23(b)(3) (emphasis added).” (One internal citation and quotation omitted). What the rule does require is that common questions “ predominate over any questions affecting only individual members.” Fed. It reaffirmed a fundamental principle of class actions: “Rule 23(b)(3), however, does not require a plaintiff seeking class certification to prove that each element of her claim is susceptible to classwide proof. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (February 27, 2013): Amgen involved a securities fraud lawsuit, and I previously discussed it here. Employees who complained about discrimination always had to worry about their employers “building a case against them” afterwards - i.e., an excuse to fire them - and now it’s much easier for employers to get away with it.Īmgen Inc. It used to be that employees could sue their employers if they retaliated against them that’s still in theory the case, but Nasser raises the standard of proof to the point that employers can avoid liability if they can show any other reason for the retaliatory conduct. Nassar (June 24, 2013): Nassar re-wrote employment antidiscrimination law in an effort to make it much harder to prove retaliation claims. As Justice Ginsburg notes, it means you cannot sue your supervisor if they, for example, commented frequently on your “fantastic ass,” “luscious lips,” and “beautiful eyes,” and, using deplorable racial epithets, opine that people like you do not “belong in the business,” and then deny you overtime when you complain, so long as they don’t have the power to fire you, which is what happened in Mack v. Ball State University (June 24, 2013): Vance, a discrimination case, came up with the legal fiction that, in a workplace, people who control employees’ day-to-day schedules and assignments can never be considered “supervisors” under anti-discrimination laws, and thus employees can’t hold their employers liable when the people who control their day-to-day schedules and assignments start harassing them. The hope is that, because the case was so procedurally convoluted ( more here), it did not actually reach the question of whether this sort of “pick off” strategy works outside identical cases. The cruel irony of the case is that the plaintiff didn’t get her money, either: the defendants’ “pick off” offer had a time limit on it. The Supreme Court held, 5-4, that Congress didn’t really care about collective actions, and so defendant employers could “pick off” individual claims - which are usually at most a couple thousand dollars - and thereby avoid facing anything near full liability forever. In the FLSA, Congress specifically created a “collective action” procedure that, like a class action, allows one worker to sue on behalf of herself and her co-workers. Symczyk (April 16, 2013): In this abominable opinion, the Supreme Court held that Congress doesn’t really care about enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Huh? Anything to deter consumer lawyers from helping out debtors, I suppose. (February 26, 2013): Marx drove right over the language of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, holding that, although Congress specifically said that costs for a prevailing defendant could only be awarded to prevailing defendants to cases “brought in bad faith and for the purpose of harassment,” Congress didn’t really mean that, they meant to apply Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d)(1), which, of course, says it doesn’t apply when a federal statute includes a specific costs provision. As The Atlantic reported, Jin particular was “good for corporations,” with the Vance, Barlett, and Nasser opinions all at once, each of which we’ll cover. Now we’ve reached the end of the 2012-2013 term, at least as it comes to cases affecting civil litigation brought by or against consumers and patients - you know, the people - and it’s time to recount the worst cases, the ones that contorted all logic and sense to deny people they day in court. There were certainly some blockbuster cases that term - like the surprise Affordable Care Act decision - but nothing earth-shattering relating to civil justice. Railroad Friction Products) and workers wrongly denied overtime ( Christopher v. The rest of that term went as expected, with opinions knocking our various discrimination plaintiffs ( Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Back in January 2012, I posted a short item titled, Supreme Court Sets The Tone For 2012 Term: Might Makes Right, in which I recounted how the Supreme Court had begun the 2011-2012 term with two opinions that were great if you own a prison management company or fake credit repair company, but not so great if you were injured by a private prison’s malfeasance or defrauded by a consumer credit company.
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