Gibbons Law Alert

Gibbons Law Alert

Tagged: Class Actions

Accepting the Risks of Arbitration Clauses: The Southern District of New York Upholds Arbitrator’s Decision Allowing Class-Wide Arbitration

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On January 28, 2019

On January 2, 2019, the Southern District of New York (SDNY) in Wells Fargo Advisors LLC v. Tucker, declined to vacate an arbitrator’s clause construction award, which construed the parties’ arbitration agreement as permitting class-wide arbitration. Importantly, prior decisions from the SDNY and Second Circuit concluded the parties’ arbitration agreement clearly and unmistakably expressed the parties’ intent that an arbitrator should decide the gateway issue of whether the agreement permitted class arbitration. Having delegated that authority to the arbitrator, the District Court found no basis in law to overturn that clause construction award. The two prior decisions in this matter, addressing the issue of who should decide whether an agreement permits class arbitration, align well with the United States Supreme Court’s January 9, 2019 holding in Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc. There—resolving a circuit split—the High Court held that when the parties’ contract delegates the arbitrability question to an arbitrator, a court may not override the contract, and possesses no power to decide the arbitrability issue, even if the court believes the argument that the arbitration agreement applies to a particular dispute is “wholly groundless.” The clause construction award in Wells Fargo Advisors LLC arose out of a claim by Wells Fargo financial advisors that Wells Fargo, through policy, did not...

Third Circuit Rejects Buyer’s Remorse as a Cognizable Injury Under Article III

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On November 20, 2018

In In Re: Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that buyer’s remorse, without more, does not constitute an economic injury sufficient to establish standing under Article III of the United States Constitution. Plaintiff brought a putative class action against defendant Johnson & Johnson, alleging that perineal use of defendant’s baby powder by women could lead to an increased risk of ovarian cancer. Plaintiff did not allege that she had developed or was at an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer. Nor did she allege that the product was defective in performing the functions for which it was advertised. Furthermore, Plaintiff had used all the product and, thus, was not seeking reimbursement for a product she cannot use. Rather, Plaintiff alleged that she would not have bought the baby powder had she known that it could lead to an increased risk of cancer. The District Court of New Jersey dismissed her complaint for lack of Article III standing. The Third Circuit affirmed. It relied on its analyses in Finkelman v. Nat’l Football League and Cottrell v. Alcon Laboratories to determine that Plaintiff’s allegations were too conjectural to establish standing. It explained that, although a plaintiff need not allege the exact...

Eleventh and Seventh Circuits Hold Class and Collective Arbitration Are Questions of Arbitrability

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On November 5, 2018

In two recent precedential decisions, JPay, Inc. v. Kobel and Herrington v. Waterstone Mortgage Corp., the Eleventh and Seventh Circuits, respectively, held that whether an arbitration may proceed on a class-wide basis (or as a collective action when a claimant is seeking relief under the Fair Labor Standard Act) is a “question of arbitrability” to be decided by the courts, unless the parties specifically delegate that responsibility to an arbitrator. The Supreme Court previously noted the lack of a majority decision on the subject in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp. and declined to address this question in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, leaving the decision to the circuits. In JPay, the dispute arose when two plaintiffs, users of JPay’s fee-for-service amenities to send money to inmates, filed suit alleging the service dissuaded users from sending funds through free paper money orders, and that the fees charged by JPay were “exorbitant” and used to “fund kickbacks to corrections departments.” JPay’s Terms of Service included a provision that the American Arbitration Association (AAA) would arbitrate and govern any disputes, claims, or controversies that arose between the parties and “[t]he ability to arbitrate the dispute, claim or controversy shall likewise be determined in arbitration.” The plaintiffs filed a demand for arbitration on a class basis, and, in response,...

