the Supreme Court
Some Thoughts On General Mills’ Move To Mandate Arbitration And Waive Class Actions
April 29, 2014
Class action waivers are undergoing a renaissance following the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AT&T v. Concepcion. With the green light from the Supreme Court, more companies are adopting class action waivers in a wider range of circumstances. What’s unusual about General Mills’ move is that we haven’t seen such a broad-based waiver from a consumer packaged goods company. Most consumer packaged goods companies don’t have a direct relationship with their...
April 29, 2014
Class action waivers are undergoing a renaissance following the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AT&T v. Concepcion. With the green light from the Supreme Court, more companies are adopting class action waivers in a wider range of circumstances. What’s unusual about General Mills’ move is that we haven’t seen such a broad-based waiver from a consumer packaged goods company. Most consumer packaged goods companies don’t have a direct relationship with their...
Denial of Certiorari in Delaware Chancery Arbitration Case
April 4, 2014
The Supreme Court has denied certiorari in Delaware Coalition for Open Government v. Strine, in which the Third Circuit struck down Delaware’s scheme allowing parties with cases before the Delaware Court of Chancery to pay an extra fee to have their matters heard by a Chancery judge sitting in the guise of an arbitrator. The Third Circuit’s decision was based on the First Amendment right of public access to judicial proceedings. As I discussed in a previous post on the case, however, in my view...
April 4, 2014
The Supreme Court has denied certiorari in Delaware Coalition for Open Government v. Strine, in which the Third Circuit struck down Delaware’s scheme allowing parties with cases before the Delaware Court of Chancery to pay an extra fee to have their matters heard by a Chancery judge sitting in the guise of an arbitrator. The Third Circuit’s decision was based on the First Amendment right of public access to judicial proceedings. As I discussed in a previous post on the case, however, in my view...
Two U.S. Supreme Court Opinions Enforce Arbitration Agreements
October 14, 2013
Litigants cannot be forced to arbitrate disputes through class arbitration unless they agree to do so. This is the U.S. Supreme Court’s message delivered in two opinions addressing the enforceability of arbitration provisions and class action waivers. With these opinions, the Court signaled that the language of the arbitration agreement controls whether a case may be maintained as a class action or whether a class action is precluded. Choose Language Carefully The Supreme Court issued its unanimous...
October 14, 2013
Litigants cannot be forced to arbitrate disputes through class arbitration unless they agree to do so. This is the U.S. Supreme Court’s message delivered in two opinions addressing the enforceability of arbitration provisions and class action waivers. With these opinions, the Court signaled that the language of the arbitration agreement controls whether a case may be maintained as a class action or whether a class action is precluded. Choose Language Carefully The Supreme Court issued its unanimous...
The Supreme Court’s New Arbitrability Options
September 27, 2013
An enduring issue in U.S. jurisprudence has been the difficulty of determining when a court, rather than an arbitral tribunal, should make the initial decision on whether the arbitrators have the authority to hear a dispute. Although the Supreme Court has provided general guidance on this “gateway” question in a few cases, there has been substantial room for lower court judges to fashion an array of arbitrability rulings. The tendency has been to favor the arbitrators as the first stop, drawing...
September 27, 2013
An enduring issue in U.S. jurisprudence has been the difficulty of determining when a court, rather than an arbitral tribunal, should make the initial decision on whether the arbitrators have the authority to hear a dispute. Although the Supreme Court has provided general guidance on this “gateway” question in a few cases, there has been substantial room for lower court judges to fashion an array of arbitrability rulings. The tendency has been to favor the arbitrators as the first stop, drawing...
SCOTUS Affirms Arbitrator’s Decision To Allow Class Arbitration in Sutter
July 19, 2013
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Sutter today, unanimously holding that as long as the arbitrator bases a decision to allow or disallow class arbitration on the text of the parties’ agreement, her “construction holds, however good, bad, or ugly.” Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, 569 U.S. ___ (June 10, 2013). The case resolved a circuit split on how to interpret SCOTUS’ Stolt-Nielsen decision. It also proved me right (yahoo!). (I predicted the Court would affirm...
July 19, 2013
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Sutter today, unanimously holding that as long as the arbitrator bases a decision to allow or disallow class arbitration on the text of the parties’ agreement, her “construction holds, however good, bad, or ugly.” Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, 569 U.S. ___ (June 10, 2013). The case resolved a circuit split on how to interpret SCOTUS’ Stolt-Nielsen decision. It also proved me right (yahoo!). (I predicted the Court would affirm...
SCOTUS ‘Simply Irrelevant’ To Daily Work of Trial Courts According to Federal Judge
May 10, 2013
Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Nebraska isn’t afraid to criticize the U.S. Supreme Court. Sometimes the court “can really screw things up,” Kopf writes at his blog Hercules and the Umpire. As an example, he offers the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Booker, which effectively made the federal sentencing guidelines advisory. “If haphazardly injecting chaos into a system is a good thing, the Supreme Court is very good at that,” Kopf writes. But much...
May 10, 2013
Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Nebraska isn’t afraid to criticize the U.S. Supreme Court. Sometimes the court “can really screw things up,” Kopf writes at his blog Hercules and the Umpire. As an example, he offers the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Booker, which effectively made the federal sentencing guidelines advisory. “If haphazardly injecting chaos into a system is a good thing, the Supreme Court is very good at that,” Kopf writes. But much...
The Supreme Court and the Future of Arbitration
April 9, 2013
At the 2012 AALS meetings Ron Aronovsky (Southwestern) organized the ADR Section’s program entitled The Supreme Court and the Future of Arbitration. Here’s a short blurb describing the program. Over the past twenty five years, the range of disputes subject to binding arbitration – particularly as a result of pre-dispute arbitration agreements — has grown dramatically. The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a series of arbitration law decisions on such topics as the availability of class...
April 9, 2013
At the 2012 AALS meetings Ron Aronovsky (Southwestern) organized the ADR Section’s program entitled The Supreme Court and the Future of Arbitration. Here’s a short blurb describing the program. Over the past twenty five years, the range of disputes subject to binding arbitration – particularly as a result of pre-dispute arbitration agreements — has grown dramatically. The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a series of arbitration law decisions on such topics as the availability of class...
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies: Measuring Diversity on the Supreme Court with Biodiversity Statistics
January 26, 2013
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies: Measuring Diversity on the Supreme Court with Biodiversity Statistics http://goo.gl/ahr0i
January 26, 2013
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies: Measuring Diversity on the Supreme Court with Biodiversity Statistics http://goo.gl/ahr0i
Mass Tort Litigation Blog: Freer on The Supreme Court and Class Actions
January 2, 2013
Mass Tort Litigation Blog: Freer on The Supreme Court and Class Actions http://goo.gl/DmTFN
January 2, 2013
Mass Tort Litigation Blog: Freer on The Supreme Court and Class Actions http://goo.gl/DmTFN
