A recent decision issued by Chief Judge Timothy J. Corrigan of the Middle District of Florida highlights a straightforward yet consequential class action principle: a plaintiff cannot serve as a class representative for a class to which he or she does not belong. The specific case is Gartrell v. J.J. Marshall & Associates Inc. In Gartrell, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Florida Consumer ... Keep Reading »
District Court Asks Sixth Circuit to Review Two-Step FLSA Collective Certification Test
The Sixth Circuit will soon tell us whether it will follow the Fifth Circuit’s lead in Swales v. KLLM Transport Services LLC and adopt a more exacting, one-stage certification approach for Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions, or instead officially adopt the two-stage certification process set out in Lusardi v. Xerox Corp., which is currently followed by most district courts. In Holder v. A&L Home Care & Training Center LLC, former aides claimed that ... Keep Reading »
“Right to Repair” Class Actions Against John Deere Obtain a Centralized Forum
In recent years, a vigorous debate over consumers’ “right to repair” products they have purchased has earned the scrutiny of legislators and regulators, along with the attention of the plaintiffs’ class action bar. Until recently, the class action segment of the controversy has been spread throughout courts across the country. Last month, however, the most prominent set of right-to-repair cases were consolidated in the Northern District of Illinois, which will be a key ... Keep Reading »
Eleventh Circuit Affirms Class Certification and Settlement in “Factually Peculiar” In re Checking Account Overdraft Litigation Saga
Twelve years after it started, the saga of RBC Bank’s alleged improper assessment and collection of overdraft fees appears to have come to an end. In affirming the district court's certification of the class and approval of a settlement, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed that “typicality” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 does not require identical claims or defenses and that only a substantial conflict of interest can destroy adequacy of a class ... Keep Reading »
PAGA Claims Sent Down the River: Supreme Court Gives California Employers Major Victory in Viking Cruises Arbitration Case
Representative actions brought under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) have been the bane of that state’s labor lawyers’ existence since PAGA’s enactment in 2004. Thanks to this week’s Supreme Court decision in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, forward-thinking clients can say goodbye to all that. The PAGA Predicament PAGA enlists employees as private attorneys general to enforce California labor law. By its terms, PAGA authorizes an “aggrieved ... Keep Reading »
The Latest on Cy Pres: As Gorilla Monsoon Said… Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
The term cy pres comes from the Norman French expression "cy près comme possible," which means "as near as possible." As part of a class action settlement, parties frequently establish a cy pres fund as a method of dealing with unclaimed settlement funds. Some believe that doing so is more palatable to district courts than an agreement that calls for a reversion of unclaimed funds to the defendant. A recent decision by Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the Middle District ... Keep Reading »
$91M in AAA Filing Fees? Another Lesson in Being Intentional in Drafting Class Action Waivers in Arbitration Agreements
We have blogged in the past about the importance of companies being intentional in drafting their arbitration agreements. It is important to think through such issues as: Should we include a class action waiver? Should we include a collective action waiver? Who decides the scope of arbitration and interprets the scope of such waiver provisions: a court or an arbitrator? How susceptible are we to massive numbers of repeat claims? I personally have been involved in a ... Keep Reading »
Cy Pres Settlements in the Ninth Circuit – A View From the Street
Cy pres-only class action settlements are alive and well in the Ninth Circuit, where a unanimous panel of the court recently affirmed a settlement that provides no monetary relief whatsoever to the class, but awarded millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees to class counsel and distributed monetary relief to nine, third-party cy pres recipients. The case, In re Google Inc. Street View Electronic Communications Litigation, revolved around the collection of private data by ... Keep Reading »
A Year in Review: Top 10 Class Action Cases of 2021
This year has been an important one for class action law. Here are 10 of the most important class action cases of 2021 and their impact on class action litigation. TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez In TransUnion, a class of 8,185 individuals sued TransUnion under the Fair Credit Reporting Act after the company had erroneously indicated that their names potentially matched a name on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list of terrorists, drug ... Keep Reading »
New York City Creates Right to Sue Over Use of Biometric Data
New York City’s new biometrics law, NYC Admin. Code §§ 22-1201–1205, went into effect in July 2021. The law creates a new private right of action for persons “aggrieved” by violations. Violations might arise from at least two different requirements. First, the law creates signage requirements for “commercial establishments,” which include places of entertainment, retail stores, and food and drink establishments. Second, the law creates a blanket ban on any person or ... Keep Reading »
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