New England Biz Law Update

A U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting forum-shopping in mass tort actions does not apply to divest a court of jurisdiction over non-resident plaintiffs in a class action alleging a multistate employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by refusing to ...

Employment lawyers don’t know precisely what shape the wave of litigation triggered by employer responses to the COVID-19 pandemic will take, but few doubt that that wave is coming. In the “rush” to implement furloughs and layoffs, many employers simply ...

Purchasers of a diabetes drug can pursue antitrust claims based on allegations that drug maker Sanofi-Aventis wrongfully extended its monopoly by improperly listing a patent in the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s “Orange Book,” the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of ...

A federal judge in Massachusetts has found a rare exception to the rule that contract actions against agencies of the U.S. government fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims. On May 14, U.S. District Court Judge Patti B. ...

A federal judge in Boston has issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the enforcement of key provisions of emergency regulations issued in March by the state Attorney General’s Office to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive debt collection practices during ...

A bank could not enforce its security interest in a taxi medallion against the proceeds of a settlement that a defunct Boston taxi cab company obtained against Uber Technologies, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Massachusetts has ruled. Berkshire Bank ...

Lyft drivers are not required to arbitrate claims that the ridesharing company misclassifies them as independent contractors in violation of the Massachusetts Wage Act, a federal judge in Boston has ruled. Lyft argued that arbitration agreements that plaintiffs Melody Cunningham ...

A Cambridge software company could pursue statutory false advertising claims against a competitor that touted on its website a “white paper” disparaging the plaintiff’s products without disclosing that the defendant had commissioned the study, a U.S. District Court judge in ...

Customer service representatives at the call center of a company that sells internet-based home security systems were entitled to Sunday “premium pay” under state wage and hour law, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge in the Business Litigation Session has ruled. ...

A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Massachusetts has ruled that a Chapter 7 trustee could not sell the debtor’s automobile policy back to his insurance carrier to settle a dispute over the validity of a pre-petition waiver of coverage of ...