PRACTITIONER BLOG
Read our analyses of developments in Impact Litigation and stay current on class action law
Tesla Trounced! Court Shreds Forced Arbitration Agreement & Reaffirms Workers’ Right to Fight for the Public Good Under FEHA in Racial Discrimination Case
For the first time, a California appellate court recently held that the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) authorizes plaintiffs to seek public injunctions, and any agreement purporting to waive that agreement is invalid. This decision expressly reaffirms that workers can fight for the public good under FEHA because the public suffers when employer discrimination and harassment go unchecked. California law ensures that workers can seek to protect the public from discrimination and harassment through injunctive relief, even if other types of claims are subject to mandatory individual arbitration.
Impact Fund and Allies File Amicus Brief Defending Courts’ Role Protecting Workers During Litigation
Our brief highlights the role afforded to courts to intervene and address the conduct of counsel and parties in litigation. This historical role is especially important in litigation connected to the workplace, where the power imbalance between employers and employees presents unique threats to the rights of employees in the form of coercion and retaliation.
Top 10 Tips For Your Next Class Action Settlement Mediation
It is the day we are all waiting for. Game Day. Mediation. Your firm has spent 1,246.7 hours on the case so far, but everything will happen in these 12 hours. By the end of the day, you are so emotionally exhausted from the mediator pounding on you, and so happy to have the mediator come in with a number that you can tolerate, that you walk out with a pending mediator’s proposal that only says the gross dollar value of the global settlement. Perhaps you leave the mediation with a handshake agreement, but without nailing down the details of the Memorandum of Understanding. Oops. The devil was in those particular details. Everyone who has negotiated a class action settlement has probably had some term he or she forgot to address at mediation, or in the MOU, that returned in drafting the “final” agreement as a big headache and put the deal at risk. I have. I have thought, at many class action mediations, “I wish I had a checklist so I would remember all the key terms.” Here it is...