18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 461 District Court granted the motion for interlocutory appeal on the issue, and stayed the matter pending appellate review. Capriole, et al. v. Uber Technologies, Inc. , 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 8447 (1st Cir. March 23, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of drivers, filed a class action alleging that Defendant misclassified drivers as independent contractors and thereby failed to pay them minimum wages and overtime compensation, as well as failed to provide paid sick leave in violation of state wage & hour laws. Plaintiff filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to require Defendant to alter its classification and treat the drivers as employees. The District Court denied the motion, and Plaintiff appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The District Court subsequently granted a prior motion to transfer the case to the Northern District of California, which was ultimately dismissed by that District Court and was not pending before the Ninth Circuit. The First Circuit held that it could not rule on Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction because it had no appellate jurisdiction. In dismissing the case, the District Court in California held that the arbitration provision was enforceable because drivers were not "workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce" under the Federal Arbitration Act, that Plaintiff was not entitled to a public injunction under Massachusetts law, and that under Ninth Circuit precedent the District Court did not have the power to grant preliminary injunctive relief to Plaintiff prior to arbitration. Id . at *6. Defendant argued that the appeal became moot when the District Court in California entered the final judgment compelling arbitration and dismissing the case. The First Circuit explained that under the mootness doctrine, "an actual controversy must exist at all stages of the review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed." Id . at *7. Accordingly, an appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction motion becomes moot when final judgment issues because the District Court’s denial of the motion merges with the final judgment. Id . The First Circuit agreed with Defendant that upon entry of the judgment of dismissal of the lawsuit, the denial in Massachusetts of the preliminary injunction merged with the final judgment of the District Court in California. As a result, the First Circuit ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to hear this appeal. The First Circuit held that the appeal was moot because it could not provide relief as to the preliminary injunction motion, as the final judgment in California required that the arbitrator would decide any claim for relief. Figueroa, et al. v. Point Park, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 214243 (W.D. Penn. Nov. 8, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of university students, filed a class action alleging claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and conversion based on Defendant’s transfer to online education in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Court previously had denied Defendant’s motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment in the alternative, but granted the motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ claim for conversion. Defendant filed a motion for certification of an interlocutory appeal and stay on grounds that the order involved “a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation . . ." Id . at *2-3. Defendant further asserted that an immediate appeal would materially advance the ultimate termination of the lawsuit because there were two other pending appeals on the same issues in the Third Circuit. The Court explained that student- university contracts are generally considered under the law of implied contract . Id . at *5. The Court explained that "whether and to what extent the parties have entered into a contractual relationship for the provision of in- person on-campus educational services will be better resolved following discovery" and that "Plaintiffs have sufficiently stated a claim for unjust enrichment or quantum meruit in the alternative". Id. at *6. The Court reasoned that even if an appeal would result in a finding that the Court erred in its application of Pennsylvania contract law that the doctrine of implied-in-fact contract was inapplicable to contracts between students and their Pennsylvania educational institutions , such a determination would not terminate or materially advance the resolution of this case. Id . at *7. The Court also determined that an assessment of whether there were "substantial grounds for difference of opinion" sufficient to its exercise of discretionary certification were not governed by whether another Court has reached a different conclusion as to the law. Id . at *9. Accordingly, the Court denied Defendant’s request for interlocutory appeal. T.S., et al. v. County Of Cook, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206545 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 26, 2021). Plaintiffs were pretrial detainees at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center ("JTDC") in 2015. During their detention, Twentieth Century Fox and other Fox entities ("Fox Defendants") filmed scenes for the television show Empire at the JTDC. Id . at *2. Plaintiffs allege that Empire filming disrupted the normal operations of the JTDC in ways that harmed them and other juvenile detainees, and that Defendant Leonard Dixon, the Superintendent of the