On March 23, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in DirecTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, agreeing to resolve a split between the Ninth Circuit and California state courts on how to interpret the same DirecTV arbitration...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released final results of its study of consumer arbitration as mandated by Section 1028 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Section 1028 provides that the CFPB, “by regulation, may prohibit or...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied a petition for certiorari that challenged a California Supreme Court decision carving out an exception to the federal high court’s recent holdings in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion and...more
2/11/2015
/ American Express v Italian Colors Restaurant ,
Arbitration ,
AT&T Mobility v Concepcion ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Iskanian v CLS Transportation ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Preemption ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
SCOTUS
The California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, recently affirmed an order denying a petition to compel arbitration where the employer failed to present sufficient evidence that the employee electronically signed an...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit recently held that a class action was not mooted by the unaccepted offers of judgment made by the defendant to each putative class representative in the full amount of his or her...more
The American Financial Services Association (AFSA) has sent a letter to Director Cordray responding to the letter sent to him last month by 16 Democratic state attorneys general calling on the CFPB to limit the use of...more
Jeff Sovern, through his Consumer Law & Policy Blog, recently responded to our criticism that the St. John’s study didn’t include arbitration provisions with opt-out features. Jeff makes the point that since consumers don’t...more
Following on the heels of the Pew Foundation’s survey of consumer attitudes towards arbitration and the CFPB’s on-going empirical study of consumer arbitration, a group of professors from St. John’s University School of Law...more
Over the vigorous objections of industry trade groups, on September 4, 2014, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the CFPB’s request to conduct a national telephone survey of 1,000 credit card holders as part of...more
In a case intersecting the 89-year-old Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the digital era, the Ninth Circuit has ruled that a consumer who did not read the company’s terms of use when ordering a product on its website was not...more
In Opalinski v. Robert Half International, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that where an arbitration clause is silent as to the availability of classwide arbitration, that issue should...more
On Thursday, July 31, 2014, President Obama signed an Executive Order called "Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces," requiring covered federal contractors and subcontractors to publicly report labor violations, to forgo the use of...more
8/6/2014
/ ADEA ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Barack Obama ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Executive Orders ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) ,
Federal Contractors ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
OSHA ,
Subcontractors ,
Title VII
The American Arbitration Association (AAA) announced yesterday that beginning September 1, 2014, it will implement and maintain a publicly available Consumer Clause Registry. This will affect any company that designates the...more
The Supreme Court of California recently found an employee’s waiver of the right to bring a class action against his former employer enforceable under state law. In the process, the court reversed its 2007 decision in Gentry...more
6/30/2014
The Pew Charitable Trusts has released another report evaluating the checking account disclosure practices of the nation’s largest banks. Despite finding that disclosure practices have improved, Pew again urges the Consumer...more
Can an employer compel arbitration in accordance with an arbitration clause in a contract that has terminated? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently answered this question in the affirmative....more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has become the fifth appellate court to hand down a victory for employers in the fight over enforceability of class action waivers. The court ruled that an arbitration...more
In the aftermath of AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Concepcion and American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, consumer lawyers have frequently argued that arbitration agreements should be invalidated if features other than the...more
On December 3, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) ruling that an employer violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by requiring employees to...more
Two recent Ninth Circuit opinions and a California Supreme Court ruling demonstrate that the debate over the enforceability of consumer arbitration provisions is far from over. With the U.S. Supreme Court weighing whether to...more
A recent decision by the Arizona Court of Appeals underscores the importance of keeping consumer arbitration agreements consumer friendly. In Clark v. Renaissance West, LLC, the court affirmed the trial court’s denial of a...more
As part of its on-going study of consumer arbitration mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB announced on June 7, 2013 that it is seeking funding from the Office of Management and Budget to undertake a telephone survey of...more
Applying the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Oxford Health Plans v. Sutter, the 11th Circuit affirmed an arbitrator’s conclusion that the parties’ agreement permitted class-wide arbitration....more
The Pew Charitable Trusts has released a report on the safety and transparency of checking accounts. The study questions whether banks are sufficiently engaged in what Pew deems "best practices" and concludes that the...more
The U.S. Supreme Court today delivered a knock-out punch to the last major court challenge to the use of class action waivers in consumer arbitration agreements....more