The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just denied a request to review en banc a panel ruling that authorizes trial courts to consider evidence that would be inadmissible at trial when deciding whether a class may be
Class Action & Mass Torts
Do Daubert standards apply at the certification stage? Ninth Circuit splits with itself
It is fitting that the day after Halloween the Ninth Circuit issued its denial of rehearing en banc in Sali v. Corona Regional Medical Center, Case No. 15-56460, because the issue it raises, like Michael Myers in the Halloween movie…
EEOC’s “Mission Accomplished” – The Anatomy Of An EEOC Media Statement
By: Mark Wallin, Christopher DeGroff, and Gerald Maatman, Jr.
Seyfarth Synopsis: The EEOC operates with limited resources, yet has the daunting responsibility of enforcing an alphabet soup of anti-discrimination laws. The EEOC has become quite savvy at leveraging…
EEOC’s “Mission Accomplished” – The Anatomy Of An EEOC Media Statement
Seyfarth Synopsis: The EEOC operates with limited resources, yet has the daunting responsibility of enforcing an alphabet soup of anti-discrimination laws. The EEOC has become quite savvy at leveraging the press as a pulpit for publicizing its…
Time Marches On, Memories Fade, and Witnesses Die: How Lawyers Can Use the Underutilized Ancient Document Hearsay Exception
In many mass tort cases, and particularly in cases involving exposure to a substance with a long latency period, defendants and plaintiffs must rely on documents created decades ago. That’s challenging, of course, because many of these documents are hearsay…
Rikki, Don’t Autodial That Number! – Ninth Circuit Doesn’t Want You To Call Nobody Else (in violation of the TCPA)
Class action plaintiffs’ attorneys may argue that a recent ruling by the Ninth Circuit expands the scope of liability under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) to include calls or text messages sent on all modern telephone equipment, including personal…
First Circuit Reverses Class Certification Where Individualized Inquiries Would Be Required To Identify And Exclude Uninjured Class Members
Plaintiffs frequently seek to certify class actions where the proposed classes contain a significant number of uninjured persons. The First Circuit recently reversed the certification of such a class in In re Asacol Antitrust Litigation, concluding that a class…
Yet Another Opinion Addresses the Availability of Class or Collective Arbitration and Whether It Is a ‘Gateway Issue’ for the Court – Herrington v. Waterstone Mortgage Corp.
We didn’t expect to be discussing class or collective arbitration issues so soon, but we have repeatedly underestimated the resilience of these aggregate arbitration questions. (See our Nov. 11, 2013, March 12, 2015, Sept. 9, 2015, March…
Availability of Class Arbitration is for Court to Decide, Appeals Court Rules
Vacating a $10 million arbitration award resulting from a “collective action” arbitration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that whether class or collective arbitration is authorized by an arbitration agreement is a threshold question for the…
Subscription Services, Beware
2018 Amendment to California’s Auto-Renewal Law Adds New Requirements For Promotional Offers and Cancellation Mechanisms
Often cited as one of the most aggressive efforts to curb automatically recurring charges to consumers, California’s Auto-Renewal Law (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §…