Early uncertainty and the initial lapse in appropriations for the U.S. CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) set off a wave of litigation by disgruntled small businesses who have been unable to secure PPP loans. PPP loans were made available through various lenders to certain COVID-19-affected businesses meeting specific maximum…
Two financial institutions have now been sued in separate putative class action lawsuits concerning their implementation of the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which is aimed at assisting small businesses keep employees on their payroll. Plaintiffs in both lawsuits allege that the financial institutions are unlawfully restricting access to…
On Wednesday, March 4, 2020, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court asking the Court to decline review of a case concerning the government’s power to dismiss qui tam–or “whistleblower”–actions under the False Claims Act (FCA). The case in question is…
On March 3, the Supreme Court heard argument in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a case involving two questions about the structure of the CFPB: (1) whether the provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that limits removal of the CFPB Director to…
On January 17, student loan servicer Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) filed a notice of appeal in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, challenging the decision of Chief Bankruptcy Judge Celelia Morris, which granted summary judgment for a student loan debtor and discharged his…
The Eleventh Circuit joined the growing majority of courts in issuing an opinion that significantly narrows the scope of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and delivers a blow to the plaintiffs’ bar and proponents for an expansive reading of the statue. In addressing a pair of consolidated appeals, Glasser…
On December 2, 2019, the United States government submitted a brief to the Supreme Court urging it to deny review of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling holding a provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) unconstitutional under the First Amendment. In the case in question, Gallion v….
On November 15, 2019, the Eleventh Circuit decertified a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class in Cordoba v. DIRECTV, LLC (No. 18-12077, 2019 WL 6044305), finding that the plaintiff could not adequately identify potential class members without resorting to individualized inquiries. The plaintiff alleged that DIRECTV failed to maintain an…
On October 23, 2019, the District of Massachusetts denied class certification in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) case in Sandoe v. Boston Scientific Corp. (No. 18-11826). The court held that the plaintiff could not identify class members sufficiently to satisfy the ascertainability and predominance requirements of Fed. R. Civ….
As we previously reported, on September 17, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) reversed course by filing a Supreme Court brief agreeing with a petitioner that the agency’s single director structure is unconstitutional. On the same day, the CFPB’s director, Kathy Kraninger, sent letters to Congress informing it of…
As we previously reported, Selia Law LLC (Selia) filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on June 28, 2019, appealing the Ninth Circuit’s ruling upholding the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) single directorship. On September 17, 2019, the CFPB filed its responding…
On July 3, 2019, in Williams v. Big Picture Loans, LLC (No. 18-1827), the Fourth Circuit ruled that a small dollar lender affiliated with the Lake Superior Chippewa Indian Tribe (Tribe) was entitled to tribal sovereign immunity from state interest rate laws as an “arm of the tribe,” dismissing a…
On May 28, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. v. Jackson, 578 U.S. ___ (2019), holding that third-party counterclaim defendants cannot remove under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), even if the claim satisfies CAFA’s other jurisdictional requirements. CAFA allows for removal by…
On May 30, 2019, the Fourth Circuit upheld a $61 million Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) judgment in Krakauer v. Dish Network, L.L.C., No. 1518. The plaintiff, Dr. Thomas Krakauer (Plaintiff), placed his name on the Do-Not-Call registry in 2003. In 2009, he received calls from Satellite Systems Network (SSN),…
On May 13, 2019, petitioner Kevin Rotkiske submitted his brief to the United States Supreme Court in Rotkiske v. Klemm, No 18-328. As noted in a previous post, the Court accepted Rotkiske’s appeal back in February to resolve a circuit split between the Third Circuit and the Ninth and Fourth…
On April 28, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied certification of a putative Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class. Revitch v. Citibank, NA., No. 14-06907 WHA (N.D. Cal. Apr. 28, 2019). The court reasoned that the case would involve “individualized inquires [of prior express…
On April 5, 2019, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision holding that a plaintiff asserted a plausible claim under a provision of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) that forbids debt collectors from using “false, deceptive, or misleading representation[s] or means in connection with the collection…
On February 25, 2019, the United States Supreme Court accepted appeal from the Third Circuit’s decision in Rotkiske v. Klemm et al., No. 16-1668 (3d Cir. May 15, 2018). The Court is now primed to answer whether the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) encompasses the “discovery rule”—which tolls the…
On January 15, 2019, the Supreme Court issued an important decision regarding the enforceability of certain arbitration agreements under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). In New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, No. 17-340, the Supreme Court unanimously held that courts should determine whether a contract falls within the “contracts of employment”…
On January 15, 2019, the Court heard arguments in Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. v. Jackson, No. 17-1471, and is now set to answer the question of whether the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)—which permits removal by “any defendant” in a state court class action—allows for removal by third-party counterclaim defendants. …