In two putative class actions pending in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the Department of Justice has filed statements of interest urging the Court to deny defendants’ motions to compel arbitration of plaintiffs’ claims for violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.
In Padao v. American Express National Bank, No. 5:22-cv-00145-BO-RN (E.D.N.C.)
The California Attorney General has joined the fray in Souter v. Edgewell, an otherwise little‑watched putative class action pending in the Ninth Circuit over allegedly misleading label claims about the efficacy and safety of the defendant’s hand wipes. The Attorney General is urging the Ninth Circuit to make it far more difficult for defendants
A group of musicians has lost its bid in Waite v. UMG Recordings, No. 1:19-cv-01091-LAK (S.D.N.Y. 2019), to assert copyright infringement claims on a classwide basis against the record labels holding copyrights in the musicians’ sound recordings.
Seeking to reclaim the copyrights, the plaintiffs had issued notices of termination pursuant to Section 203 of
Earlier this year, the European Commission decided to ban titanium dioxide as a food additive in the European Union, with a six-month phasing-out period that culminated in a full ban as of August 7, 2022. The decision was based on a recent assessment by the European Food Safety Authority, which had raised concerns over the
We previously wrote about the rising trend of mass arbitration and how companies and arbitration providers have responded to it thus far, including by adopting new rules and contract terms specifically geared towards coordinated proceedings. It may be tempting to impose strict controls on how mass arbitrations can proceed. But in considering their options, companies
A recent decision by the Third Circuit examined the circumstances under which an arbitrator must decide gateway questions of arbitrability in cases involving challenged loan assignments. In Zirpoli v. Midland Funding, LLC, the plaintiff took a loan pursuant to a contract that contained an arbitration agreement with a delegation clause. The lender then assigned
We previously wrote about Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta, 13 F.4th 766 (9th Cir. 2021), in which a split panel of the Ninth Circuit held that the Federal Arbitration Act does not preempt a California Labor Code provision prohibiting employers from requiring applicants or employees “to waive any right, forum, or procedure” for
Recent months have seen a growing trend of data privacy class actions asserting claims for alleged violations of federal and state video privacy laws. In this year alone, plaintiffs have filed dozens of new class actions in courts across the country asserting claims under the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”), Michigan’s Preservation of Personal
A recent Fifth Circuit decision continues the trend of courts rejecting putative class and collective actions where absent class members are subject to arbitration agreements.
Exotic dancers sued A&D Interests, Inc. (doing business as the “Heartbreakers Gentlemen’s Club”) in a putative Fair Labor Standards Act collective action for allegedly misclassifying the club’s dancers as independent
Courts across the country continue to grapple with thorny questions surrounding the legal implications of cyber-attacks. Recently, a federal court in California considered whether a plaintiff could assert a claim against a company when a cyber-criminal acquired his personal information from the company and then used that information to steal his cryptocurrency. The district court