Third Circuit Relies on Spokeo to Shed Light on What is Needed For Article III Injury-in-Fact Standing

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Posted in General Litigation

On October 16, 2018

In Long v. SEPTA, the Third Circuit considered whether and when a violation of a statute is a standing-conferring injury-in-fact satisfying the Constitution’s “case or controversy” requirement. At issue in Long was whether the plaintiffs, who were denied employment by SEPTA when background checks disclosed disqualifying criminal histories, could sue SEPTA for failing to provide them with copies of their rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and copies of their background consumer reports before being denied employment, both of which are required by FCRA. The district court dismissed the complaint, stating that the plaintiffs did not allege a “concrete injury in fact,” because the alleged FCRA violations were “bare procedural violations.” On appeal, the Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the claim based on SEPTA’s failure to provide the plaintiffs notice of their FCRA rights. The Court held that, because the plaintiffs understood their rights well enough to bring the suit, they were not injured by SEPTA’s failure to give them notice of those rights and, therefore, lacked standing to pursue the claim. But the Third Circuit reversed the dismissal of the claim based on SEPTA’s failure to provide copies of the plaintiffs’ consumer reports. The Third Circuit applied the two tests “for whether an intangible injury can be . . . concrete”...

In Affirming Dismissal of Putative Securities Class Action, Third Circuit Provides Important Guidance for Evaluating Sufficiency of Scienter Allegations

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Posted in Securities

On October 4, 2018

A recent precedential decision from the Third Circuit may make it more difficult for putative securities class actions to withstand motions to dismiss and provides useful guidance for district courts in making the often difficult determination whether a complaint adequately pleads the strong inference of scienter necessary to sustain a federal securities fraud claim. In In re Hertz Global Holdings, Inc., certain pension funds brought a securities fraud class action alleging that Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. and certain of its current and former executives violated sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5. Plaintiffs’ complaint relied heavily on a financial restatement Hertz issued with its fiscal year 2014 Form 10-K, which corrected errors to Hertz’s 2011, 2012, and 2013 financial statements. According to the restatement, Hertz had overstated its pre-tax income by a total of $215 million and its net income by a total of $132 million during the three-year period. The restatement explained that “an inconsistent and sometimes inappropriate tone at the top was present under then existing senior management” which “resulted in an environment which in some instances may have led to inappropriate accounting decisions and the failure to disclose information critical to . . . effective review.”  Plaintiffs alleged that the restatement constituted an admission that...

New Jersey Appellate Division Finds Individual Causation Issues Related to Ascertainable Loss Detrimental to Class Certification

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On September 21, 2018

In Polanco v. Star Career Academy, the New Jersey Appellate Division vacated a $10.7 million final verdict against Star Career Academy (“Star”), a New Jersey for-profit school. At issue in the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“CFA”) class action trial below was whether Star concealed and failed to disclose necessary information to Surgical Technology (“ST”) program applicants and students. Specifically, it was alleged that the school did not have the required accreditation needed for students to gain employment upon graduation. Trial resulted in a verdict against Star in the amount of $9 million, with a $1.7 million fee award. On appeal, the appellate panel first found that students seeking an education from a school like Star have the right to know, before enrollment, whether the school has proper accreditation. This is to afford students the opportunity to attend an accredited institution instead. The panel found that because the record contained evidence that Star had made material misrepresentations to students regarding the lack of proper accreditation, Star’s pre-trial summary judgment motion had properly been denied. However, the appellate panel concluded that the trial court had improperly certified the class because the class-wide claims did not predominate over individual allegations by the class members for the following reasons: First, there was a “disparate series of alleged misrepresentations,”...

Wrap-Up of United States Supreme Court’s 2017-2018 Term

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Posted in General Litigation

On July 11, 2018

With the close of the United States Supreme Court’s 2017-18 term, we offer this wrap-up, focusing on decisions of special interest from the business and commercial perspective (excluding patent cases): In a much talked-about decision in the antitrust field, the Court held in Ohio v. American Express Co. that American Express’s anti-steering provisions in its merchant contracts, which generally preclude merchants from encouraging customers to use credit cards other than American Express, are not anticompetitive and therefore do not violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act. In so holding, the Court found that credit card networks are two-sided transaction platforms, one side being the merchant and the other side being the merchant’s customer. Thus, when assessing whether the anti-steering agreements are anticompetitive, the effects on both sides of the platform must be considered. The plaintiffs’ proof that American Express had increased its merchant fees over a period of time was insufficient to show an anticompetitive effect because it neglected the customer side of the platform, where consumers have received the benefit of ever-increasing rewards from credit card companies and other improvements in services that those higher merchant fees enable. Bringing an end to a fight that New Jersey had been waging against the NCAA and professional sports leagues since 2012, the Court paved the way for...

