So says Paul Bland in a persuasive blog post.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And to a Court bent on diminishing the usefulness of Rule 23, everything looks like a class action, ready to be dismantled. -Justice Kagan, dissenting today in Amex v. Italian Colors. She doesn't cite Walmart v. Dukes, Comcast v. Behrend, Genesis Healthcare v. Symczyk, or AT&T v. […]
I noted earlier that American Express has won American Express v. Italian Colors in the Supreme Court. Here's what Justice Scalia says about the "effective vindication" doctrine — the doctrine on which the Second Circuit had relied in overriding the class-action ban contained in American Express's arbitration agreement: As we have described, the exception finds its […]
The Supreme Court today issued its opinion in American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant. The Court holds, 5-3, in an opinion by Scalia, that an arbitration clause that bans class actions can be enforced under the Federal Arbitration Act even if the expense of individual arbitration makes it impossible to pursue a claim.
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing titled CFPB Budget Review. You can listen to the webcast here. It seems to be part of the continuing Republican attack on the Bureau. The American Banker reported on the hearing here (behind a paywall). The article points out that Republicans were criticial […]
We posted last month (here and here) about abuses perpetrated by the concert and sports entertainment industry, which often makes it impossible for consumers to buy tickets at face value. Music-industry celebrities are sometimes part of the problem. The office of New York City councilman Dan Garodnick has followed CL&P's coverage of the issue and alterted […]
Brian's post below mentions the recent New York Times article about automakers' efforts to avail themselves of their dealers' arbitration agreements with customers, as well as the Ninth Circuit's decision in Kramer v. Toyota rejecting one such effort. Anyone interested in these subjects might also want to know that Toyota has filed a petition for a […]
A commenter on my post about the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Feeney asked for an explanation in plain English. Here goes. The court decided that Massachusetts courts will not enforce an arbitration clause that bans class actions when a claim really cannot be pursued without a class action. For example, if the claim is […]
by Jeff Sovern The Supreme Court today granted cert in Mount Holly v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, which raises the issue of whether courts can use the disparate impact test in federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) cases. Because the language of the FHA is similar to that of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act […]
This article by Christopher Jensen explains that the big automakers are trying to use aribtration clauses in consumers' contracts with auto dealers to escape liability in court in class actions and with respect to individual claims under state "lemon laws." I posted in February about a Ninth Circuit ruling rejecting an effort by Toyota to […]