Seyfarth Shaw's 10th Annual Workplace Class Action Report: Looking Back at 2013 and Ahead to 2014

In the past two years we have seen a combination of Supreme Court decisions help create a defensive barrier for employers in class action cases.  Enough time has passed, however, that plaintiff lawyers have begun to breach this barrier with new theories and approaches and, combined with increasing and aggressive government enforcement litigation, employers may once again find themselves facing bet-the-company-type class actions in 2014.

More than any other development in 2013, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes continued to have a wide-ranging impact on virtually all class actions pending in federal and state courts throughout the country. Many Rule 23 decisions in 2013 pivoted off of Wal-Mart and leverage points in class action litigation increased or decreased depending on the manner in which judges interpreted and applied Wal-Mart.

For an interactive analysis of 2013 decisions and emerging trends, please join us for our annual webinar offered in conjunction with the publication of our 10th Annual Workplace Class Action Report. The Report's author, partner Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., along with partners Lorie Almon and Ian Morrison, chairs of our wage & hour and ERISA class action groups, will cover a changed national landscape in workplace litigation.

Other significant developments to be addressed include:

• The increasing focus of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on high-stakes, big-impact litigation
• A continuing rising tide of Wage & Hour cases
• Implications of the Supreme Court's first ruling on the Class Action Fairness Act in Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles
• Additions to the increasing number of rulings allowing employers to use arbitration agreements to manage class action risks
• Rapid strategic changes due to rulings like Comcast Corp. v. Behrends
   

Click here to register.