Sharon McGill sued Citibank under California’s consumer protection laws for alleged unfair competition and false advertising in offering a credit insurance plan she purchased to protect her Citibank credit card account. McGill signed a contract that contained an arbitration provision and twice was offered the opportunity to opt-out of the arb ...
Nearly two centuries ago, the Supreme Court recognized that the “unavoidable consequence” of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause is that States have “no power … to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control” federal policies that are otherwise consistent with the Constitution. California, unfortunately, has ...
PLF and Western Mining Alliance have filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit case Bohmker v. Oregon. In the brief, we argue that federal mining policy preempts Oregon’s ban on a federally-approved and encouraged mining practice. Part of having a federalist system of government is deciding which level of government gets final say when R ...
Sharon McGill sued Citibank under California’s consumer protection laws for alleged unfair competition and false advertising in offering a credit insurance plan she purchased to protect her Citibank credit card account. McGill signed a contract that contained an arbitration provision and allowed her to opt-out if she chose not to accept tha ...
Today, in the first order list of the 2015 Term, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in MHN Government Services, Inc. v. Zaborowski, in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals applied a severability rule created by the California Supreme Court in Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services to invalidate an arbitration contract. Severabilit ...
New Jersey courts, along with those of California and Massachusetts, continually exhibit hostility to the freedom of contract, when that freedom is expressed in a contract to arbitrate consumer or employment disputes. Today, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in U.S. Legal Services Group v. Atalese, a New Jersey Supreme Court decision requiring ar ...
In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion that California’s Discover Bank rule, which essentially forbade class-action waivers in consumer arbitration contracts, was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. Specifically, Concepcion concludes: “Because it ‘stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment an ...
Today’s Daily Journal carries an op-ed by PLF attorneys Deborah La Fetra and Wen Fa on DIRECTV v. Imburgia, the latest in a long line of California court cases undermining arbitration and evading federal law. Here’s a taste: For nearly a century, the Federal Arbitration Act has explicitly instructed courts to respect the decision of ...
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 ...