This post was originally published as a Seyfarth legal update.
Seyfarth Synopsis: A divided Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel has ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts California Assembly Bill 51 (AB 51), which purports to prohibit employers from requiring job applicants and workers from signing arbitration pacts. The panel further concluded
This post was originally published on Seyfarth’s Gadgets, Gigabytes & Goodwill blog.
A recent motion for preliminary approval of a class action settlement filed in federal court in Georgia will bring to a close claims asserted on behalf of a class of Porsche owners for a purportedly botched over-the-air (“OTA”) software update sent to
In this webinar, Seyfarth attorneys Robert Milligan, Jonathan Braunstein, Daniel Joshua Salinas, and Darren Dummit covered the recent developments in consumer class actions related to COVID-19 in California, explaining the claims and expected defenses, and proactive attempts that companies can employ now to attempt to avoid these suits.
As a conclusion to this webinar, we
Companies responding to the pandemic are faced with the challenges of not only complying with 
federal, state, and local emergency orders and guidelines for each location in which they operate, but also ensuring that any measures taken to address the foregoing do not affect compliance with other laws. In the wake of business closures and
On March 4, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Price gouging is illegal in all California communities during the declared state of emergency.
Executive Order N-44-20 makes it unlawful to increase the price of food items, consumer goods, or medical and emergency supplies
The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruption and challenges for businesses navigating California’s consumer protection laws. California was already an attractive forum for expensive consumer class action lawsuits, where it can be easier to obtain class certification, conduct onerous discovery, obtain lucrative class action settlement approval, and recover higher attorneys’ fee awards compared to other
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses around the world had been bracing for the financial and operational impact of the new California Consumers Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which took effect January 1, 2020. Despite existing and ongoing uncertainty around how to comply and interpret the law, the courts had already began seeing private class actions brought
We are pleased to announce the webinar “Hot Topics and Trends in California Consumer Class Actions” is now available as a webinar recording.
On Wednesday, August 7, 2019, Seyfarth partners Robert Milligan and Joseph Escarez reviewed the latest consumer class action law developments affecting companies that do business in California. It is no secret
On Wednesday, August 7, 2019, at 12 p.m. CT, Seyfarth attorneys will review the latest consumer class action law developments affecting companies that do business in California. It is no secret that resourceful plaintiff’s attorneys target companies conducting business in California with expensive and time-consuming putative class actions alleging violations of federal or state consumer
Seyfarth Synopsis: On June 5, 2019, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in NEI Contr. & Eng’g, Inc. v. Hanson Aggregates Pac. Sw., Inc., 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 16885 (9th Cir. June 5, 2019), upholding the district court’s decertification of a class whose class representative lacked standing on its individual claims.
NEI Contracting and Engineering, Inc. (“NEI”) sought to bring a class action based on allegations that Hanson Aggregates, Inc. (“Hanson”) violated California Civil Code section 632.7 for recording phone calls without the consent of the individuals placing the calls. The district court, after initial certification, decertified the class, observing that the individualized inquiries required to determine if each class member consented to the recording would predominate over questions of fact common to all class members. The court also found that NEI did not have standing to bring its individual claims.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Upholds Decertification of Class in Unauthorized Customer Call Recording Suit Where the Class Representative Did Not Have Standing