In two companion cases decided today, the California Supreme Court provided clarification on whether cases brought as “representative” actions under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) and Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) must meet class action requirements. In Arias v. Superior Court (Angelo Dairy), the Court held that a plaintiff seeking relief on behalf of others under the UCL must satisfy the requirements for a class action set forth in California Code of Civil Procedure section 382. The Court based its decision on the plain language and voter intent behind Proposition 64, which amended the ...
By John Anthony
In class action wage-and-hour litigation oftentimes many million of dollars are at issue. The legal and factual issues are often complex and the risk is high on both the plaintiffs' and defendants' sides. Consequently, many of these class actions are disposed of by the parties by way of settlement rather than at a trial on the merits.
Unlike cases involving a single plaintiff and a single defendant, class action litigation requires court approval before a case is settled. The reason for this is simple: the class action mechanism is in place to protect the interest...
In Zamora v. Lehman, a California court held this week that a party to an arbitration agreement waives the right to compel arbitration by engaging in conduct inconsistent with the agreement to arbitrate. In this case, one of the parties to a lawsuit waited until four months before trial to seek to compel arbitration of the dispute. Prior to requesting arbitration, the party conducted discovery in the court proceedings. The court noted that the parties’ arbitration agreement did not ...
Since the California Supreme Court’s decisions in Discover Bank v. Superior Court and Gentry v. Superior Court, Plaintiffs’ attorneys have argued that class action waivers in arbitration agreements are effectively dead in California. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, have pointed out that Gentry actually affirmed that in proper circumstances such a waiver will be enforced. Gentry sets forth four factors that bear on enforceability: the modest size of the potential individual recovery, the potential for retaliation against members of the class, the fact that absent members of the class may be ill informed about ...
By Ryan McCoy
Recently, in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (Laster), the 9th Circuit held that the phone company's consumer class action waiver clause was unconscionable under California law, and that the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") does not preempt California law. Both conclusions are significant given the Supreme Court's prior holding in in Stoltt-Nielsen v. Animal Feeds, which held that the FAA does not authorize arbitrators to require class action arbitration when an arbitration agreement is silent on the issue.
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and will hear the case...
