USLegal Reporter

The New Jersey Supreme Court today cleared the way for 80,000 current and former employees to join in a class action lawsuit againt Wal-Mart. The court ruled 5-1 to certify the request for class action status which had been previously denied by a trial judge and appellate review.

Employees claim the nation’s largest discount retailer “denied them earned meal and rest breaks and forced them work “off-the-clock.”

The case is Iliadis, et. al v. Wal-Mart, Stores, Inc. (A-69-2006).

See http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/supreme/A-69-06.pdf.

A federal judge in New Orleans held on Tuesday that Jefferson Parish authorities did not violate the constitutional right to travel of two African American Hurricane Katrina evacuees when they prevented them from crossing the Mississippi River into Jefferson Parish, a mostly white community. The evacuees had been stuck in the New Orleans convention center with no food and water and alleged they were told to cross the bridge. Police authorities claimed that they later blocked travel over the bridge because of the lack of supplies and services available on the other side. National civil rights groups alleged racism and held marches across the bridge. The evacuees brought the lawsuit in December 2005.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana held that the issue of whether the authorities’ actions were proper or based on good judgment was not before the court. The judge stated that while the constitution establishes the right to interstate travel, the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to decide whether it protects the right to intrastate travel. The ruling also rejected the evacuees’ request that their claims be given class action status to represent others who were blocked from crossing the bridge due to their failure to bring such request within the required legal timeframe. 

A similar federal lawsuit is pending in which the plaintiffs have met the deadline for requesting class action status. Criminal investigations of the bridge blockade have also been ongoing.

Source: http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/04-03-2007/b9f4000a650b996e.html

A U.S. District Judge has ruled that Mississippi State Farm policyholders whose insurance claims were rejected after Hurricane Katrina cannot establish a class action lawsuit against the insurer to bring quick resolution to what they argue are similar claims. The 2005 storm reduced the policyholders’ homes to mere slabs. The insurers contend that the policies covered wind damage, but not damage from rising water, including storm surge.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, Southern Division, held that the cases were factually different each requiring individual treatment. To form a class action for the “slab cases,” according to the court, would be “inconsistent with the requirements of due process.” The judge instead supports a court-ordered and supervised mediation program as a solution to the many federal lawsuits for Katrina damage. The Mississippi Insurance Commissioner and State Farm have separately reached an agreement for the insurer to re-evaulate and make possible payments on thousands of claims.

See http://www.mssd.uscourts.gov/Insurance%20Opinions/ch06cv1orderA0322.pdf, Decided March 22, 2007. 

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that former Enron shareholders could not bring a $40 billion class action lawsuit againt investment banks for their alleged role in accounting fraud which lead to the collapse of Enron. The decision over turned a lower court ruling which would have allowed plaintiffs to band together.

A three judge panel held “the district court, albeit with the best of intentions, misapplied the fraud-on-the-market presumption; the facts alleged do not constitute misrepresentations on which an efficient market may be presumed to apply.”

The court noted that “Enron had a duty to its shareholders, but the banks did not. The transactions in which the banks engaged in at most aided and abetted Enron’s deceit by making its misrepresentations more plausible.”

Plaintiffs may proceed in lawsuits against investments banks, but they can only do so individually.

The case is Regents of the University of California vs. Credit Suisse First Boston (USA), Inc., et al. Decided March 19, 2007. 

Source: http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/06/06-20856-CV0.wpd.pdf