Pencils down. (Is the modern equivalent “cursors down”?) All the attorneys who were drafting new form consumer agreements to comply with the CFPB rule prohibiting class action waivers can now trash those documents. Pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, the Senate voted 51-50 last night (with the VP as tie-breaker) to nullify the CFPB’s rule.
Last Thursday, the Second Circuit found that the arbitration agreement in Uber’s Terms of Service was conspicuous enough to be binding and enforceable. As a result, the claims of a putative class of consumers will be dismissed unless they can show that Uber waived its right to arbitrate their claims. Meyer v. Uber Technologies, Inc.
Class action arbitration continues to be a hot topic among the federal appellate courts this summer.
The 8th Circuit followed the lead of other circuit courts, finding that courts, not arbitrators, presumptively decide whether the parties’ arbitration agreement allows for class arbitration. Catamaran Corporation v. Towncrest Pharmacy, 2017 WL 3197622 (July 28,
In National Labor Relations Board v. Alternative Entertainment, Inc., No. 16-1385, 2017 WL 2297620 (6th Cir. May 26, 2017), the Sixth Circuit joined the Seventh and Ninth Circuits in upholding the NLRB’s decision that barring an employee from pursuing class action or collective claims violates the NLRA. Already lined up on the other side
The Federal Arbitration Act has been in effect for nearly 100 years (92, to be precise). Nevertheless, the First Circuit found two issues of first impression to address this month. In Oliveira v. New Prime, Inc., 2017 WL 1963461 (1st Cir. May 12, 2017), the court refused to compel arbitration of a class action
The Ninth, Sixth, and Third Circuits all recently issued decisions about whether putative class or collective actions could proceed despite the existence of arbitration clauses. In two of those decisions, the courts found the arbitration agreements did not allow for class arbitration and therefore dismissed the claims. In the third, the court found the arbitration
Three state supreme courts tackled arbitration law in recent weeks: Alabama, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. Rhode Island reversed a construction arbitration award because it disagreed with the arbitrator’s analysis. North Carolina found that an arbitration agreement in a doctor-patient setting was unenforceable as a breach of the doctor’s fiduciary duty. And Alabama strictly enforced
Echoing a holding already issued by four other circuits, the Third Circuit recently found that a defendant does not waive its right to arbitration by continuing to litigate in court, if the reason it failed to move to compel arbitration is that the motion would have been futile. Chassen v. Fidelity Nat’l Fin., Inc.,
Continuing last week’s theme of “States Gone Wild,” here are three more oddball summer decisions from state supreme courts. All of them find interesting paths around federal case law (IMHO).
Georgia Says Class Complaint Is Deemed Arbitration Opt Out For All Class Members
In Bickerstaff v. SunTrust Bank, 2016 WL 3693778 (Ga. July 8,
Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed the rules that it previewed last fall, following up on its Arbitration Study. Those rules would essentially ban class action waivers from consumer financial agreements, as well as requiring arbitral institutions to provide data on consumer financial disputes to the CFPB. (As an aside, the proposal is