This morning, in Genesis HealthCare v. Symczyk, the Supreme Court held that defendants in a Fair Labor Standards Act case can defeat the certification of a collective action by making an offer of complete relief to the named plaintiff before she obtains certification for the collective action. According to the court, the offer makes the […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
Today, Public Citizen, working with co-counsel at Thomas & Solomon LLP of Rochester, N.Y., and O’Hara, O’Connell & Ciotoli of Fayetteville, N.Y., filed a petition to appeal the class certification denial in Roach v. T.L. Cannon Corp., a wage-and-hour class action. The appeal will be among the first to test the scope of the Supreme […]
Following up on Brian's post yesterday about employment discimination against smokers, consider California's proposed ban on smoking in apartment buildings and other attached dwellings, discussed here by the Huffington Post (with a headline framing the ban critically) and here by the San Francisco Chronicle (with a more positive take). Public health measure? Unfair punishment for […]
From a CFPB press release this morning: Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) goes live with the nation’s largest public database of federal consumer financial complaints, opening up to consumers across the country information on more than 90,000 individual complaints on financial products and services. . . . Today’s launch expands the Consumer Complaint […]
Yesterday's decision from the Fourth Circuit in McCauley v. Home Loan Investment Bank cabins the preemptive scope of the Home Owners' Loan Act and associated regulations to pre-Dodd Frank consumer claims (Dodd-Frank has changed the legal landscape going forward, but the old regulations still govern a number of cases arising out of the Great Recession). […]
One month before federal tax filing day, here's a helpful primer on an important redistributive aspect of our tax system.
On one hand, Bloomberg reports, the President is going to require federal agencies to consider their activities' impact on climate change. On the other, the Post reports, the administration may delay power plant regulations.
From the program's website: The Women and the Law Program’s new Student Debt and Education Justice Project will address the causes and consequences of student debt, particularly for low-income students by engaging in legal and policy advocacy and research. Promised activities include a clinical program, research, public education, and policy recommendations. See here for more […]
This has been a revealing week for President Obama's two appointees to the Supreme Court, who are becoming two of the strongest voices on the Court. On Monday, Justice Sotomayor made national headlines with her opinion regarding a denial of cert. (beginning at page 13 of this Order List) — though agreeing on procedural grounds […]
The Supreme Court held today that an unsuccessful FDCPA plaintiff in a non-frivolous case must pay the defendant's costs (which could be hundreds or occasionally, as in this case, thousands of dollars), even though the statute's text provides for attorney-fee- and cost-shifting only where "an action under this section was brought in bad faith and […]