United States Supreme Court

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The Supreme Court has put an end to a jurisdictional contrivance used by the plaintiffs’ bar to shop for a friendly state forum, even if neither the plaintiff, nor the defendant, nor the actionable conduct took place in those states. In last month’s Bristol-Myers Squibb Company v. Superior Court decision, the Court ruled that out-of-state plaintiffs could not piggyback on the claims of in-state plaintiffs to assert jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant. In doing so, the Court rejected the notion that plaintiffs’ counsel can exploit the claims of a handful of in-state plaintiffs as a hook to bring a nationwide lawsuit against an out-of-state corporation in the plaintiffs’ preferred forum.

The Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (“Hague Service Convention” or “Convention”), was designed to simplify and standardize the service of legal documents across international borders. But for decades, U.S. courts divided over a seemingly simple question: does the Hague Service Convention prohibit service by mail?

The Xbox 360 is designed for gaming. Appellate litigation, gamers learned, is not.

On behalf of a putative class of purchasers of the Xbox 360, a group of gamers brought suit alleging a defect with the consoles. After the district court struck the class allegations, plaintiffs sought permission to appeal under Rule 23(f), which the Ninth Circuit denied. Rather than proceeding in litigation to final judgment, plaintiffs instead voluntarily dismissed their claims, with prejudice, while reserving a right to appeal the order striking class allegations. Plaintiffs then appealed the order under Section 1291. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit held that it had appellate jurisdiction and thus the case was still “sufficiently adverse” to be heard under §1291. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on the question of whether courts of appeals “have jurisdiction under §1291 and Article III . . . to review an order denying class certification (or, as here, an order striking class allegations) after the named plaintiffs have voluntarily dismissed their claims with prejudice.”

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified in Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haeger that even a district court’s exercise of broad discretion to impose a civil sanction for a litigant’s bad faith conduct has to be limited by a causal link.

The parties in Goodyear had reached a settlement of the underlying product liability case after several years of contentious discovery. After the settlement, however, plaintiffs, the Haegers, learned (and Goodyear, the defendant, conceded) that Goodyear had withheld certain information that the Haegers had requested early and often during the discovery stage. Accordingly, the Haegers asked the District Court to impose sanctions on Goodyear for discovery fraud. Because the parties had already settled, the only sanction available was to award the Haegers attorney’s fees and costs expended in the litigation. 

When a district court issues an order extending a filing deadline, it is usually safe to assume that your client will not be prejudiced as long as you file within the period ordered by the court.

However, consider the case of Charmaine Hamer. She recently lost summary judgment on an age-discrimination claim against her former employer and sought to appeal. Prior to the expiration of the 30-day period for filing a notice of appeal prescribed by FRAP 4(a), she asked the district court for an extension. The district court granted her an additional 65 days to file her notice. Hamer then filed the notice within the extended period prescribed by the court, and the case went up to the Seventh Circuit.

Companies looking to waive class action rights of employees may instead be waving goodbye to provisions in their employment contracts. Two recent decisions in California—one administrative and one in the 9th Circuit—recently found that class action waivers in employment contracts were unenforceable as a matter of law and public policy, resulting in the removal of entire or partial contractual provisions. A similar issue will soon be heard by the Supreme Court.

The question of federal court jurisdiction over arbitration proceedings has historically led to different conclusions. A few years ago, the  United States Supreme Court clarified in Vaden v. Discover Bank that Section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) authorizes a federal court to “look through” to the underlying controversy to determine if there is federal court jurisdiction to adjudicate a motion compelling arbitration. Until recently, however, the “look through” approach had not been adopted by the Second Circuit for determining whether a federal court has jurisdiction to hear a motion to vacate an arbitration award.

The Second Circuit recently set aside a $147 million verdict against two Chinese companies accused of conspiring to fix the price and supply of vitamin C sold to U.S. buyers. In re Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation. The panel held that the complaint should have been dismissed after the Chinese government submitted an amicus curiae brief confirming that Chinese law required the companies to fix prices and, in effect, violate U.S. antitrust law. The panel found that the companies could not simultaneously comply with U.S. and Chinese law and, drawing on principles of international comity, vacated the district court judgment.