A lawsuit was filed in federal court Monday by a team of ethics experts and legal scholars alleging that President Donald Trump’s overseas businesses violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits presidents from taking money from foreign governments. NPR reports that the group says it’s asking the court “to stop Trump from violating the Constitution by …
Another lawsuit has been filed against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints alleging sexual abuse while in a church-run program for Navajo children. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Navajo Nation District Court in New Mexico, accuses the LDS Church of not doing anything about the abuse in the church’s “Lamanite Placement Program,” also known as the “Indian Placement …
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has been sued by a participant in its 401(k) plan for allegedly causing employees to pay millions of dollars in excessive fees through a scheme motivated by “self-interest.” The plaintiff claims JPMorgan, as well as various board and committee members with oversight of the $21 billion retirement plan , breached their fiduciary duties by, among other things, retaining …
A Yahoo shareholder launched a class action lawsuit this week accusing the ailing tech giant of lying about and “recklessly” failing to disclose cybersecurity problems and massive data breaches, thereby violating federal securities laws and costing shareholders “significant losses and damages.” Yahoo suffered two massive breaches in 2016 hitting 1.5 billion user accounts across both incidents. …
Energizer’s fight with rival Rayovac over alleged trademark infringement related to packaging is over. In December, Town and Country-based Energizer sued Madison, Wis.-based Spectrum Brands , the parent company of Rayovac, alleging Rayovac’s new package designs are confusingly similar to those used for Energizer batteries. “Spectrum has recently begun a campaign to progressively and radically …
A recently-filed federal lawsuit aims to loosen the restrictions placed on registered sex offenders in North Carolina, claiming the state’s laws go too far, and do little to actually make children safer. The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws filed the federal civil rights action, challenging North Carolina’s sex offender registration requirements. The organization and two unnamed plaintiffs allege that the restrictions placed on sex offenders have expanded continuously over the past decade and are now crippling. North Carolina’s laws restrict …
On Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a lawsuit against Navient, the largest student loan servicer in the country. If you have a student loan, there is a good chance that it may be serviced by Navient. Navient, which spun off from Sallie Mae, has more than 12 million customers and services more than $300 billion of government and private student loans. Here is what you need to know and the action that you can take …
ProPublica and the Virginian-Pilot filed a lawsuit today in federal court against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, accusing the agency of stonewalling requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The lawsuit, ProPublica’s second against the VA in two months, seeks a preliminary injunction compelling the government to immediately release correspondence about Agent Orange, …
A federal appeals court ruled in San Francisco Thursday that two consumer lawsuits filed over Samsung smartphones can’t be forced to go to arbitration and instead can proceed toward trials. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that in both cases, a mandatory arbitration provision contained in a warranty booklet placed in a box packaging the smartphone didn’t amount to a contract.
The number of wage and hour class lawsuits filed in federal court dipped slightly during 2016, but employers should expect a rebound in 2017, according to a management lawyer who tracks workplace class actions.
The 8,304 Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions filed was down, compared with 8,954 such lawsuits filed in 2015, said Gerald Maatman, a Seyfarth Shaw LLP partner who is co-chair of the firm’s class action litigation practice group. But the 2015 figure was the highest since the firm formally began tracking employment law class actions in 2004, and the 2016 total is the second-highest, Maatman told Bloomberg BNA. The top 10 wage and hour settlements reached in 2016 totaled $695.5 million, up from $463.6 million in 2015, Maatman said. The long-term growth in class lawsuits against employers alleging violations of minimum wage, overtime and other wage and hour requirements isn’t stopping anytime soon, he said. The Trump administration could …