy for optical disk drives (“ODD”), because the plaintiffs’ experts failed to provide a viable...more
A federal district court in Hawaii held that a parens patriae action brought on behalf of the State of Hawaii by its Attorney General was not removable under the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) because it was not a class...more
The Southern District of Texas recently denied certification of a subclass of BP shareholders who purchased shares prior to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and alleged that misstatements regarding safety improvements caused...more
After granting the plaintiffs’ Rule 23(f) petition, the Ninth Circuit reversed a denial of class certification, finding that the district court had improperly weighed the merits of the plaintiffs’ Rule 23(a)(2) commonality...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denied plaintiffs’ motion for nationwide class certification because the proposed class did not meet Rule 23’s commonality or predominance requirements. The...more