Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

Miranda is a former employee of Anderson Enterprises; Hansen is the company’s general manager. During his employment, Miranda signed an “Alternative Dispute Resolution Policy” by which agreed to arbitrate all employment claims and waived the right to arbitrate claims as a class or collective action. In 2013, Miranda filed a purported class action lawsuit, asserting wage and hour claims, including a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA; Lab. Code, 2698) claim. The trial court found the arbitration agreement valid and enforceable, dismissed the class and representative claims without prejudice based on the arbitration agreement’s waiver, directed Miranda to arbitrate his individual claims, and stayed the superior court proceedings pending completion of arbitration of the individual claims. The court of appeal reversed as to the representative PAGA claim, based on a subsequently-issued California Supreme Court opinion, Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles, LLC (2014), under which the waiver is unenforceable. The court noted that Miranda had represented that he would not pursue his individual claims through arbitration and concluded that the PAGA ruling was, therefore, appealable. View "Miranda v. Anderson Enters., Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, alleging to be putative class members of multiple class actions, have filed their own individual suits against the defendant, Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens). Plaintiffs were residents of, and owned homes in, St. Bernard Parish at the time Hurricane Katrina. Their properties were insured under policies of all-risk or homeowners insurance by defendant. Plaintiffs originally filed suit against Citizens on December 3, 2009, seeking contractual and bad faith damages arising out of Citizens’ handling of their property damage claims related to Hurricane Katrina. Citizens excepted on grounds of prescription and lis pendens. At issue is whether the doctrine of lis pendens barred plaintiffs’ suits where the plaintiffs were not named parties in the first-filed class actions. The Supreme Court found the trial court erred in overruling the defendant’s exception of lis pendens. View "Aisola v. Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a truck driver, filed a putative class action complaint against his employer, Rich Voss Trucking, Stevens Creek Quarry, and Richard Voss, alleging wage and hour violations. Plaintiff contended that defendants were his joint employers and the employers of all similarly situated non-exempt current and former employees of defendants and asserted failure to provide required meal periods and rest periods, failure to pay overtime wages, failure to pay minimum wage, failure to pay all wages due to discharged or quitting employees, failure to maintain required records, failure to indemnify employees for necessary expenditures incurred in the discharge of duties, failure to provide accurate itemized wage statements, and unfair and unlawful business practices. Plaintiff alleged a cause of action under the Private Attorneys General Act for a representative action for civil penalties. He filed a separate complaint, alleging disability and national origin discrimination and retaliation. The court of appeal reversed denial or class certification and remanded for an explanation of the reasoning for the denial. View "Tellez v. Rich Voss Trucking, Inc." on Justia Law

Three petitioners sued their former employer and certain of its agents and associates (collectively, “Employer”) asserting minimum wage and overtime claims individually and on behalf of others similarly situated. The district court entered orders compelling individual arbitration of Petitioners’ claims and denying their motions for class certification. Each petitioner signed the same long-form arbitration agreement, which included a clause waiving the right to initiate or participate in class actions. Petitioners sought extraordinary writ relief, contending that Employer’s failure to countersign the long-form agreement made it unenforceable, that the class action waiver violated state and federal law, and, in the case of one petitioner, Employer waived its right to compel arbitration by litigating with him in state and federal court. The Supreme Court denied writ relief, holding that Petitioners’ arguments were unavailing and that the district court did not err in compelling individual arbitration of their claims. View "Tallman v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court" on Justia Law

Google's AdWords program is an auction-based program through which advertisers would bid for Google to place their advertisements on websites. Pulaski and others filed a putative class action alleging that Google misled them as to the types of websites on which their advertisements could appear. On appeal, Pulaski challenged the district court's denial of class certification, holding that on the claim for restitution, common questions did not predominate over questions affecting individual class members. The court held that a court need not make individual determinations regarding entitlement to restitution. Instead, restitution is available on a class wide basis once the class representative makes the threshold showing of liability. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court erred in holding that such individual questions would predominate. In Yokoyama v. Midland National Life Insurance Co., the court held that damage calculations alone cannot defeat certification. The court concluded that Yokoyama remains the law of the court and the district court erred in not following the rule in Yokoyama. Finally, the court concluded that the proposed method for calculating restitution was not “arbitrary” under Comcast Corp. v. Behrend. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Pulaski & Middleman, LLC v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law

