Our 2017 Workplace Class Action Report is now available.
At 881 pages, our 13th Annual Report analyzes 1,331 rulings and is our biggest and best Report ever.
Click here to order your copy in eBook format. Click here to download Chapter 1 on the 2017 Executive Summary/Key Trends.
Our annual webinar on the Report is now set for February 21, 2017 and a link to register for the webinar is here.
The Report is the sole compendium in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to workplace class action litigation, and has become the “go to” research and resource guide for businesses and their corporate counsel facing complex litigation. We were again honored this year with a review of our Report by Employment Practices Liability Consultant Magazine (“EPLiC”). Here is what EPLiC said: “The Report is a ‘must-have’ for legal research and in-depth analysis of employment-related class action litigation. Anyone who practices in this area, whether as an attorney, risk manager, underwriter, or broker cannot afford to be without it. Importantly, the Report is the only publication of its kind in the United States.” You can read more about the review here. Furthermore, EPLiC recognized our Report as the “state-of-the-art word” on workplace class action litigation.
The 2017 Report analyzes rulings from all state and federal courts – including private plaintiff class actions and collective actions, and government enforcement actions – in the substantive areas of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. It also features chapters on EEOC pattern or practice rulings, state law class certification decisions, and non-workplace class action rulings that impact employers. The Report also analyzes the leading class action settlements for 2016 for employment discrimination, wage & hour, and ERISA class actions, as well as settlements of government enforcement actions, both with respect to monetary values and injunctive relief provisions.
We hope our loyal blog readers will enjoy it!
Executive Summary
Workplace class action litigation has increased geometrically over the past decade. More often than not, it poses unique “bet-the-company” risks for employers. An adverse judgment in a class action has the potential to bankrupt a business or eviscerate its market share. Likewise, the on-going defense of a class action can drain corporate resources long before the case reaches a decision point. Companies that do business in multiple states are also susceptible to “copy-cat” class actions, whereby plaintiffs’ lawyers create a domino effect of litigation filings that challenge corporate policies and practices in numerous jurisdictions at the same time. Hence, workplace class actions can adversely impact a corporation’s business operations, jeopardize or end the careers of senior management, and cost millions of dollars to defend. For these reasons, workplace class action litigation risks are at the top of the list of problems that keep business leaders from sleeping at night.
Skilled plaintiffs’ class action lawyers and governmental enforcement litigators are not making this challenge any easier. They are continuing to develop new theories and approaches to the successful prosecution of complex employment litigation. New rulings by federal and state courts add to this patchwork quilt of compliance problems and risk management issues. In turn, the events of the past year in the workplace class action world demonstrate that the array of litigation issues facing businesses are continuing to accelerate at a rapid pace while also undergoing significant change. Governmental enforcement litigation pursued by the U.S. Equal Employment Commission (“EEOC”) and the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) has also manifested an aggressive “push-the-envelope” agenda of two activist agencies, with regulatory oversight of workplace issues continuing as a high priority in the Obama Administration. The combination of these factors are challenging businesses to integrate their litigation and risk mitigation strategies to navigate these exposures. These challenges are especially acute for businesses in the context of complex workplace litigation.
Adding to this mosaic of challenges in 2017 is the first change-over of the political party occupying the White House in eight years. One of the initial items both political parties will address is President Trump’s nominee to fill the vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The fragile alliances amongst the conservative and liberal factions will hang in the balance, as future workplace class action rulings will pivot at least in part on the new composition of the Supreme Court once the nominee is confirmed and takes the bench sometime in 2017. Furthermore, changes to government priorities will start on Inauguration Day, and some may well be stark reversals in policy that are sure to have a cascading impact on private class action litigation. While predictions about the future of workplace class action litigation may cover a wide array of potential outcomes, the one sure bet is that change is inevitable and corporate America will encounter new litigation challenges.
Key Trends Of 2016
An overview of workplace class action litigation developments in 2016 reveals six key trends.
First, class action dynamics increasingly have been shaped and influenced by recent rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. Over the past several years, the Supreme Court has accepted more cases for review – and issued more rulings – than ever before that have impacted the prosecution and defense of class actions and government enforcement litigation. The past year continued that trend, with several key decisions on complex employment litigation and class action issues, and more cases accepted for review that are posed for rulings in 2017. The key class action decisions this past year – in the Tyson Foods and Spokeo cases – were arguably more pro-plaintiff and pro-class action than business-oriented or anti-class action. While the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts is often thought to be pro-business, the array of its key rulings impacting class action workplace issues is anything but one-dimensional. Some decisions may be viewed as hostile to the expansive use of Rule 23, while others are hospitable and strengthen the availability of class actions and/or make proof requirements easier for plaintiffs. Further, the Supreme Court declined several opportunities to impose more restraints on class actions, and by often deciding cases on narrow grounds, it has left many gaps to be filled in by – and thereby has fueled disagreements arising amongst – lower federal courts. Suffice it to say, the range of rulings form a complex tapestry that precludes an overarching generalization that the Supreme Court is either pro-business or pro-worker on class actions.
