A federal appeals court on Wednesday revived Ohio’s lawsuit accusing Freddie Mac of defrauding the state’s $87.3 billion public pension fund by hiding its exposure to subprime and other risky mortgages prior to the 2007-09 financial crisis. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a lower court judge erred in finding that the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) did not plausibly …
The biggest money-damages antitrust settlement in U.S. history died Thursday at the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals. Not because of last year’s scandal surrounding leaks to a onetime MasterCard lawyer since charged with fraud, but because the agreement between credit card giants MasterCard, Visa and the merchants suing them for inflating certain fees was fundamentally unfair to some of the retailers. …
A $7.25 billion settlement between merchants and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. over credit card transaction fees was rejected Thursday by a federal appeals court, a ruling praised by a retail trade association as a victory for consumers. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the 12 million merchants covered by the antitrust class action were inadequately represented by law …
A federal appeals court has reinstated a retaliation lawsuit filed by a post office employee who was fired after she refused her supervisor’s requests to give him a picture of herself in a bikini. Hillary A. Kacian, a worker at the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, post office, said after she refused requests by her supervisor, George LaRue, to provide the photo, he began …
A Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court last week, urging the court to review a class action settlement that it argues is unfair to class members. On Thursday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Class Action Fairness, or CCAF, filed its petition for writ of certiorari with the nation’s highest …
Last March, the United States Supreme Court held that a putative class action is not mooted when a defendant offers the named plaintiff complete relief but the plaintiff does not accept the offer. Campbell-Ewald Company v. Gomez, 136 S. Ct. 663 (2016). That decision left open the question of whether a settlement offer—coupled with an actual tender of complete relief—would …
While a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruling on a data breach insurance case was presented in a way that limits its impact, it’s still a significant win for the insured, a Los Angeles attorney says. “While the decision may not dramatically shift the playing field for data breach coverage, it still is a significant victory for policyholders because it …
A ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has opened up the door for personal injury cases involving NFL concussions to now be tried as class action lawsuits. The reason why this is such a big deal is that the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1997 decision in Amchem v. Windsor and its 1999 followup, Ortiz v. Fibreboard, made the use of class actions to settle large swaths of personal…
After a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, companies facing class action Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints will have a tough time mounting a certain defense, a Charlotte, N.C., attorney says. In Mach Mining vs Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the high court’s decision held that courts have authority to review whether the EEOC has fulfilled its…
Benjamin Diehl is a partner with Stroock, Stroock & Lavan. Diehl practices in both the Financial Services/Class Action and Government Relations Practice Groups. Diehl recently discussed with DS News the trial in the case of PHH Corp. v. CFPB and the implications of the case for the financial industry. PHH, a nonbank mortgage lender based in New Jersey, is challenging the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Director Richard Cordray …