Chamber Litigation Blog

Jason A. Levine, Peter E. Masaitis, Gillian H. Clow, Debolina Das, and Kaelyne Wietelman, Alston & Bird LLP

This week saw a noteworthy uptick in workplace-related litigation and suits against federal, state, and local governmental entities. 

Jason A. Levine, Peter E. Masaitis, Gillian H. Clow, Debolina Das, and Kaelyne Wietelman, Alston & Bird LLP

As COVID-19 infection rates in many parts of the country spiked upwards this past week, government and workplace lawsuits continued to occupy center stage.  Many of these suits are now at cross-purposes, such as suits seeking to require or prevent reopenings, or to enforce or impede mask mandates. 

Jason A. Levine, Peter E. Masaitis, Alex Akerman, Gillian H. Clow, Debolina Das, and Kaelyne Wietelman, Alston & Bird LPP

After a brief slowdown around July Fourth, the COVID-19 litigation machine has cranked back into high gear, with a number of important opinions, a high-profile retreat by the federal government, and scores of new filings. 

Shay Dvoretzky and Jeffrey Johnson

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is one of the most abused statutes in the United States Code.  Plaintiffs’ lawyers have leveraged uncapped statutory damages, relatively easy class certification, and widespread judicial uncertainty into massive settlements in nearly every sector of the economy.

Two issues have dominated recent litigation surrounding the TCPA: the constitutionality of the statute in light of its exemption for calls made to collect government-owned or government-backed debt, and the scope of its restriction on calls made from an “automatic telephone dialing system.” In Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, the Supreme Court (largely) resolved the first question by severing the content-based exemption, leaving every caller subject to the TCPA’s demands. And in Facebook Inc. v. Duguid—granted for review just a few days after Barr was decided—the Supreme Court will resolve the second issue, deciding (once and for all?) the kinds of equipment subject to the TCPA.  

Jonathan D. Urick, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center

This week’s reporting and commentary on COVID-19 litigation focused on an “exponential” increase in workplace litigation, a potential wave of False Claims Act lawsuits related to CARES Act funds, the continuing debate over federal liability protections, and the complexities of liability waivers.

Andrew J. Pincus, Mayer Brown LLP

​The Supreme Court’s decision last week in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau resolves a decade-long controversy about the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s single-director structure. The Court held that “the CFPB’s leadership by a single individual removable only for inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance violates the separation of powers.” (The Court’s constitutional analysis largely paralleled the approach advocated in the Chamber’s amicus brief.) 

Jason A. Levine, Peter E. Masaitis, Alex Akerman, Gillian H. Clow, Debolina Das, Kaelyne Wietelman, Alston & Bird LLP

Last week’s slew of new COVID-19 lawsuits included many more workplace actions, challenges to stay-at-home and reopening orders, and government enforcement actions.  We also saw several court orders as suits that we’ve reported on for many weeks have continued to mature. 

Daryl Joseffer and Jonathan D. Urick, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center

As Congress continues to debate federal coronavirus liability protections, reopening businesses are increasingly turning to liability waivers to minimize their legal risk.

California State Courts More Permissive Than Federal Courts

Lauren De Lilly and Alexandria Ruiz, Sidley Austin LLP

In purported class actions, precertification discovery requests to obtain information about similarly situated individuals are often nothing more than burdensome fishing expeditions designed to identify additional clients for plaintiffs’ counsel. The potential for abuse is especially high when a case has devolved into a “headless” class action, i.e., when a court has determined that the named plaintiff is ineligible to represent the purported class. 

Federal courts understand and have generally barred discovery that seeks only to identify a replacement class representative.  But California state courts—a hot bed of class action litigation—have been more permissive, making it all the more important to remove purported class actions from state to federal courts in California.