Two plaintiffs in Miami-Dade County have filed a class action complaint against cryptocurrency platform Empires X Corp. and its founders based on an alleged Ponzi scheme. In Villanueva v. Empires X Corp., pending in Florida’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit, the plaintiffs allege that they, as well as several other damaged investors, provided millions of dollars to Empires X Corp. based on extensive misrepresentations that Empires X Corp. was a legitimate investment ... Keep Reading »
State Courts Class Action Articles
The latest class action developments and trends in State Courts, including news, key cases, and strategies.
$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 »
The Next Wave Crashes Ashore With a Rising Tide of New COVID-19 Class Actions
Updated on April 22, 2020 When we first published this article on April 14, 2020, there were 72 class action cases filed in the United States related to and directly referencing the global COVID-19 pandemic. That number has now nearly doubled to 124 cases and counting. A list of the cases we have compiled to date may be found here. More are being filed on a daily basis, and as businesses reel from the impact of closures, work-from-home plans, efforts to maintain ... Keep Reading »
Florida Supreme Court Refuses to Approve Amendment to Class Action Rule to Encourage Cy Pres Distribution of Residual Settlement Funds
Cy pres distribution of residual settlement funds has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. Perhaps for this reason, the Florida Supreme Court on May 16, 2019, refused to approve an amendment to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.220, the state class action rule, that would have encouraged settling parties to distribute residual funds to The Florida Bar Foundation or another nonprofit legal services organization. The court, however, declined to provide any ... Keep Reading »
Split Over Impact of Bristol-Myers Squibb on Class Actions Deepens
Bakov v. Consolidated World Travel, Inc. is the latest salvo in the conflict over whether the Supreme Court’s personal jurisdiction decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb applies in the class action context. As we have blogged in the past, Bristol-Myers concerned claims in California state court made by non-California residents, claims that were not sufficiently connected to California to qualify for specific personal jurisdiction on their own. The Court held that California ... Keep Reading »
Illinois Supreme Court Finds No Actual Harm Needed to Sue Under State’s Biometric Privacy Statute
The Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (740 ILCS 14/1 et seq.) (BIPA) requires that companies obtain written consent and disclose how they collect, retain, disclose and destroy biometric identifiers such as retina or iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints, scans of hand or face geometry, or other biometric information from the public. BIPA provides “aggrieved” individuals a private right of action to sue, which if successful, could result in liability up to ... Keep Reading »
Lawyers Sanctioned for Seeking to Settle Federal Court Class Action in State Court
Lawyers seeking to settle class actions pending in federal court by dismissing and refiling in state court beware! In two recent orders, a federal judge in the Western District of Arkansas ruled that the attorneys representing a class and defendants alike violated Rule 11 and abused the judicial process by this practice. The court sanctioned the lawyers for the class in the form of a reprimand. It retreated from a formal sanction of the defendants’ lawyers because it was ... Keep Reading »
SCOTUS Denies Review Regarding Pennsylvania Wal-Mart “Rest Break” Class Judgment
On April 4, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari review of a $188 million class-action judgment returned against Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania state court and later upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court regarding claimed “rest break” and “meal break” violations. Only six plaintiffs testified on behalf of the class, and the plaintiffs’ experts used extrapolated evidence to calculate the total damages sustained (rather than actually determining the total damages ... Keep Reading »
2016 Carlton Fields Class Action Survey Reveals Important Trends in Class Action Management
The fifth annual edition of the Carlton Fields Class Action Survey has just been released, and in this year’s survey corporate counsel report that class action spending has increased after four consecutive years of decline. Spending is also projected to increase in 2016. This marks a key turning point. The Numbers Across industries, the companies surveyed report that they spent $2.1 billion on class action lawsuits in 2015. The number of companies facing at least one ... Keep Reading »
California Supreme Court Endorses More Consumer Class False Advertising Litigation in Organic Food Decision
“Labels matter,” the California Supreme Court began its unanimous December 3 opinion. Expect that to be the new rallying cry of plaintiff class action lawyers when suing consumer companies for alleged false advertising. The California Supreme Court held that state law claims of intentional mislabeling produce as organic are not preempted by the Organic Food Act of 1990 (7 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6522). Whether this ruling will be limited to just that federal act or will have ... Keep Reading »