Articles

Supreme Court tacitly accepts class action lawyers’ ability to evade employment contracts (for now)

June 19, 2017 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

California’s Private Attorney General Act is a bounty hunter statute that deputizes employees as “representatives” to sue their employers for alleged Labor Code violations. These representative actions bear a close resemblance to a standard class action, with the exception that the plaintiffs have to split their recovery with the ...

Articles

Ex-Bloomingdale’s employee prefers forum shopping

April 07, 2017 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

When the California Supreme Court invalidated yet another arbitration contract in yesterday’s McGill v. Citibank decision, I explained that a cert petition would almost certainly follow. PLF has supported many, many cert petitions challenging California’s anti-arbitration rules because we believe that competent adults have the freedom t ...

Articles

Supreme Court should affirm federal efforts to stop class action abuse

June 22, 2016 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

Readers of this blog are likely no stranger to class action lawsuit abuse.  Egregious examples abound. Congress responded to that abuse in 2005 by enacting the Class Action Fairness Act, or CAFA.  That law allows parties to remove class action lawsuits to federal courts—which Congress thought would better police the class action process.  ...

Articles

The growing PAGA exception to freedom of contract

February 02, 2016 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

A couple years ago, in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, the California Supreme Court held that employees who act as “representatives” to assert claims under the Private Attorney General Act (PAGA) are acting as “deputies” on behalf of the state and therefore cannot exercise their freedom to contract for arbitral r ...

Articles

President's weekly report — November 20, 2015

November 20, 2015 | By ROB RIVETT

Mobile home park shakedown scheme challenged PLF attorneys filed this complaint this week in Jisser v. City of Palo Alto on behalf of a couple that would like to retire from the business of running a mobile home park but cannot do so unless they pay $8 million to buy our the current residents.  The … ...

Articles

Et tu, Ninth Circuit?

November 20, 2015 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The California Supreme Court is widely known for its hostility to arbitration contracts, despite the supposedly controlling Federal Arbitration Act that requires such contracts to be enforced as any other contract would be.  Last year, in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, the California Supreme Court held that employees who act as “ ...

Articles

California versus the Supremacy Clause

October 24, 2014 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

In Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC, the California Supreme Court once again displayed its ongoing hostility to arbitration contracts.  As we noted when the decision came down in June, the court bowed to the inevitable in acknowledging the Supreme Court’s abrogation of an earlier ruling that invalidated class action waivers in ...