NEWS ALERT:
USCLC secures permanent injunction against enforcement of New Jersey anti-arbitration law
Chamber Litigation Blog
June 14, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Giles Judd, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments include: a securities lawsuit accusing biotech executives of overhyping their company’s COVID-19 treatment while simultaneously selling stock at newly-inflated prices; Amazon’s motion to dismiss a suit by hourly employees seeking compensation for time spent on workplace COVID-19 screenings; a purported class action challenging Target’s effectiveness claims for its hand sanitizer; and a ticket company’s effort to block certification of a nationwide class of ticket purchasers in a refund suit.
June 7, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Ryan Martin-Patterson, and Stephen Tagert, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments were: a lawsuit filed by healthcare workers challenging workplace vaccination requirements at two Houston hospitals; new workplace vaccination guidance from the EEOC; and the D.C. Circuit’s stay pending appeal of a trial court decision that vacated the CDC’s nationwide residential eviction moratorium.
June 1, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Giles Judd, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top developments in COVID-19 litigation include: certification of a class action against Hyatt Corporation by furloughed workers seeking additional compensation; a motion to dismiss a securities class action by Zoom Corporation; and a new class action regarding flight-cancellation refunds against Philippine Airlines. We hope our readers had a good Memorial Day weekend.
May 26, 2021
Our Associate Chief Counsel Jennifer Dickey was a guest this week on McDermott Will & Emery’s “In the Trenches” Podcast with Brian Stimson. Jenn gives a fascinating insider’s view from her time as a Supreme Court law clerk, Associate Counsel and Special Assistant to the President in the White House, Deputy Associate Attorney General, and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division at the Department of Justice.
May 25, 2021
Jeff Bucholtz and Jeremy Bylund, King & Spalding LLP
The Ninth Circuit recently joined the Fifth Circuit in rejecting a data mining strategy employed in qui tam suits under the False Claims Act. These decisions are a welcome reminder that statistics are no substitute for facts showing fraud.
May 24, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Ryan Martin-Patterson, and Stephen Tagert, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top developments in COVID-19 litigation include: a securities class action against a solar panel company over its alleged failure to make certain disclosures about pandemic-related supply chain disruptions; a nuisance suit filed by business tenants against a landlord for supposedly flouting COVID-19 safety guidelines; and new litigation challenging the validity of the CDC’s recently-vacated moratorium on residential evictions.
May 17, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Giles Judd, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments include: an Ohio court’s decision that a stay-at-home order is not a “quarantine” for travel insurance purposes; a California court’s ruling that Amazon customers must arbitrate price gouging claims against the company; the dismissal of a COVID-19 exposure lawsuit filed by the wife of the defendant’s employee, who allegedly contracted the virus on the job; and a lawsuit against Pennsylvania stemming from a data breach at the Commonwealth’s contact-tracing company.
May 10, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Ryan Martin-Patterson, and Stephen Tagert, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments include: a district court order vacating the residential eviction moratorium enacted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”); a Sixth Circuit decision that Kentucky’s probe of alleged price-gouging in connection with sellers on Amazon’s online marketplace does not violate the Dormant Commerce Clause; the discovery of a large data breach in Pennsylvania’s contact tracing system; and a new Florida law banning the use of “vaccine passports.”
May 3, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Giles Judd, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments are: a federal court ordering a Lyft driver to arbitrate claims against the company for COVID-19 sick leave; a new putative class action against Google over the security of its contact-tracing app; and a new insurance coverage lawsuit involving a cryotherapy clinic.
April 26, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Ryan Martin-Patterson, and Stephen Tagert, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments are: securities fraud class actions filed against vaccine manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions over undisclosed production problems, and against a Chinese bitcoin manufacturer over pandemic-related supply chain disruptions; a class action against Bank of America over the technology used in its California unemployment benefit debit cards; and a contract suit filed against a testing company that charged $600,000 to perform just 40 COVID-19 tests.
April 19, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Giles Judd, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments involve: the dismissal of a securities fraud class action against Norwegian Cruise Lines; a new “taxation without representation” lawsuit by restaurants and bars against the State of California and Santa Clara County; and the expiration of Texas guidelines for state courts regarding the CDC’s residential eviction moratorium.
