Pregnancy discrimination may be more widespread than people think, and as two women have recently argued in a lawsuit against AT&T Mobility, this type of discrimination may be baked into seemingly neutral rules regarding lateness and absence. Katia Hills and Cynthia Allen filed a class action lawsuit this month, representing all low-level … [Read more...]
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case Involving Class-Action Question
The US Supreme Court is set to hear a privacy case involving an $8.5 million settlement with Google. A lawsuit filed in San Francisco in 2010 claimed that Google shared search terms with other websites, in direct violation of users’ privacy rights. The settlement, approved by the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals, divided the total sum of money … [Read more...]
Gig Workers Win Big in California Supreme Court Ruling
The California Supreme Court set its sights on the gig-economy last month, when Justices issued a unanimous ruling requiring companies using contract labor to prove that their independent contractors actually run their own business. All seven of the Justices joined the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who took aim at … [Read more...]
Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act
Mandatory arbitration clauses have been a sore spot for a lot workers and consumers in recent years. When these provisions are included in contracts, they preclude the possibility of taking a complaint to court and force claims into black-box arbitrations. Funneling claims into closed-door arbitration serves the interests of corporations in at … [Read more...]
Ex-VW CEO Indicted in DieselGate and VW May File Civil Suit Against Him
Find more statistics at Statista Volkswagen’s 2015 admission to the EPA that it programmed its software to dupe the agency into believing VW cars met emission standards—while the vehicles were spewing 40 times the amount of nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere on the road than during emissions testing—has resulted in widespread consequences for … [Read more...]
Who’s Regulating Gun Safety?
In the wake of the Parkland shooting, young students throughout the country have forced the issue of gun control onto center stage. Politicians who rely on donations from the NRA have been pressured to take a stance on gun violence, leading certain Republicans to favor (some version of) gun control. Jayla Holdip, a student at Thurgood Marshall … [Read more...]
Supreme Court Blocks Undocumented Immigrants’ Access to Periodic Bail Hearings
During his first week in office, President Donald Trump got to work, signing three executive orders pertaining to border security, interior enforcement and visa restrictions. The first order, entitled “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements,” sought to crack down on a perceived influx of undocumented immigrants. To do this, the … [Read more...]
Biometric Privacy Statutes Raise Important Questions Around Privacy
Nine years after Illinois legislators passed the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a surge in litigation has forced state courts to consider sui generis questions related to privacy and the legal definition of “actual harm.” Though the law was passed in 2008, it wasn’t until late 2017 that workers started pursuing legal action in response … [Read more...]
CrowdJustice Campaign Could Be Major Boon to Sexual Harassment Case
CrowdJustice – a UK-based crowd-funding source meant to raise money and build community support around legal issues – has been used in a variety of cases in Britain. In one instance, families sought justice in relation to the killing of three British soldiers. Another campaign led to a UK Supreme Court decision forcing parliament to vote on Brexit. … [Read more...]
Approval of $151 Million Water Crisis Settlement Is Imminent
It’s very likely that a federal judge will approve a $151 million settlement, almost exactly four years after the Freedom Industries chemical spill that caused a water crisis in Charleston, West Virginia. Out of thousands of claimants, there hasn’t been a single objection – a fact that has been the source of much surprise. Without the pushback that … [Read more...]
