Today the Supreme Court ruled in Comcast Corp. v. Behrens that an antitrust class action was improperly certified because Justice Scalia and four other Justices found the plaintiffs' damage theory inadequately supported by expert testimony. Others will no doubt have more to say on this, but I found the majority opinion transparently result-oriented, and disturbing […]
Category Archives: U.S. Supreme Court
Over at SCOTUSblog, I've got two posts up about Dan's City Used Cars v. Pelkey, an interesting preemption case that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The case concerns whether transportation deregulation law preempts a suit under state consumer-protection law brought by a man whose car was towed away from his home […]
For those of you in Washington: Tomorrow afternoon at Georgetown Law, I'll be at debating C. Boyden Gray on the constitutionality of the CFPB and Rich Cordray's recess appointment. Here's the announcement: The Consumer Law Society, The Federalist Society, and The Georgetown Center for the Constitution present: The Constitutional Challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection […]
by Deepak Gupta Along with the historic Voting Rights Act arguments this morning, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in American Express v. Italian Colors — a major antitrust arbitration case that we've mentioned on the blog several times over the years (e.g., here and here). I've been serving as co-counsel for the plaintiffs/respondents in […]
by Deepak Gupta The Arbitration Wars Meet the Recess Appointment Wars: Since its beginning, this blog has closely covered controversies over mandatory arbitration in consumer and employment contracts. More recently, we've been covering the constitutional controversy over the President's recess appointments to the CFPB and NLRB. On Tuesday, those two worlds officially collided when lawyers […]
by Deepak Gupta Since at least 2009, this blog has covered (e.g. here and here) the long-running saga of American Express v. Italian Colors, an antitrust dispute that raises fundamental questions about the limits of federal arbitration jurisprudence. The case, now before the Supreme Court, presents the question whether an arbitration clause should be enforced […]
Richard D. Freer of Emory has written The Supreme Court and the Class Action: Where We Are and Where We Might Be Going. Here's the abstract: In 2010 and 2011, the Supreme Court decided five class action cases. In 2012, it has agreed to hear four more. This piece summarizes what the Court has done […]
An 11-judge en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit heard oral argument this week in Kilgore v. Keybank, an important consumer arbitration case. Kilgore presents the question whether the Federal Arbitration Act and the Supreme Court's decision in AT&T v. Concepcion require courts to enforce arbitration clauses even when they would block consumers from pursuing […]
Next Wednesday (November 21), at noon, I'll be presenting a free webinar focusing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's amicus program from both consumer and industry perspectives. On the industry side, I'll be joined by Alan Kaplinsky and Christopher Willis of Ballard Spahr's Consumer Financial Services Group. We'll discuss the factors likely to influence the […]
United States v. Bormes is the Supreme Court's first opinion of the term. It deals with the question of where to look to determine whether the government has waived sovereign immunity in FCRA cases. SCOTUS Blog coverage can be found here.