Last week, the United States Supreme Court informed litigants in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis that it is pushing the case to its October 2017 term. The lawsuit, which rose up through the Western District of Wisconsin and the Seventh Circuit, presents the High Court with a chance to resolve a robust circuit split on the question whether mandatory arbitration clauses in …
Assuming the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule survives the river of legal and legislative challenges, the brokerage industry should expect to absorb between $70 million and $150 million annually in class-action litigation costs. The price-tag range, calculated by Morningstar senior equity analyst Michael Wong, is on top of the $1.5 billion annual cost to the industry, as estimated by the …
U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Review Mandatory Arbitration Agreements with Class Action Waivers February 1, 2017 Human Resource Executive Hinshaw attorney Aimee Delaney spoke to Tom Starner of Human Resource Executive about the recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to review the legality of class action waivers in labor-based arbitration agreements. Currently, some class and collective …
This article is a follow-up to Wednesday’s story on the growing threat of class-action lawsuits against companies over wage-and-hour practices. The Supreme Court’s mid-January decision to take on a trio of cases related to class actions may serve to decide a hotly contested issue that’s of great economic consequence to many companies. The issue is around arbitration agreements, in which a …
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.
Finally. The wait is almost over. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether an employer may enforce a mandatory arbitration agreement that contains a class action or collective action waiver. Last Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear 3 cases stemming from the NLRB’s 2012 decision in D.R. Horton , in which the NLRB held that class action waivers violate employees’ Section 7 rights to engage in protected, concerted activity. D.R. Horton created uncertainty whether, for example, an employer, through an arbitration agreement, may force an employee to waive his or her right to pursue a class action minimum wage or overtime claim, or a Title VII discrimination claim, in an arbitration proceeding. …
The Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on an employee class-action lawsuit against Epic Systems Corp. in Verona over overtime pay, in a case that could influence the way wage disputes are handled across the country. The high court won’t be hearing the specifics of the case Lewis v. Epic , which involves the health care company’s system of classifying certain types of workers as overtime- …
When news broke on Friday that Epic Systems workers had filed a class-action lawsuit against the Verona-based software giant over overtime pay, there’s a reason people may have felt a sense of déjà vu. That’s because this same scenario has now played out four times over the past three years. Here’s a quick rundown on the new lawsuit, and why Epic’s labor practices seem to get litigated on repeat.
Wells Fargo is facing multiple lawsuits from customers and employees over the long-running fake account fiasco that saw more than two million bogus, unauthorized accounts being opened in customers’ names. Even though lawmakers and consumer advocates have repeatedly asked the bank to not sidestep its liability by using an often-ignored clause in its customer agreement, lawyers for Wells Fargo …
The recent Wells Fargo scandal is yet another fine example of how trust in the financial sector is often misplaced. Although the bank has apologized – in public – for this incident, they are not honoring their victms’ legal claims so far. Opening unauthorized account in someone else’s name should be a clear-cut case for the US legal system, but that is not the case it seems.