Last Friday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a significant employment class action decision that may challenge conventional wisdom about the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes. The opinion, authored by respected Judge Richard Posner, is McReynolds v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., No. 11-3639 (7th Cir., Feb. [...]
Archive for the ‘Federal Court Decisions’ Category
Think Dukes Was the End of the Employment Discrimination Class Action? Think Again.
Posted in Class Action Trends, Employment Class Actions, Federal Court Decisions, tagged 23(b)(2), 23(c)(4), class action, class certification, class treatment, disparate impact, dukes, employment discrimination, frcp 23, issue certification, mcreynolds, merrill lynch, posner, rule 23, seventh circuit, Supreme Court, wal-mart on February 29, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Baker Hostetler Employment Class Action Blog – Much More than Quality Employment Class Actions News
Posted in Class Action Trends, Federal Civil Procedure, Federal Court Decisions, Lawyers' Resources, Other class action blogs, tagged american express merchants, amex III, arbitration, class action, compucredit, concepcion, employment class action, FAA, federal arbitration act, federal common law, federal statutory law, greenwood, iqbal, lewis, mersol, pleading, rule 8, scalia, twombly, unconscionability on February 9, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The Baker Hostetler Employment Class Action Blog is constantly putting out quality content, but they have two new recent posts that I would especially recommend to my readers. They include: This February 6 post from John Lewis discussing the impacts, both on employment cases and otherwise, of the Second Circuit’s recent Amex III decision. This February [...]
… More on Amex III
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Class Action News, Class Action Trends, Federal Court Decisions, tagged american express merchants, amex III, arbitration waiver, class arbitration, concepcion, FAA, stolt-nielsen on February 7, 2012 | 2 Comments »
As promised in my post late last week, the Baker Hostetler client alert on last week’s Second Circuit decision in In Re American Express Merchants’ Litigation, No. 06-1871 (2d Cir., Feb. 1, 2012) (Amex III) was released today. Here is a link to the alert, authored by New York partner Deborah Renner and Columbus associate Jennifer Vessells, [...]
Close Counts In Horse Shoes, Hand Grenades, and Chronic Halitosis, but Not Class Action Distributions, Says Fifth Circuit
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Class Action Trends, Federal Court Decisions, tagged Baker Hostetler, class action settlement, cy pres, elf, fifth circuit, klier, settlement agreement, unclaimed settlement on November 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The Baker Hostetler class action practice team issued a new Executive Alert today authored by Columbus Partner Mark Johnson entitled Fifth Circuit Restricts Cy Pres Doctrine in Class Action Settlements. The alert discusses the Fifth Circuit’s recent decision in Klier v. Elf Atochem North America, Inc., restricting the use of the cy pres doctrine to distribute unclaimed class action settlement [...]
Roundup of Recent Federal Court of Appeals Decisions on Class Action Issues
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Class Action Fairness Act, Federal Court Decisions, tagged amount in controversy, CAFA, chimei, circuit court of appeals, cy pres, easterbrook, federal court of appeals, fifth circuit, fourth circuit, keeling, klier, ninth circuit, parens patriae, punitive damages, remand, removal, seventh circuit on October 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Having been focused on several other speaking and writing projects recently (in addition to my day job), it’s taken longer than I had hoped to comment on several recent class-action-related decisions by the federal circuit courts of appeals. Here’s a brief summary of three recent decisions of note: Washington State v. Chimei Innolux Corp., No. 11-16862 [...]
Southern District of Florida Holds that Arbitration Agreements May Still Be Found Unconscionable Under State Law After Concepcion
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Federal Court Decisions, tagged arbitration agreement, AT&T Mobility, checking account overdraft, class arbitration waiver, concepcion, FAA, preemption, southern district of florida, state law on September 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Thanks to New York attorney William R. Weinstein for tipping me off to another hot-off-the-presses decision addressing class arbitration waivers following AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. In an order entered September 1, 2011 in the MDL case In re Checking Account Overdraft Litigation, Judge James Lawrence King of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of [...]
Second Circuit Court of Appeals Summons Amchem and Ortiz in Rejecting Class Action Settlement
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Class Action Settlements, Federal Court Decisions, tagged adequacy, amchem, class action objectors, class action settlement, class certification, fairness hearing, final approval, ortiz, second circuit on August 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
As I have noted in a series of posts recently, class action settlement objectors should not be taken lightly. (See this August 1, 2011 post and others cited within). Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals offered an excellent case in point in its decision in In re Literary Works in Electronic Databases Copyright Litigation, No. [...]
Supreme Court Says No to Class Certification in Wal-mart v. Dukes
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Employment Class Actions, Federal Court Decisions, Supreme Court Decisions on June 20, 2011 | 2 Comments »
As was widely expected, the Supreme Court has overturned class certification in what has been called the largest employment discrimination class action in history. The slip opinion in Wal-mart v. Dukes, No. 10-277, (S. Ct. June 20, 2011). is available at the Court’s website. The justices were unanimous in finding that Rule 23(b)(2) did not [...]


Third Circuit Applies a Broad Reading of Concepcion
Posted in Class Action Decisions, Commentary, Federal Court Decisions, tagged AT&T Mobility, class action waiver, class arbitration, class arbitration waiver, concepcion, FAA, litman, Supreme Court, third circuit on September 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
My recent SCOTUSblog post on the October 2010 Supreme Court Term class action decisions does not address an important decision from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which was issued last week. In Litman v. Cellco Partnership, the Third Circuit held that New Jersey decision holding class arbitration waivers unconscionable was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. To [...]
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