The publishers of Wikipedia and several civil rights groups will head to a federal appeals court Thursday to challenge a National Security Agency surveillance program that mines Americans’ internet communications. A key hurdle for the groups will be to provide convincing evidence that their emails and other communications are among those collected in bulk by the NSA. A lower court previously …
Courts may now approach slack-fill suits with greater skepticism when a manufacturer accurately labels its net weight following an amended opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, according to a lip balm lawsuit. Sugar lip balm by Fresh, Inc. | Fresh, Inc. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ended a class-action lawsuit in March against Fresh Inc. over the lip balm …
With the 9th Circuit’s late summer anti-class action waiver decision, the circuit split widened over the issue of whether employers can require employees, through an arbitration agreement, to waive their rights to bring class or collective actions against their employer. This issue will almost certainly reach the Supreme Court given the deepening divide and the Court’s …
The last time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a challenge to an approved class action settlement, AOL ruled the Internet, Bill Clinton was president and Donald Trump was months away from considering a run for the presidency in an October 1999 interview with Larry King. It was a long time ago, in other words. The National Football League and plaintiffs’ lawyers representing a …
A federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit Friday that accused Nevada officials and the state psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas of violating patients’ civil rights by giving them bus tickets and dumping them in other states. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision said it could not consider the merits of the suit because the plaintiff, James Flavy Coy Brown, failed to raise a …
More than a dozen state attorneys general last week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a 2013 class action settlement reached over a fitness club company’s gym membership contracts and fees, arguing the agreement could put consumers nationwide at risk. The settlement agreement in Gascho v. Global Fitness Holdings LLC was approved by the U.S. Court of Appeals …
In 2014, a legal challenge was mounted against the federal government for its failure to provide legal representation to indigent children in deportation proceedings. The case, F.L.B.. v. Lynch was brought by the American …
Ninth Circuit Invalidates Class Action Waivers in Mandatory Arbitration Agreements At the end of 2015, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed AB 465, which would have banned mandatory arbitration agreements in the employment setting, including arbitration agreements with class action waivers. As many employers know, including a class action waiver in an arbitration agreement or clause has been a great …
The Supreme Court was asked to settle disputes over the legality of contract terms that bar employees from filing class action lawsuits, in petitions filed by opposing parties. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), accounting conglomerate Ernst & Young, and medical software company Epic Systems have all asked Justices to rule on the issue, …
This summer, the Sixth Circuit rejected class action litigants’ filing of the bulk of their class settlement documents under seal. Shane Grp., Inc. v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mich., 825 F.3d 299 (6th Cir. 2016).