Articles Discussing General Issues In Employment Law Class Actions

On Christmas Eve, the Third Circuit issued a decision restricting certification of wage/hour classes for off-the-clock cases and increasing the threshold for other wage/hour matters. See Ferreras v. American Airlines, Inc. (Dec. 24, 2019). While this decision may reduce the number of wage/hour class actions certified in the Third Circuit (which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands), it is predicted to cause an increase in the number of wage/hour class action filings in New Jersey state courts. As discussed in our previous legal alert, the recently enacted New Jersey Wage Theft Act by itself will undoubtedly spark an increase in New Jersey state court filings because of the significant increase in damages and lower burden of proof compared to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The Third Circuit’s decision will likely result in even more state court wage/hour class action filings.

Reinforcing the burden on any putative class to satisfy all of the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the district court’s order denying the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification in an employment discrimination action. Moussouris v. Microsoft Corp., No. 18-35791 (9th Cir. Dec. 24, 2019).

Our quarterly report discusses new developments in class action litigation and offers strategic guidance and tactical tips on how to defend such claims. This issue covers the following topics:

Our quarterly report takes a look back at the most significant class action developments over the last year, including litigation trends, court decisions, and legislative and regulatory changes that are certain to invite class litigation.

The fight over the scope of the “ABC test” for determining the status of workers under California state law continues unabated. A series of court filings last week suggests that state and local officials may be gearing up to aggressively enforce AB 5, the law that codified and expanded the application of the ABC test in the Golden State.

Since October 24, 2019, blind and vision-impaired individuals have filed more than ninety lawsuits claiming that the public accommodations provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (Title III) and its state and local equivalents require retailers and restaurants that offer gift cards to offer those cards in Braille.

Our quarterly report discusses new developments in class action litigation and offers strategic guidance and tactical tips on how to defend such claims.

While notices pursuant to the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (“COBRA”) are viewed as fairly standard, some plaintiffs’ counsel have recently zoomed in on the type of information included in these notices. Recently in Florida, three separate class action lawsuits alleged that the employer’s COBRA notice did not comply with the Department of Labor regulation.

A federal judge in Kentucky recently ruled that anecdotal accounts alone cannot support a class claim of discrimination without “substantial statistical evidence of company-wide discrimination.” Freeman v. Delta Air Lines, No. 2:15-cv-160 (WOB-CJS) (E.D. Ky. June 14, 2019).

The Second Circuit sent shock waves through the community of ERISA stock-drop practitioners late last year in Jander v. Retirement Plans Committee of IBM1 by finding plan participants had plausibly alleged a breach of duty of prudence claim against plan fiduciaries.2 Jander is the only appellate court decision to have found such a claim plausibly pled since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer3 and Amgen Inc. v. Harris4 significantly raised the pleading bar for plaintiffs. It thus raised the prospect that the Second Circuit was signaling the liberalization of pleading standards in stock-drop cases (at least in the Second Circuit), despite the long line of cases finding stock-drop plaintiffs had failed to meet their pleading burden under Dudenhoeffer.

On July 2, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed a significant victory to New York’s home care industry.1 In Abdullayeva v. Attending Home Care Services, the appellate court reversed a lower court’s decision denying Attending Home Care Services’ (“Attending”) motion to compel arbitration of the plaintiff’s putative class action complaint, and sent the plaintiff’s claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, New York Wage Parity and New York Labor Law to arbitration on an individual basis. This decision will impact other home care employers in New York with similar arbitration provisions in their collective bargaining agreements.

Our quarterly report discusses new developments in class action litigation and offers strategic guidance and tactical tips on how to defend such claims.

The United States Supreme Court recently issued its opinion in Lamps Plus v Varela, holding that a class action may not be ordered to arbitration unless the parties’ arbitration agreement expressly states that class claims may be arbitrated.

In Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, the U.S. Supreme Court held that an ambiguous arbitration agreement cannot provide the necessary contractual basis for compelling class arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act. This decision reverses the Ninth Circuit’s decision that permitted an employee’s data breach class arbitration to proceed.

In Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, the U.S. Supreme Court held that an ambiguous arbitration agreement cannot provide the necessary contractual basis for compelling class arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act. This decision reverses the Ninth Circuit’s decision that permitted an employee’s data breach class arbitration to proceed.