For the past few years, following the machinations of mass arbitrations has been like watching a tennis match. First one side hits a volley, then another returns, and on-and-on with the opposing sides continually stuck in...more
The American Arbitration Association (AAA) has announced updates to its Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules and its fee schedules for consumer and employment mass arbitrations....more
We previously wrote about a Ninth Circuit appeal taken by Verizon Wireless, Inc. after a California district court judge held that its arbitration agreement, which required mass arbitration disputes to be resolved by multiple...more
Imagine arriving at the office to find 20 bankers' boxes full of 20,000+ individual arbitration demands. The claims appear identical and non-meritorious. But to even get a chance to make an argument, it will cost you nearly...more
On September 12, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the dismissal of state law securities actions by individual investors who elected to opt out of a related class action against a...more
For years, the plaintiffs’ bar has crammed thousands of non-forum class members into a single action in order to more easily justify broader discovery requests, and to more quickly aggregate statutory damages. And many...more
• As evidenced by a recent opinion issued in the Northern District of Illinois, district courts continue to wrestle with the applicability of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of...more
In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the California state courts lacked personal jurisdiction over claims made by out-of-state plaintiffs in a mass action,...more
The Central District of California district court recently weighed in on the limits of mass action jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). The matter began as various individual state court actions alleging...more
Removal under the “mass action” provision of the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) is appropriate when 100 or more plaintiffs take the affirmative step of proposing to try their claims jointly and the claims involve common...more
In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals strictly construed the “single local event” exception to federal jurisdiction under CAFA as not encompassing “events or occurrences” that are of a continuing nature. ...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled in Lawson v. FMR LLC that the whistleblower provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act protect employees who work for contractors and subcontractors of public companies and not just employees...more
On February 14, 2014, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Class Action Fairness Act’s (CAFA) $5,000,000 amount-in-controversy requirement can be satisfied where the plaintiff seeks only declaratory relief. S....more
U.S. Supreme Court Holds That Parens Patriae Suits Are Not Removable to Federal Court as “Mass Actions” Under the Class Action Fairness Act - On Jan. 14, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a parens patriae...more
In 2005, Congress enacted the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) to change the procedures for interstate class action suits. Notably, CAFA created a new type of suit called a “mass action,” which is any civil suit for...more
Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court have improved the landscape for defendants seeking to fend off mass tort and consumer class actions. In Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133 S. Ct. 1426 (2013), the Supreme Court tightened...more
Court’s decision provides key takeaways for class action defendants, including how the decision limits the use of CAFA’s mass action provision to suits that actually name 100 or more persons as plaintiffs....more
On January 14, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous opinion that parens patriae suits brought by states on behalf of their citizens do not constitute “mass actions” under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). Miss....more
In Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., No. 12-1036, 2014 U.S. LEXIS 645 (Jan. 14, 2014) the Supreme Court of the United States addressed the circuit split that arose after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal’s holding...more
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court once again weighed in with a decision regarding class actions, but this time with a twist. In what is a rare event in the class action context, the Court handed down a unanimous decision in...more
This week the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp. that parens patriae actions in which the State is the sole plaintiff are not “mass actions” under the Class Action Fairness...more
In one of its first decisions of the year, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that a civil action filed solely by the State of Mississippi did not constitute a “mass action” under the Class Action Fairness Act...more
On January 14, 2013, the United States Supreme Court decided Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., --- U.S. ---, No. 12-1036, a case brought under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. The question presented was...more