US District Court – Rhode Island

  • October 19, 2023

District of Rhode Island Rules that Class Action Waivers are Not Enforceable Outside of Arbitration

Arbitration, Class Action Litigation, Class Actions, Consumer Class Actions, Litigation, US District Court - Rhode Island
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Earlier this month, in Elsie Metcalfe v. Grieco Hyundai, LLC, the Rhode Island Federal District Court invalidated a class action waiver in an agreement without an arbitration clause that was therefore not subject to the Federal Arbitration Act.

In Metcalfe, Plaintiff Elsie Metcalfe leased a car from Defendant Grieco Hyundai, LLC, in May 2019.  The lease agreement included an option to purchase the vehicle at a specific price at the end of the lease.  When the Defendant raised the price, Ms. Metcalfe brought a class action for breach of contract and violation of the Rhode Island Deceptive Trade Practices Act, among other claims.  The Defendant moved to dismiss based on a provision in the lease agreement that waived the lessor’s right to bring or join a class action related to the lease.

Class Action Waivers Held to Violate Rhode Island and Massachusetts Public Policy

The District Court held the waiver

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  • November 18, 2019

After-Effects of In re Asacol: Recent District Court Decisions on Certification and Uninjured Class Members

Antitrust Class Actions, Class Certifications, Consumer Class Actions, First Circuit Decisions, US District Court - Mass, US District Court - Rhode Island
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About a year ago, I observed that the First Circuit in In re Asacol Antitrust Litigation had constrained plaintiffs’ ability to rely on affidavits to prove injury-in-fact.  In so doing, the First Circuit substantially curtailed its prior decision in In re Nexium Antitrust Litigation, which certified a class containing uninjured consumers because class members would be able to prove injury via affidavit.  In its In re Asacol decision, the First Circuit made it clear that trial-by-affidavit is a permissible means to establish injury only if the affidavits are unrebutted.

As the D.C. Circuit observed in relying on In re Asacol, that case “sharply limited” In re Nexium and established that “any winnowing mechanism” used to identify uninjured class members

must be truncated enough to ensure that common issues predominate, yet robust enough to preserve the defendants’ Seventh Amendment and due process rights to

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