Tagged: Third Circuit

Third Circuit Holds Agreement to Arbitrate in Illusory Forum Is Unenforceable

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently held, in a precedential decision, that when parties enter an agreement directing them to arbitrate in an illusory forum, the forum selection clause is not severable and the entire agreement to arbitrate is unenforceable. In MacDonald v. CashCall, Inc. et al., a plaintiff brought suit on behalf of himself and a putative class, alleging a loan agreement between the parties was unconscionable and usurious. The agreement at issue included “(1) a provision requiring that all disputes be resolved through arbitration conducted by a representative of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (‘CRST’) and (2) a clause that delegates questions about the arbitration provision’s enforceability to the arbitrator.” The defendants moved to compel arbitration. The district court declined to compel arbitration because the agreement at issue expressly disavowed federal and state law, thus rendering the arbitration provisions invalid as an impermissible prospective waiver of federal and state statutory rights. The district court further held that the arbitration agreement was unenforceable because the forum was illusory, as the selected forum did not conduct arbitrations or have rules for conducting arbitrations. The Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s conclusion that the loan agreement’s arbitration provision cannot direct arbitration to an illusory forum—here, the CRST. Similar to its sister circuits, the Third Circuit...

Super Bowl Tickets Not the Ticket to Federal Class Action, as Third Circuit Finds No Standing for Uninjured Plaintiffs

“[T]he disappointment of wanting to attend a concert or athletic event only to discover that the event has sold out,” does not confer constitutional standing. That was the take away from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals recent precedential decision, Finkelman v. Nat’l Football League. Addressing the always-thorny contours of constitutional standing to bring a federal lawsuit, the Court held, in the face of high Super Bowl ticket prices, that neither non-purchasers of tickets nor purchasers of “scalped” tickets at elevated prices, had standing to sue under Article III. This opinion sets up yet another obvious roadblock in the path of plaintiffs looking to bring claims—whether or not as class actions—when their perceived injuries are either non-existent or so tenuous as to make “difficulties in alleging an injury-in-fact . . . insurmountable.”

Third Circuit Confirms That Challenged Expert Testimony Must Survive Daubert Challenges in Order to Demonstrate Conformity with Rule 23

Drawing upon its own precedent and that of the Supreme Court in Comcast v. Behrend, the Third Circuit recently held in In re Blood Reagents Antitrust Litig. that a district court must resolve any Daubert challenges to proffered expert testimony as part of its “rigorous analysis” of the requirements for class certification.