Class Action Roundup – February 10, 2017

U.S. Supreme Court Will Wait Until the Fall to Tackle Employee Class Action Waivers

A Reuters report says the United States Supreme Court will hold off on weighing in on the legality of companies requiring workers to give up their right to pursue work-related class actions until at least the fall. Reuters says the Supreme Court told lawyers working on three consolidated cases that the litigation “will be scheduled for oral argument in the 2017 term” starting in October.

The authors of the report, Lawrence Hurley and Robert Iafolla, note that it has been a goal of big business for some time to reel in employees’ rights to pursue work-related class action litigation. To quell the issue, many employers force workers to sign waivers that require work-related legal disputes to be handled in arbitration instead of class actions.

Read more of Hurley and Iafolla’s report on Reuters’ website.

Mylan to Shell Out $96.5M to Settle Antitrust Class Action

Pharmaceutical outfit Mylan will pay $96.5 million to settle an antitrust class action that alleged the company violated federal antitrust laws when it delayed the release of the generic version of Provigil, a narcolepsy drug, in exchange for payment from the drug’s maker, Cephalon, a CNBC report says. Pieces of the settlement will be split among those who purchased brand-name Provigil directly from Cephalon. In a statement, Mylan told CNBC that the settlement agreement includes no admission of wrongdoing and that the deal was reached “in the best interests of the company.”

Read about the details of the settlement with Meg Tirrell’s post on CNBC.com.

Flint Residents’ Class Action Gets Tossed by Judge

A class action lawsuit filed by Flint, Michigan residents over how the state has dealt with the city’s years-long water crisis has been dismissed by U.S. District Judge John Corbett O’Meara, The Detroit News reports. The lawsuit was filed in 2015 against Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, the city of Flint, and certain city officials linked to Flint’s decision to source its water from the lead-heavy Flint River. The case was reportedly dismissed because allowing it to proceed, Judge O’Meara said, “would circumvent the SWDA (Safe Water Drinking Act).”

Plaintiffs’ attorney Cary McGehee said she plans on appealing the decision, calling the ruling a “temporary setback.”

Catch up on the case and the Flint water crisis with Jennifer Chambers’ article published on DetroitNews.com.

Former San Francisco 49ers Cheerleader Sues NFL Over Unpaid Minimum Wages

A proposed class action lawsuit filed by a former cheerleader against the NFL, the Oakland Raiders, and San Francisco 49ers claims she and similarly situated cheerleaders made less than minimum wage for team-related activities. The plaintiff, Jessica Castro’s write up on ABC 7 notes, worked with the Raiders for five years and claims the League and its teams wage policies toward cheerleaders “makes us feel like second class citizens.”

Learn more from Castro’s piece on ABC7News.com.

Settlement over 2003-2008 Mac Optical Drives Nets Some Apple Users $10 Per Computer

Apple enthusiast website Apple Insider is reporting that individuals who own Mac computers made between 2003 and 2008 and equipped with CD or DVD drives may be eligible for $10 per computer. This news stems from a settlement that put to rest a class action lawsuit against optical drive makers over alleged price fixing. The case, according to Apple Insider’s Mike Wuerthele, claimed Panasonic, NEC, Sony and Hitachi-LG colluded to artificially inflate the price of optical disc drives between April 1, 2003 and December 31, 2008.

Residents from 24 states may be eligible to claim part of the $124.5 million dumped into a recovery fund by the defendants.

Check out Wuerthele’s report on Apple Insider to learn more. Speaking of Apple . . .

Class Action Says Apple “Intentionally Broke FaceTime” for iOS 6

A proposed class action filed in California alleges iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S users were wronged when Apple “intentionally broke FaceTime for iOS 6 and earlier operating systems on April 16, 2014,” Patently Apple reports.

The lawsuit, filed on February 2, lays out complex allegations, chief among them that Apple, as a way of reducing usage costs owed to Akamai Technologies, Inc. (which owned the servers used by Apple to relay FaceTime calls), “devised a scheme to force millions of its users—i.e. users running iOS version 6 and earlier—to stop using FaceTime on their devices.”

The most scathing allegations pertains to what the lawsuit calls the “highly problematic” roll out of iOS 7, which was “essentially incompatible with certain Apple devices.”

“For iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S users, for example, the coerced move to iOS 7 subjected their devices to slowness, system crashes, erratic behavior and/or the elimination of the ability to use critical functions of their phone,” the lawsuit says.

Check out Patently Apple’s website for more.