Patent Infringement: Successful Litigation Stays the "Course"
The plaintiff sued the trustee of his retirement plan, his former employer, and others for breach of fiduciary duties in connection with the plan’s purchase of shares of the employer’s parent company for more than fair market...more
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
We previously wrote about a Ninth Circuit appeal dealing with the use of bellwether procedures to resolve mass arbitration claims brought by thousands of customers against Verizon Wireless. That appeal remains pending and is...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
In Garcia v. Haralambos Beverage Co., the California Court of Appeal embraced the adage “time kills all deals” to conclude that an employer waived its right to arbitrate the wage-hour claims at issue in the case by, among...more
In a putative class action concerning Experian’s marketing of its “Experian Credit Score” service, the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a lower court order granting Experian’s motion to compel arbitration based on an...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
On December 20, 2019, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a Washington district court’s order denying Huuuge Inc.’s bid to arbitrate claims brought on behalf of a putative class of all smartphone users of its casino gaming...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
A group of small businesses and their individual owners have filed a putative class action lawsuit in a New York federal district court against online lender Kabbage, Inc. that alleges Kabbage engaged in a “rent-a-charter”...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
The Ninth Circuit recently issued two decisions in Dorman v. Charles Schwab Corp.: the first overrules the decision in Amaro v. Continental Can. Co., 724 F.2d 747 (9th Cir. 1984) (Dorman, – F.3d –, No. 18-15281, 2019 WL...more
In Dorman v. Charles Schwab Corp., No. 18-15281 (August 20, 2019), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that a 401(k) plan participant was required to individually arbitrate his claims regarding the plan’s fees...more
In a case of first impression, the Ninth Circuit overturned 35 years of precedent and ruled that ERISA class action claims brought on behalf of an ERISA plan are subject to individual arbitration. The Court also enforced the...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