Law, Strategy, and Risk in Commercial Disputes
The Fifth Circuit seldom affirms class certification orders. Can it stand class actions?
The court's ruling last week in Reed v. Florida Metro. Univ., No. 11-50509 (5th Cir. May 18, 2012), suggests not. The case dealt with the near-worthless degrees that Everest College sold — awarded — online and from store-front "campuses", where (per…
Blawgletter thinks we can all agree that the U.S. Supreme Court has done few favors in the last decade or two for what the folks at the American Law Institute call "aggregate litigation" — mainly class actions. What with Dukes (no class for women who work at Wal-Mart) and Concepcion (no class for AT&T wireless…
Can you avoid your promise to arbitrate a dispute, or slow the process down, if you and the bad guy also have a lawsuit going on at the same time?
Nope. Promega Corp. v. Life Technologies Corp., No. 11-1263, slip op. 12 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 28, 2012) ("The district court's duty to compel arbitration…
A federal law says firms that offer "credit repair" have to tell customers about their "right to sue a credit repair organization that violates" the law. The statute also voids "[a]ny waiver by any consumer of any protection provided by or any right of the consumer under this subchapter".
May a consumer still waive …
What do you do if you paid a bunch of money to settle a class action but some of the class members who didn't opt out demand that you arbitrate a dispute relating, at least in part, to the subject matter of the claims you settled?
You start by asking the arbitrators to stay their…
A Seventh Circuit panel today upheld an award in arbitration.
The panel ruled that the arbtitrators didn't manifestly violate law or exceed their powers by finding that the parties jointly owned one patent "family" and that one of the parties solely owned another family of patents. Affymax, Inc. v. Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., No. 11-2070…
The wages of sin is death. What wages do you get from a Ponzi scheme?
The kind you can't access any more.
People who worked at Stanford Group Company found that out the hard way. Their employer, we now learn, paid them with proceeds of a Ponzi scheme. The Fifth Circuit held that funds they…
Does the federal Arbitration Act allow you to appeal an arbitrator's award to a federal court of appeals, skipping the district court? What if the other side agreed to the direct appeal thing?
The Ninth Circuit held in Johnson v. Wells Fargo Mortgage, Inc., No. 09-15937 (9th Cir. Feb. 15, 2011), that the Act bars…
California law favors class actions. So much so that Golden State courts have struck down class-action bans that show up in consumer contracts whether they apply to lawsuits, Discover Bank v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, 113 P.2d 1100 (Cal. 2005), or arbitration cases, America Online v. Superior Court, 108 Cal. Rptr. 2d 699…
On Nov. 8 and 9, the Supreme Court will take up two cases that hold promise and peril for businesses. Blawgletter sees more cause for businesses to hope than fear.
The first of the pair, Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Omega, S.A., No. 08-1423 (U.S.), deals with the reach of copyright law's "first sale" doctrine. …