Category Archives: Class Actions

Paul Bland in HuffPo: House GOP’s Bill to Eliminate Nearly All Class Actions Would Encourage More Ponzi Schemes & Other Corporate Cheating

Here.  Excerpt: [E]nter Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-Corporate Lobbyist Heaven), with his ironically titled “Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act,” which passed through the House Judiciary Committee two weeks ago. Its passage was a remarkable feat of avoiding public notice or debate, with Goodlatte ramming through the legislation in the middle of the night, voting down […]

Reuters’ Alison Frankel on “House Republicans’ bill to gut class actions”

Here.  Markup on the bills is schedule for tomorrow.  Excerpt from Frankel's piece: The bill would limit class certification to class actions in which plaintiffs all “suffered the same type and scope of injury” and would bar certification unless courts can ascertain class membership and assure that only injured plaintiffs recover. Class action lawyers would […]

Adam Levitin: Calls to Fire Cordray are About Shilling for the Financial Industry and to Block Arbitration, Payday Lending Regs

by Jeff Sovern In a characteristically terrific post at Credit Slips, Georgetown's Adam Levitin explains the real reasons for calls to fire CFPB Director Cordray.  A worthy companion to Adam's recent op-ed at American Banker (free content), What the CFPB 'Commission' Debate Is Really About.   Both worth a read. 

Drahozal Article Examines Arbitral Issue Preclusion as a Substitute for Class Actions

Christopher R. Drahozal of Kansas has written The Issue Preclusive Effect of Arbitration Awards, Proceedings of the NYU 69th Annual Conference on Labor: Mediation and Arbitration of Employment and Consumer Disputes, Forthcoming.  Here's the abstract: Courts in the United States have two primary means (in addition to individual adjudication) by which to resolve disputes in […]

House “Freedom Caucus” Asks Trump to Kill CFPB Proposed Arbitration Rule; Is Freedom Just Another Word for Tricking/Trapping Consumers?

WSJ report here (behind paywall). The Caucus consists of 40 members.  The article reports that they seek rollback of 200 rules, but they anticipate that the number will rise. 

Klonoff: A Respite from the Decline in Class Actions

Robert H. Klonoff of Lewis & Clark has written Class Actions Part II: A Respite from the Decline.  Here is the abstract: In a 2013 article, I explained that the Supreme Court and federal circuits had cut back significantly on plaintiffs' ability to bring class actions. As I explain in the present article, that trend […]

Progressive Magazine Tackles Arbitration Clauses

Here. Excerpt: On Monday, September 12, Fultz was summoned to a meeting with the human resources manager at her company, EGS Customer Care. She was given a form and told she needed to sign it. The form, titled “Agreement to Arbitrate,” bore the name of EGS’s parent company, Alorica. It pledged employees to resolve all […]

Will the CFPB Issue the Arbitration Rule Soon?

That's one of the questions addressed by the Wall Street Journal in an article headlined Financial Regulators Scramble to Complete Postcrisis Rules. (behind paywall). Excerpt: “This type of ’midnight rulemaking’ is neither conducive to sound policy nor consistent with principles of democratic accountability,” Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told […]