The most significant exposure an employer faces in employment litigation is a class action lawsuit. Whether it is a class asserting claims for discrimination, harassment, or overtime, the potential damages can quickly escalate when there are multiple employees all asserting the same claim. Matters only get worse when those claims are decided by juries, which will generally be predisposed to …
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Tuesday agreed to hear an appeal by Uber of a federal district court order that certified a class of nearly 160,000 drivers in California who challenge their status as independent contractors. Uber’s attorneys argue that the drivers signed away their right to participate in class-action …
When clients enter their financial advisors’ offices and express frustrations about a retail bank’s mistakes or overcharges, the damages are usually too small to merit any individual legal action. “It’s $24 here and $45 there, and often there is very little you can do,” says Debra Brennan Tagg, managing director of Brennan Financial Services in Addison, Texas. But, it is expected that when the …
Chad Terune, Kaiser Health News Sutter Health, long accused of abusing its market power in California, is squaring off against major U.S. employers in a closely watched legal fight over health care competition and high prices. The latest fight has erupted over Sutter’s demand that employers sign an arbitration agreement to resolve disputes. Without it, Sutter says employers must pay sharply …
Lyft has agreed to pay more than $12 million in a proposed class-action lawsuit seeking to classify drivers as employees in California. In a settlement agreement reached late Tuesday, the ride-hailing service would extend additional benefits to drivers and pay them to resolve the dispute but not make them official employees. Shannon Liss-Riordan, the Boston attorney who represented Lyft drivers …
The U.S. government wants to make it easier for student loan borrowers to sue their colleges when they believe they’ve been wronged. The Department of Education released a proposal Friday evening that would make it more difficult for colleges to require students to settle disputes in arbitration, a private, closed-door process that critics say prevents students from getting a fair shake when …
A California judge decided that the class-action lawsuit filed against AT&T for throttling unlimited data will not be allowed to proceed. According to AT&T, customers should only have their complaints heard on an individual basis through arbitration, and it seems as though Judge Edward Chen from the U.S. District Court in Northern California agrees with the company. Many customers, however, …
Customers who sued AT&T over its practice of throttling unlimited data plans will not be able to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the company. AT&T argued that the customers could only have their complaints heard individually in arbitration, and Judge Edward Chen of US District Court in Northern California has sided with the cellular company. The customers’ contracts with AT&T required …
by Ian Millhiser Feb 1, 2016 8:00 am Lochner v. New York is one of the Supreme Court’s great anti-precedents. Typically taught in law schools as an example of how judges should not behave, Lochner rested on a fabricated “right to contract” that, in effect, gave employers broad license to exploit their workers. The so-called right invented in Lochner and similar cases later formed the basis for …
Lyft has agreed to pay more than $12 million in a proposed class-action lawsuit seeking to classify drivers as employees in California. In a settlement agreement reached late Tuesday, the ride-hailing service would extend additional benefits to drivers and pay them to resolve the dispute but not make them official employees. Shannon Liss-Riordan, the Boston attorney who represented Lyft drivers …