Apr 1, 2016

The Class Action Is Dead; Long Live the Class Action!

It’s been nearly five years since the Supreme Court decided, inWal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, that the claims of large groups of employees that involve differing calculations of damages must be litigated as individual claims, and not as a class action. At the time, and since, may pundits declared the wage-and-hour class action lawsuit dead (or at least with one foot squarely in the grave). …




Class-Action Settlement Reached in Meningitis Outbreak Suit

A settlement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit involving a Michigan clinic and a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people and sickened more than 750 people in 20 states. The Livingston Daily Press & Argus reports that the deal reached Friday in Livingston County Circuit Court covers 311 patients of Michigan Pain Specialists. Patients of the Genoa …



Ransomware’s Aftermath Can Be More Costly Than Ransom | Malware

Downtime caused by a ransomware attack can cost a company more than paying a ransom to recover data encrypted by the malware, according to a report released last week byIntermedia. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of companies infected with ransomware could not access their data for at least two days because of the incident, and …


Brazil Graft Crackdown Spurs Work for Lawyers, Corporate Change

In the midst of Brazil’s worst recession in decades, lawyer Thiago Jabor Pinheiro switched firms to focus full-time on one of the only booming fields in the scandal-plagued country: compliance and corporate ethics. For Pinheiro, a massive corruption investigation unfolding at state-run oil firm Petrobras offers a golden opportunity. The scandal broke just as a tough new anti- …


U.S. Judge Questions Lyft Settlement Over Driver Benefits

A U.S. judge questioned on Thursday whether a proposed class action settlement between Lyft and its California drivers is fair and raised concerns that the $12.25 million payment offered by the ride-hailing service might be too low. The 2013 lawsuit brought against Lyft by California drivers contended they should be classified as employees and therefore entitled to reimbursement …


U.S. Top Court Rejects Wells Fargo Challenge to $203 Million Class Action Judgment

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Wells Fargo & Co’s appeal of a $203 million judgment that it was ordered to pay to resolve a class action lawsuit accusing it of imposing excessive overdraft fees. The justices left in place an October 2014 ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of class action plaintiffs.


Truth and Justice for Haiti

Victims of Haiti’s raging cholera epidemic got a glimmer of good news recently when a class-action lawsuit seeking recompense from the United Nations for its role in spreading the disease finally got a hearing in a New York courtroom. The three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit panel asked tough questions of both sides — the US government is representing the United …