U.S. Supreme Court Update, October 2020

The New Jersey Supreme Court refused to allow a respondent to benefit from its refusal to pay arbitration fees in Roach v. BM Motoring, LLC, 2017 WL 931430 (NJ March 9, 2017).

On August 21, 2026, the Tenth Circuit granted the NCAA’s stay request in Wisne v. NCAA, temporarily restoring the NCAA’s age-based eligibility rules pending resolution of the appeal. Three weeks earlier, Judge Sweeney of the District of Colorado had issued a nationwide injunction that permitted athletes in the Class of 2022 to pursue a fifth year of eligibility.

The top ten largest class action settlements in securities cases in the U.S. have recouped tens of billions of dollars in damages.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the dismissal of a securities fraud class action against a biopharmaceutical company, ruling that literally true statements about clinical trial results were not actionable half-truths under securities law. The decision centered on whether the company's statements about the absence of retinal vasculitis cases in drug trials were misleading, despite following FDA-approved protocols that plaintiffs argued were insufficient to detect the condition.

A federal judge in Florida has ruled that cell phone users cannot sue under the TCPA's do-not-call provisions, determining that the FCC exceeded its authority when it extended protections to wireless subscribers in 2003. The decision challenges decades of regulatory interpretation and could fundamentally reshape telecommunications privacy litigation if adopted by other courts.

A company that receives a demand letter under California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) should assume that a California consumer class action may be coming.

O'Reilly Auto Parts and its BigLaw counsel agreed to pay $18.8 million to settle a TCPA class action involving SMS messages to numbers on the DNC list, despite the claim potentially being invalid under recent Seventh Circuit precedent. The settlement, reached just weeks after oral arguments suggested SMS messages may not constitute "telephone calls" under the TCPA, could result in over $6.2 million in attorney fees while class members receive modest payouts for claims that may not legally exist.

A federal court in California denied preliminary approval of a $2.3 million data breach settlement affecting over 220,000 individuals, finding seven critical deficiencies in the proposed agreement. The decision highlights the rigorous scrutiny courts apply to class action settlements, particularly regarding claims-made distribution processes, inadequate documentation of settlement value, and unexplained disparate treatment among class members.

A federal court granted Disney's motion to compel arbitration in an antitrust class action, allowing the company to invoke fuboTV's subscriber terms of service after acquiring a 70% stake in the streaming platform. The ruling demonstrates how corporate mergers can fundamentally alter litigation strategy by enabling non-signatories to enforce arbitration agreements containing "future affiliates" provisions.

A federal judge has ruled that documents created by a client using a commercial AI tool and shared with counsel are not protected by attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine. The landmark decision raises critical questions about confidentiality expectations when clients use consumer-grade AI platforms to prepare legal materials, potentially exposing sensitive litigation strategies to discovery.