Articles

7th Circuit debt collection ruling creates split among circuits

A woman who wasn’t informed she needed to respond to a debt collection letter in writing lost at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose ruling that the collection agency simply made a mistake that didn’t cause her any injury created a split among circuit courts. Three judges authored a published dissent from a subsequent denial of rehearing en banc. 

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7th Circuit vacates ruling in light of new uniform-rental law

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated in part a Southern District Court’s decision, asking it to reconsider whether an amended Indiana wage-deduction law could be retroactively applied to claims made against a former employer for withholding employee wages to rent work uniforms.

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Supreme Court backs businesses, curbs class arbitration

An ideologically divided U.S. Supreme Court gave businesses more power to channel disputes into individual arbitration proceedings, siding with a lighting retailer trying to prevent its employees from pressing group claims stemming from a phishing attack.

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7th Circuit case highlights confusion over online home value ‘Zestimates’

The 7th Circuit both rejected proposed class action lawsuit against the website Zillow, but Realtors and real estate attorneys still have concerns about whether its “Zestimates” are unnecessarily misleading. Zillow, however, insists its estimation practices are transparent and legal, thus making their home valuations a beneficial tool for buyers and sellers.

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Wave of concussion lawsuits to test NCAA’s liability

The Indianapolis-based NCAA is facing more than 300 lawsuits from former college football players who claim their concussions were mistreated, leading to medical problems spanning from headaches to depression and, in some cases, early onset Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease.

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Justices weigh $8.5M settlement with $0 to 129M Google users

The Supreme Court struggled Wednesday over what to do about an $8.5 million class-action settlement involving Google and privacy concerns in which all the money went to lawyers and nonprofit groups, but nothing was paid to 129 million people who used Google to perform internet searches.

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California class action: Scooters a public nuisance, cause unrest

A class-action lawsuit filed in Los Angeles last week is taking aim at the rising prominence of pedestrian scooters across California, claiming the scooters’ manufacturers and distributers caused a public nuisance and civil unrest. The suit seeks to have two brands of scooters that also recently appeared on Indianapolis streets banned from the state.

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FedEx drivers get tentative $13.3M ERISA settlement

A proposed workplace-benefits settlement of more than $13.3 million for Federal Express drivers who were wrongly classified as contractors rather than employees has been approved by an Indiana federal judge overseeing a nationwide docket of employment suits against the delivery service.

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