On September 30, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle held that the qui tam provision of the False Claims Act (FCA) violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution because FCA relators are acting as “officers of the U.S.”...more
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida recently denied a defendant’s motion to dismiss on standing grounds even though plaintiff remained on the line to discover the identity of the caller solely for the...more
MITEK SYS., INC. V. UNITED SERVS. AUTO. ASS’N - Before Dyk, Taranto, and Cunningham. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Summary: Declaratory judgment plaintiffs must identify...more
AffiniPay, LLC, et al. v. West, C.A. No. 2021-0549-LWW (Del. Ch. Sept. 17, 2021) - As a general matter, Delaware courts retain jurisdiction to determine substantive arbitrability – that is, whether claims are subject to...more
In Cheatham v. Adams, a U.S. district judge in Arkansas recently granted the defendant McKendra Adams’s (Adams) motion to dismiss for lack of standing involving an alleged violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act...more
On May 4, 2021, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss in a class action lawsuit regarding the adequate notice of the right to continued...more
Last week, in the In re Plavix decision, the Third Circuit addressed the question of whether relators can be added or substituted in an amended complaint and, in the process, weighed in on whether the first-to-file bar is...more
In a conundrum worthy of a law school civil procedure examination, plaintiff Gensetix found itself apparently with no remedy for infringement by Baylor College of Medicine, Diakonos Research Ltd., and William Decker of...more
Late last year, we wrote about Shore v. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, et al., in which former Atrium Health employees filed a putative class action in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North...more
This month’s Friday Five covers recent cases addressing class certification, pre-existing condition limitations, consideration of extrinsic evidence on a motion to dismiss a purported ERISA action, fee awards, and what level...more
In a closely watched case, a New Hampshire federal court has ruled that the Wire Act is limited to sports betting and set aside the DOJ’s recent opinion to the contrary. However, it limited the scope of its declaratory relief...more
The plaintiffs (“Plaintiffs”) in Gunter-King v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Civil Action No. 18-11316 (JBS/JS), 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 209443 (D.N.J. Dec. 12, 2018), defaulted on their loan obligation on or about July 2012 and a...more
Have the GOP’s Hopes for Enacting the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act Been Dashed? – Passed in March 2017 by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017, H.R. 985, has...more
A municipality sued the company that constructed its water treatment facility, in connection with contaminants found in the water supply. The parties had entered into a series of agreements which contained choice of law and...more
In Carlsen v. GameStop Inc., plaintiff – a paid subscriber to defendant’s online gaming magazine – brought a putative class action lawsuit against defendant for alleged breach of its privacy policy by disclosing plaintiff’s...more
The Energizer Bunny has nothing on the whistleblower claim of Robert Cunningham. Here’s what’s happened since Robert files his qui tam action against Millennium Labs back in 2009: the government declined to intervene; seven...more
A somewhat surprising decision in favor of the State of Texas was handed down from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on June 27, 2016, which held that (i) Texas had standing to challenge the Equal Employment Opportunity...more
In Wynn, et al. v. The New York City Housing Authority 14 Civ. 2818 (S.D.N.Y. July 29, 2015), several employees (who were either African-American or Hispanic) alleged that their employer, the New York City Housing Authority...more