Agent Fees and the Payment Protection Program
Last week, Arkansas saw its first class action where “agents” claimed entitlement to payment of fees under the Payment Protection Program (PPP).[1] This class action illustrates another area of confusion surrounding the administration of the CARES Acts (the “Act”). Congress created the PPP as part…
COVID-19 Lawsuits: Current Trends and What We Can Expect
In the less than two-month period since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in the United States, courts at both the state and federal levels have seen a steady rise in the number of COVID-19 lawsuits filed. The first of these lawsuits was filed on March 9, by a couple quarantined on…
Business Defeats Certification of Nationwide Class Action in Eighth Circuit Appeal
In a nationwide class action lawsuit alleging deceptive trade practices for advertising of a product, a lower court had certified a class and uniformly applied only the forum state’s law to all class members’ claims. Part of the problem was that those claims had been consolidated in this…
How Much is Enough to Remove? Considerations that Shouldn't be "Smuggled into the Judicial Inquiry."
A plaintiff filed a class-action complaint in state court alleging a potential liability of $2.9 million to the class, plus fees and punitive damages. The defendant conducted its own calculation and determined that the amount in controversy in the case could plausibly top $5 million, thus crossing…