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
While not enough blogs these days quote Toad the Wet Sprocket lyrics, a recent decision from a federal appellate court holding that a would-be employee can suffer negative employment consequences for cannabis use even when...more
In Guthrie v. Rainbow Fencing Inc., 113 F.4th 300 (2d Cir. 2024), the Second Circuit weighed in on a brewing dispute among New York district courts as to whether (and how) a plaintiff’s allegations may establish Article III...more
The California Supreme Court concluded that the “good faith” defense applies to claims seeking to impose penalties under California Labor Code section 226. An employee must show that an employer’s failure to comply with...more
On January 3, 2024, the defendant in Heppard v. Dunham’s Athleisure Corporation filed an interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, arguing that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District...more
Employers in Washington are facing a flurry of class actions alleging violations of the state’s new pay transparency law. While it is too early to gauge the viability of the claims, employers doing business in Washington may...more
On July 21, 2023, a unanimous three-judge panel once again affirmed a California federal court’s ruling that the truck drivers who deliver ingredients from Domino’s Southern California Supply Chain Center to Domino’s...more
A putative class action recently filed in Seattle, Washington, against a solar energy equipment company could be the first lawsuit to test the bounds of the state’s relatively new restrictions on noncompetition agreements for...more
In a matter of first impression, a panel for the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a judgment of the District Court of New Jersey in Singh v. Uber Techs., Inc. (April 26, 2023), compelling arbitration in a...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
For businesses using independent contractor vendors, misclassification claims are usually well-suited for class certification. A plaintiff’s path toward certifying a class can be relatively smooth when all vendors of a...more
On May 23, 2022, in Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, Inc., the California Supreme Court clarified that a violation of Labor Code section 226.7 (payment of premium wages for meal and rest period violations) gives rise to...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
On January 28, 2021, the Seventh Circuit issued a rare opinion analyzing Rule 23’s numerosity requirement. The court affirmed the district court’s refusal to certify a class that would have included no more than 37 members,...more
On November 1, 2020, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Palmer et al. v. Amazon.com Inc. et al., No. 20-cv-2468, 2020 WL 6388599, dismissed a lawsuit against Amazon alleging failures to...more
Davidson v. O’Reilly Auto Enter., LLC, 968 F.3d 955 (9th Cir. 2020) - Kia Davidson worked as a delivery specialist at one of O’Reilly’s stores in San Bernardino. In this putative class action, Davidson alleged that she...more
The Supreme Court of California recently agreed to review the California Court of Appeal’s decision in Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, 40 Cal. App. 5th 1239 (2019), as limited to the following question: Did the...more
Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, 40 Cal. App. 5th 1239, 253 Cal. Rptr. 3d 798 (2019) - Summary: Term “regular rate of compensation” for calculating meal or rest break premium payments is not synonymous with term...more
On June 10, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled that state wage and hour laws do not apply to offshore drilling workers where federal law addresses the relevant issue. In Parker Drilling Management...more
In a rare decision applying the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. §1331 et seq.(“OCSLA”), the United States Supreme Court has clarified, re-affirmed and perhaps (given the breadth of its opinion) expanded the...more
U.S. Supreme Court reaffirms primacy of federal law on Outer Continental Shelf holding state law may not be adopted where federal law already addresses the issue. In Parker Drilling Management Services Ltd. v. Newton, 587...more
Workers on oil drilling platforms off the coast of California are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), not California’s overtime and wage laws, the U.S. Supreme Court has held unanimously. Parker Drilling...more
On June 10, 2019, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state wage and hour laws do not apply to certain drilling rig employees working off the California coast. The rig workers argued that California law...more
By a unanimous 9-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday declined to extend California’s wage-and-hour laws to employees working on offshore drilling platforms subject to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (Parker...more
On June 10, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Parker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. Newton, No. 18-389, holding that state law does not apply to the Outer Continental Shelf when federal law addresses...more
In 2018, the California Supreme Court adopted the “ABC test” for determining whether workers are independent contractors under California wage orders (the Dynamex decision). For a discussion of that decision....more