In recent years, parties entering into class settlements—largely at the urging of courts—have sought to boost the rate at which class members participate in those settlements by reducing gating requirements for submitting claims. In an increasing number of cases, claims are flooding in. But all too often, a meaningful percentage of those claims are fraudulent.
The Seventh Circuit’s recent decision in Wallrich v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc. is significant news in the world of mass arbitration. In recent years, businesses have faced an increasing risk of being targeted by abusive mass arbitration campaigns that seek to leverage the arbitration fees the business must pay, win or lose, to coerce a
The AAA recently announced a new set of rules of mass arbitrations, as well as new fee schedules for consumer and worker arbitrations. We and some of our colleagues wrote a Legal Update about the changes, how they impact businesses, and whether the updates might help with widespread abuses in mass arbitrations.
The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. creates substantial uncertainty over whether companies that register to do business in certain states can be subject to personal jurisdiction for claims unrelated to the forum—because those states require consent to general jurisdiction as a condition of registration. Mallory involved a Pennsylvania law
Today the Supreme Court held that when a party files an immediate appeal of a federal district court order denying arbitration, the district court must stay its proceedings relating to the merits (including discovery) during the appeal. The decision in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski will have a significant impact in federal courts in California and New
The D.C. Circuit recently deepened a circuit split over whether district courts may certify a “fail-safe” class. In In re White, 64 F.4th 302 (D.C. Cir. 2023),the D.C. Circuit agreed that fail-safe classes are generally improper, but rejected the views of other circuits that categorically forbid such classes . Instead of what it described
State consumer-protection statutes frequently authorize claims for class-wide injunctive relief; notably, California courts have fashioned a similar remedy allowing for injunctions on behalf of the “general public.” Plaintiffs bringing class actions alleging that a company’s advertising is deceptive or misleading frequently tack on to their damages claims a request to enjoin the disputed marketing—sometimes to
A common feature in class action settlements is an incentive (or service) award for each named plaintiff—an extra payment above and beyond what they would receive as ordinary class members that is in theory designed to compensate them for the work of being a named plaintiff. A circuit split has developed over whether incentive awards
This morning we attended the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski. The issue presented in Coinbase is a procedural one, but of tremendous practical importance to defendants that seek to enforce arbitration agreements: does an appeal from an order denying a motion to compel arbitration automatically stay further proceedings in the
The plaintiffs’ bar has been trying to kill arbitration for more than a decade. But the courts have repeatedly rejected efforts to invalidate arbitration agreements. These lawyers have therefore switched to a different tactic: mass filing of arbitration demands.
When a single law firm or group of firms files 20,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 demands,
