When and how can a defendant in a putative class action defeat a proposed class?  Defendants served with class action complaints frequently struggle with this question.  Typically, defendants wait until class certification briefing following lengthy discovery to contest class treatment.  This waiting game carries a high cost – discovery in class action cases is usually lengthy (even when bifurcated to address class certification first), expensive, and contentious, carried on while potentially ruinous exposure dangles over…

Sometimes settlement with a putative class of nationwide consumers is the best option for resolution. However, since the initial ruling of the Ninth Circuit in In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel Econ. Litig., the mechanism to go about doing so has been in flux.  On June 6, 2019, the full en banc Ninth Circuit finally answered class action practitioners’  questions and affirmed the district court’s June 2015 final settlement approval order and certification of a…

On Tuesday May 28, 2019, the United State Supreme Court declined to afford state court third-party, class action defendants the ability to remove a class action to federal court. See Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. v. Jackson, 17-1471 (May 28, 2019). In Jackson, Citibank, N.A., filed a debt-collection action against George Jackson in North Carolina state court. Jackson answered this action and filed his own claims: (1) an individual counterclaim against Citibank and (2) a third-party…

The roller coaster of employer liability under the background check provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) recently took an upswing with the California Court of Appeals’ decision in Culberson v. Walt Disney Parks & Resorts.  The Culberson court considered two class claims, both of which are now-familiar spindles ready to prick the fingers of unwitting employers.  First, Culberson alleged that he received a pre-background check notice from Disney that contained extraneous information,…

On Jan. 29, 2019, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a strikingly broad decision, raised the bar for employers’ compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). In Gilberg v California Check Cashing Stores LLC, the court held that an employer violates the FCRA by including, in a pre-background check notice form, information about a job applicant’s rights under various state laws. This decision will require significant revision of many employers’ FCRA…

Any good litigator can tell you that removal is proper where there is diversity of citizenship and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.  Diversity generally requires that no defendant be a citizen of the same state as the plaintiff.  By way of example, consider a lawsuit filed by Paul, a Pennsylvania citizen, in Pennsylvania state court against Daniel from California and David, also a Pennsylvania citizen.  At first glance, it would seem there is no…

As the new year begins, this is a good time to recap two of the major Supreme Court decisions from the past year impacting class action law, and to look ahead to a couple big decisions on the horizon. Looking Back Arbitration and Class Actions First, in Epic Systems Corporation v. Lewis, the Court confirmed that class action waivers in arbitration agreements are enforceable in employment contracts, even where the employee is covered by…