April 13, 2021
Jennifer B. Dickey
What’s all this talk about public and private rights?
Once relegated to a small portion of Federal Courts textbooks, Justice Thomas has recently led a revival of discussion of the public/private rights distinction. His views, though often ignored by advocates as idiosyncratic, may prove critical for businesses seeking to build a majority at the Supreme Court, particularly in the area of Article III standing. And with a significant number of Thomas clerks now on the federal courts, those views may also be relevant and important in other courts.
April 12, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Ryan Martin-Patterson, Stephen Tagert, Alston & Bird LLP
The top COVID-19 litigation developments this past week include: New York’s repeal of a COVID-19 liability shield for nursing homes; an accused price-gouger’s claim that a key provision of the Defense Production Act is void for vagueness; a lawsuit seeking to invalidate South Carolina’s return-to-work order for state employees; and a putative class action demanding overtime pay for time spent receiving on-the-job COVID-19 screenings.
April 5, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Giles Judd, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments are decisions on several dispositive motions: the denial of motions to dismiss filed by British Airways and Southwest Airlines in ticket refund class actions; the dismissal of two business interruption insurance class actions; and the dismissal of a tuition refund lawsuit against Santa Clara University.
March 31, 2021
By Sue Reisinger | March 31, 2021, 3:58 PM EDT
The U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, which represents businesses on leading-edge issues before the courts and federal regulatory agencies, has shaken up its legal department by adding four prestigious lawyers to its in-house team. This group is so experienced that all four have worked at name law firms in Washington, held high positions as attorneys in the federal government, and clerked for federal appeals court judges. The new hires this month, who are replacing others, include two deputy chief counsel, Paul Lettow and Andrew Varcoe. They were joined by associate chief counsel Jennifer Dickey and senior counsel for litigation Stephanie Maloney. The center’s legal team totals eight lawyers.
Read more: https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1370758/chamber-adds-four-star-attys-to-its-litigation-center
March 29, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Ryan Martin-Patterson, Stephen Tagert
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments are: Amazon’s settlement with the NLRB over an employee walkout; a class action against New York City over its use of a “secret” maximum price list in price-gouging enforcement; a securities suit against a biotech company over misstatements regarding a COVID-19 test it was developing; and a class action against Walmart by hourly employees claiming they improperly lost pay during mandatory COVID screenings.
March 22, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Giles Judd, Alston & Bird LLP
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments are all decisions on motions to dismiss. Courts dismissed a privacy class action against Zoom, a refund class action against Ticketmaster, a business interruption lawsuit based on a virus exclusion in the insurance policy, and a tuition refund class action against NYU. In the one bright spot for plaintiffs this week, a court also denied a motion to dismiss a different business interruption suit based on “standing” grounds.
March 15, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Ryan Martin-Patterson, Stephen Tagert
This week’s top COVID-19 litigation developments involve: the dismissal for mootness of a refund class action filed against Capital One Bank; a guilty plea in a large price-gouging case; a new business-interruption insurance suit filed by Madison Square Garden entities; and Wisconsin’s new COVID-10 liability shield for businesses, government entities, and tribes.
March 8, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Giles Judd, Alston & Bird LLP
The top developments in COVID-19 litigation this past week were: the dismissal of a workplace exposure suit filed by the infected employee’s spouse; the partial survival of refund class actions against Columbia University and Pace University; and a $100 million business interruption coverage suit filed by In-N-Out Burgers.
March 1, 2021
Jason A. Levine, Gillian H. Clow, and Ryan Martin-Patterson
This past week’s top developments in COVID-19 litigation were: a federal court’s invalidation of the CDC’s eviction moratorium; the dismissal of a bias suit against Walmart based on its “exclusive shopping hour” for customers who are especially vulnerable to coronavirus; California’s decision to fine a McDonald’s franchisee for allegedly firing COVID-19 safety whistleblowers; and a novel lawsuit by a doctor claiming that a hospital failed to warn him of potential exposure to COVID-19 while on duty.