Consumer Class Actions Litigation
May 6, 2020 / January 12, 2023 by Don Frederico
One fallout of the Coronavirus pandemic is a national wave of class action lawsuits against universities, including some schools located in New England. To read more about the cases and our thoughts about the universities’ defenses, please see this client alert we published today.
Read more »
Appeals Class Actions Litigation
March 17, 2020 / May 17, 2024 by Katherine Kayatta
We have previously written about the Supreme Court’s personal jurisdiction decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017) and how the federal district courts were applying it. Now, two Courts of Appeals have finally weighed in, issuing the very first appellate decisions addressing whether Bristol-Myers applies to class actions in […]
Arbitration Consumer Class Actions US District Court - Mass
December 11, 2019 / January 3, 2020 by Melanie Conroy
It is a legal maxim that arbitration is a creature of contract. A recent District of Massachusetts decision explores critical questions about when that creature can exist outside of the confines of a binding agreement to arbitrate among the parties. The November 27, 2019 decision by Senior U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole ordered that […]
Tagged
Antitrust Class Actions Class Certifications Consumer Class Actions First Circuit Decisions US District Court - Mass US District Court - Rhode Island
November 18, 2019 by Josh Dunlap
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 […]
Arbitration Consumer Class Actions Privacy Class Actions US District Court - Mass
November 15, 2019 / November 18, 2019 by Melanie Conroy
On November 4, 2019, in Wainblat v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, et. al., No. 19-cv-10976, the District of Massachusetts ordered that a consumer privacy class action against Comcast must be arbitrated on an individual basis because the claims are subject to a valid and enforceable arbitration provision. Against a backdrop of rapidly expanding consumer class […]
Class Action Settlements
June 23, 2019 / January 12, 2023 by Don Frederico
Most class actions resemble three-act plays. In the first act, the players are adversaries – fighting to kill the case or keep it alive, and if kept alive, to keep it limited to a solitary dispute or allow it to burgeon into the combined claim of large numbers of absent parties. If the case survives […]
Consumer Class Actions Legislation Privacy Class Actions US District Court - Mass
May 29, 2019 / May 30, 2019 by Melanie Conroy
As we have recently reported, the Massachusetts legislature is currently considering a comprehensive data privacy law that would create a private right of action for consumers who allege a violation of any provision of the proposed law. Last week, a Massachusetts federal court dismissed a data privacy class action, concluding that the plaintiffs failed to […]
Class Representative Lead Plaintiff Securities Class Actions Standing US District Court - Mass
May 20, 2019 / May 22, 2019 by Melanie Conroy
On May 16, 2019, the District of Massachusetts denied a lead plaintiff’s motion to amend a complaint that sought to overcome standing deficiencies of the original class representative by adding a new named plaintiff. The Court dismissed the putative class action without prejudice, holding that if a class action has only one representative, and that […]
Class Arbitration Supreme Court
April 24, 2019 by Josh Dunlap
Class arbitration came back before the Supreme Court this term in Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela. Today, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in Lamps Plus, holding that, under the Federal Arbitration Act, “courts may not infer from an ambiguous agreement that parties have consented to arbitrate on a classwide basis.” Rather, class arbitration […]
Class Action Settlements Supreme Court
March 20, 2019 / March 20, 2019 by Josh Dunlap
Today, in a case that was being watched closely for its potential ramifications for class settlements, the Supreme Court opted not to address the merits of the cy pres issues that were presented to it. Frank v. Gaos involved a settlement that would have distributed millions of dollars to cy pres recipients and class counsel, […]