Second, the monetary value of the top employment-related class action settlements declined significantly in 2016 after they reached all-time highs in 2014 and 2015. The plaintiffs’ employment class action bar and governmental enforcement litigators successfully translated their case filings into large class-wide settlements, but they did so at lower values than in the two previous years. The top ten settlements in various employment-related categories totaled $1.75 billion in 2016, which declined from $2.48 billion in 2015 and $1.87 billion in 2014. Whether this is the start of a trend or a short-term aberration remains to be seen as 2017 unfolds.
Third, federal and state courts issued more favorable class certification rulings for the plaintiffs’ bar in 2016 than in past years. Plaintiffs’ lawyers continued to craft refined and more successful class certification theories to counter the more stringent Rule 23 certification requirements established in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338 (2011), and Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133 S. Ct. 1426 (2013). In the areas of employment discrimination, wage & hour, and ERISA class actions, the plaintiffs’ bar scored exceedingly well in securing class certification rulings in 2016. In sum, class actions continue to be certified in significant numbers and certain “magnet” jurisdictions continue to issue decisions that encourage – or, in effect, force – the resolution of large numbers of claims through class action mechanisms.
Fourth, overall complex employment-related litigation filings increased in 2016 insofar as employment discrimination cases were concerned, but decreased in the areas of ERISA class actions, governmental enforcement litigation, and wage & hour collective actions and class actions. For the past decade, wage & hour class actions and collective actions have been the leading type of “high stakes” lawsuits being pursued by the plaintiffs’ bar. Each year the number of such case filings increased. However, for the first time in over a decade, case filing statistics for 2016 reflected that wage & hour litigation decreased over the past year. Additional factors set to coalesce in 2017 – including litigation over the new FLSA regulations and the direction of wage & hour enforcement under the Trump Administration – are apt to drive these exposures for Corporate America. To the extent that government enforcement of wage & hour laws is ratcheted down, the private plaintiffs’ bar likely will “fill the void” and again increase the number of wage & hour lawsuit filings.
Fifth, wage & hour certification decisions in 2016 increased geometrically as compared to last year. Of the 224 wage & hour certification decisions in 2016, there were 195 conditional certification rulings and 29 decertification rulings. In contrast, in 2015, there were 175 wage & hour certification decisions, including 153 conditional certification rulings and 22 decertification rulings. While plaintiffs’ lawyers won more conditional certification motions than compared to prior years, employers also won decertification motions at higher rates than as compared to 2015. At the same time, that led to a more rapid and robust development of case law on conditional certification and decertification issues in the wage & hour context. It also reflects the simple truism that with more wage & hour litigation case filings over the last 36 months, there have been more conditional certification and decertification decisions in that space than in any other area of workplace class action litigation.
Sixth, and finally, government enforcement lawsuits brought by the DOL and EEOC continued the aggressive litigation programs of both agencies, but by sheer numbers of cases, their enforcement activities were arguably limited in their effectiveness, at least when measured by lawsuit filings and recoveries compared to previous years. Settlement numbers for government enforcement litigation in 2016 decreased substantially as compared to 2015, as did the litigation dockets of the DOL and the EEOC. This trend is critical to employers, as both agencies have a focus on “big impact” lawsuits against companies and “lead by example” in terms of areas that the private plaintiffs’ bar aims to pursue. The content and scope of enforcement litigation undertaken by the DOL and the EEOC in the Trump Administration remains to be seen; most believe there will be wholesale changes, which may well prompt the private plaintiffs’ class action bar to “fill the void” and expand the volume of litigation pursued against employers over the coming year.
Implications For Employers
The one constant in workplace class action litigation is change. More than any other year in recent memory, 2016 was a year of great change in the landscape of Rule 23. As these issues play out in 2017, additional chapters in the class action playbook will be written.
The lesson to draw from 2016 is that the private plaintiffs’ bar and government enforcement attorneys are apt to be equally, if not more, aggressive in 2017 in bringing class action and collective action litigation against employers.
These novel challenges demand a shift of thinking in the way companies formulate their strategies. As class actions and collective actions are a pervasive aspect of litigation in Corporate America, defending and defeating this type of litigation is a top priority for corporate counsel. Identifying, addressing, and remediating class action vulnerabilities, therefore, deserves a place at the top of corporate counsel’s priorities list for 2017.