This appeal arose out of the Department of the Interior’s misadministration of Native American trust accounts and an ensuing complex, nationwide litigation and settlement. The class action representatives appealed the district court's denial of compensation for expenses incurred during the litigation and settlement process. The court affirmed the district court’s denial of additional compensation for expenses for the lead plaintiff because the district court expressly wrapped those costs into an incentive award given to her earlier. However, the district court erred in categorically rejecting as procedurally barred the class representatives’ claim for the recovery of third-party payments, and remanded for the district court to apply its accumulated expertise and discretion to the question of whether third-party compensation can and should be paid under the Settlement Agreement. View "Cobell v. Jewell" on Justia Law

Insured filed a complaint alleging that Insured had breached a title insurance policy. Insured also alleged that Insurer had acted in bad faith and requested an award of attorney’s fees and costs pursuant to Va. Code Ann. 38.2-209. Insured demanded a jury trial “on all counts so triable.” Insurer sought to have the trial judge, rather than the jury, consider the issues of bad faith and attorney’s fees. The jury was permitted to award attorney’s fees. The jury found in favor of Insured and awarded $442,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs. The trial court judge vacated the jury’s award of attorney’s fees and costs, ruling that section 38.2-209(A) requires a judge, not a jury, to determine whether an insurer committed a bad faith breach of an insurance contract warranting an award of attorney’s fees. Reconsidering the evidence de novo, the judge then concluded that the evidence was insufficient to prove that Insurer had acted in bad faith. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) a judge, not a jury, must determine whether an insurer has acted in bad faith under the policy; and (2) section 38.2.209(A) does not implicate the right to a jury trial under Va. Const. art. I, 11. View "REVI, LLC v. Chicago Title Ins. Co." on Justia Law

This case arose after the Republic of Argentina defaulted on sovereign debt in 2001 and numerous bondholders, including plaintiff, filed a class action suit. In this appeal, Argentina challenged the district court's grant of plaintiff's motion to modify the class definition by removing the continuous holder requirement and expanding the class to all holders of beneficial interests in the relevant bond series without limitations as to time held. In this case, the features of the bonds make the modified class insufficiently definite as a matter of law.  Although the class as originally defined by the district court may have presented difficult questions of calculating damages, it did not suffer from a lack of ascertainability. The court concluded that the district court erred in attempting to address those questions by introducing an ascertainability defect into the class definition. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on damages. View "Brecher v. Republic of Argentina" on Justia Law

The U.S. chocolate market is dominated by three companies: Hershey, Mars, and Nestlé USA (the Chocolate Manufacturers). A certified class of direct purchasers of chocolate products and a group of individual plaintiffs alleged that the Chocolate Manufacturers conspired to raise prices on chocolate candy products in the United States three times between 2002 and 2007. They offered evidence of a contemporaneous antitrust conspiracy in Canada. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Third Circuit affirmed, finding that the Canadian conspiracy evidence was ambiguous and did not support an inference of a U.S. conspiracy because the people involved in and the circumstances surrounding the Canadian conspiracy are different from those involved in and surrounding the purported U.S. conspiracy; evidence that the U.S. Chocolate Manufacturers knew of the unlawful Canadian conspiracy was weak and, in any event, related only to Hershey. Other traditional conspiracy evidence was insufficient to create a reasonable inference of a U.S. price-fixing conspiracy. View "In re: Chocolate Confectionary Antitrust Litig." on Justia Law

Phillips owns an underground petroleum pipeline, built in 1930. A 1963 report stated that 100 barrels of leaded gasoline had leaked beneath West Alton, Missouri, and not been recovered. The leak was repaired. In 2002 a West Alton resident noticed a petroleum odor in his home. He contacted Phillips, which investigated. West Alton has no municipal water. Testing on the owner’s well disclosed benzene, a gasoline additive and carcinogen, at three times allowable limits. Phillips purchased the property, and two nearby homes and, with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), established a remediation plan. In 2006 Phillips demolished the homes, removed 4000 cubic yards of soil, and set up wells to monitor for chemicals of concern (COCs). Phillips volunteered to provide precautionary bottled water to 50 residents near the site. Sampling of other wells had not shown COCs above allowable limits. MDNR requested that Phillips test the wells of each family receiving bottled water before ending its water supply program. Phillips chose instead to continue distributing bottled water. Most of the recipients are within 0.25 miles of the contamination site. In 2011 nearby landowners sued, alleging nuisance, on the theory that possible pockets of contamination still exist. The Eighth Circuit reversed class certification, noting the absence of evidence showing class members were commonly affected by contamination, View "Smith v. ConocoPhillips Pipe Line Co." on Justia Law