Supreme Court Limits American Pipe Tolling, Holds Tolling Does Not Apply to Successive Class Actions

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On July 2, 2018

The Supreme Court has acted to ensure that the class action device cannot be used to indefinitely extend the statute of limitations, holding in China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh that American Pipe tolling does not apply to successive class actions. American Pipe tolling dates to 1974, when the Supreme Court held that the filing of a class action tolls the statute of limitations for absent class members who seek to intervene after the court has denied class certification. Nine years later, in Crown, Cork & Seal, the Supreme Court extended the rule to toll the statute of limitations for absent class members who choose to file their own individual actions. Resolving a split amongst the Circuits, the Supreme Court held that American Pipe tolling does not apply where class certification is denied and a class member subsequently seeks to bring a new class action after the expiration of the statute of limitations. The Court opined that the “efficiency and economy of litigation” that underpin the American Pipe rule do not support tolling for successive class actions. Rather, the Court determined, barring tolling in such situations will promote efficiency by requiring all litigants who wish to act as class representatives to come forward early on so that the Court can select the best representative among them. Moreover,...

Eleventh Circuit Rules FTC’s Data Security Cease and Desist Order Against LabMD Is Unenforceable

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Posted in General Litigation

On June 20, 2018

In its June 6, 2018 decision, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) Final Order against LabMD lacked adequate specificity and therefore was unenforceable. The Eleventh Circuit had previously issued a stay of enforcement of the FTC’s Final Order – as reported by this blog on November 16, 2016  – which had concluded that LabMD’s data security practices were “unreasonable” and constituted an “unfair” business practice in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“FTC Act”), 15 U.S.C. §45(a) and (n). The FTC initiated an enforcement action against LabMD in August 2013, alleging that LabMD, which operated as a clinical laboratory testing center, failed to implement reasonable data security measures to protect patients’ sensitive personal information. LabMD’s alleged data security failures allowed an employee to install and maintain file-sharing software on a work-related computer for a period of at least three years, which allowed exposure of patient information on a peer-to-peer network accessible daily by millions of users. In July 2016, and on appeal following a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, the FTC concluded that LabMD’s failures had caused, and were also likely to cause, substantial consumer injury, including identity theft and medical-identity theft, which constituted an unfair act or practice in violation of Section 5 of the...

Third Circuit Affirms the Dismissal of a Putative Class Action against TD Bank for Failure to Meet Pleading Requirements

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On June 18, 2018

Last month, the Third Circuit upheld the dismissal of a putative class action against TD Bank, finding that plaintiffs’ conclusory allegations lacked sufficient evidence and failed to satisfy Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading standard for claims that sound in fraud. In MZL Capital Holdings, Inc. et al. v. TD Bank, N.A. et al., two account holders with TD Bank filed a proposed class action accusing the Bank of obscuring its exchange rates and improperly charging an embedded fee for converting foreign currency, thereby defrauding its customers in violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. Shortly thereafter, plaintiffs amended their complaint to add claims for breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and violation of numerous other state consumer-protection laws. TD Bank moved to dismiss plaintiffs’ claims for failure to state a claim, and the District Court granted TD Bank’s motion, dismissing all of plaintiffs’ claims. On appeal, the Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, concluding that plaintiffs’ claims were inadequately pled. At the outset, the Court re-affirmed the basic principle that claims brought under the Consumer Fraud Act sound in fraud and therefore must comply with Rule 9(b)’s particularity requirement. The Third Circuit held that plaintiffs’ general allegations, which failed to identify any provision in their agreement...

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