L'Oréal's US unit has retained Weil Gotshal and Ducera Partners to explore moving its US talc liabilities into a separate entity and selling it, a Honeywell-style exit that avoids Chapter 11. Talc-asbestos suits rose from about 620 to 760 in six months.
Torts Desk · 15 min
A Jacksonville federal judge has vacated in full the $48 million arbitration award that drug-discount marketer United Networks of America won against OptumRx, finding UNA's claimed acquisition of a rival's business was "a lie." Fraud vacatur under the FAA is rare, and the order shows what it takes.
Courts Desk · 13 min
A tort reform group's October 6 report says businesses and insurers have filed nearly 300 civil RICO suits since 2024, two dozen naming lawyers or funders. Courts are split: Uber and 3M have survived dismissal, while Ford and Uber's New York case lost.
Policy Desk · 17 min
In the Galindo Law Firm bankruptcy, a Houston judge on October 1, 2026 approved a $7.5 million settlement with the trust handling chemical plant explosion victims' claims, while a funder asserting a $50 million lien fights over the firm's contingency fees.
Economics Desk · 12 min
Bridget McCormack's exit as American Arbitration Association CEO took effect October 2, 2026, and Steve Errick now runs the largest US provider on an interim basis. The mass arbitration rules, fee schedule and AI Arbitrator stay in place while the board searches for a permanent chief.
Rules Desk · 11 min
On October 2, 2026, the JPML consolidated the federal AirTag stalking lawsuits as MDL No. 3199 in the Northern District of California before Judge Noël Wise. That rejected Apple's bid to stop an MDL altogether, and also the claimants' request for Arizona.
Torts Desk · 14 min
On October 2, 2026, the Northern District of Texas granted final approval to AT&T's $177 million data breach settlement in MDL No. 3114 and awarded class counsel $59 million, one-third of each fund. Payments now wait on the appeal window and Kroll's claim review.
Torts Desk · 17 min
The JPML's MDL statistics for October 2026 list 162 dockets, with Johnson & Johnson talc at 69,340 pending actions. Uber's sexual assault MDL added 328 cases in a month, hair relaxer added 252, and Depo-Provera and GLP-1 barely moved.
Torts Desk · 20 min
Lead exposure class certification split in three days: a New York federal judge refused to certify a class over Dollar Tree's lead-tainted WanaBana pouches, while an Indiana federal judge certified a medical monitoring class of East Chicago children against DuPont and Hammond Group but rejected their injury class.
Torts Desk · 16 min
The Walmart grill brush recall announced on October 1, 2026 pulls 4,477,655 Expert Grill wire-bristle brushes, the fourth such recall this year. More than 21 million brushes are now off the market, and the Weber and Nexgrill suits already show where Walmart's exposure lies.
Torts Desk · 15 min
On October 1, 2026 the Supreme Court asked 401(k) participant Cathy Pover to answer Capital Group's petition. The Capital Group ERISA arbitration fight now turns on whether plan-wide relief survives, the premise behind eight circuits' refusals to enforce plan arbitration clauses.
Courts Desk · 15 min
A Manhattan federal judge has refused to send the MLB Ballpark app lawsuit over vanished tickets to arbitration, finding MLB Advanced Media failed to prove fans agreed to its arbitration terms. Six months after MLB beat 5,628 mass-arbitration claimants on the same issue, assent has now cut against it.
Courts Desk · 12 min
More than 900 Parkinson's plaintiffs have rejected Syngenta and Chevron's paraquat settlement offers, with three firms reporting opt-out rates of 80 to 100 percent. Paraquat settlement opt-outs now decide whether MDL 3004 settles or goes back to trial.
Torts Desk · 19 min
The Supreme Court opens its term on Monday, October 5, with Suncor v. Boulder, No. 25-170: whether federal law bars state-law climate damages suits. Justice Alito has recused, so a 4-4 split would leave Colorado's ruling for Boulder in place. More than two dozen suits turn on the answer.
Torts Desk · 22 min
The Uber sexual assault bellwether settlement in Jane Doe QLF 001 came less than 48 hours after a Texas federal jury was seated, announced 2 October 2026. Uber had conceded the assault and punitive damages were still live; MDL No. 3084's third federal bellwether ends with no verdict and no public number.
Torts Desk · 21 min
A Los Angeles judge ruled on September 29, 2026 that the $12.9 million Chris Brown dog attack verdict was excessive and offered a $9.5 million remittitur; housekeeper Maria Avila accepted on September 30, ending the threat of a damages retrial.
Torts Desk · 14 min
Governor Newsom signed SB 574 on September 30, 2026. From January 1, 2027, California lawyers must disclose generative AI use to courts and personally verify every citation, and arbitrators may not delegate any part of a decision to AI.
Policy Desk · 16 min
Governor Newsom signed SB 690 on September 30, 2026, leaving CIPA pen register and trap-and-trace claims over websites and apps to the Attorney General from January 1, 2027, and reaching back to pending claims filed since January 1, 2025. Section 631 wiretap claims survive.
Policy Desk · 15 min
On September 29, 2026, Judge Joan Lefkow refused to decide pharmacist T.J. Novak's claim to a cut of Walgreens' $4.7 billion multistate opioid settlement, ruling the dispute turns on unsettled law in 28 states whose own courts must decide it.
Torts Desk · 11 min
A Placer County jury awarded $15.8 million on September 28, 2026 in the Phil Oates wrongful death case. Oates conceded fault, so jurors decided only damages, and $2.3 million of the award is pre-death pain and suffering that California's expired SB 447 window allowed.
Torts Desk · 13 min
The first Roundup design defect trial since Monsanto v. Durnell opened September 29 before Judge Brian May in St. Louis County. Three opt-out plaintiffs say glyphosate was never adequately tested; Monsanto says the claims are still preempted. The verdict will price every claim left outside the $7.25 billion deal.
Torts Desk · 20 min
In Diaz-Roa v. Hermes Law, the Second Circuit EFAA ruling of September 30, 2026 holds that a plaintiff who invokes the EFAA can void an arbitration agreement for the whole lawsuit, wage and contract claims included. Two circuits now agree, which leaves no split to send to the Supreme Court.
Courts Desk · 14 min
In a T-Mobile price lock arbitration win, a Seattle federal judge ruled September 29 that customers suing over broken rate promises must arbitrate one by one, having accepted updated terms by continuing to pay after notice. The fight moves to the AAA, where a 25-claimant batching clause awaits.
Courts Desk · 17 min
AppLovin filed a JAMS demand against Unity on 27 September 2026 and, a day later, asked San Francisco Superior Court for a provisional remedy under CCP § 1281.8(b) to stop Unity's Ad Quality SDK from collecting its ad data while the arbitration runs.
Courts Desk · 16 min
Governor Newsom signed AB 2039 on September 27, 2026. California's new capping law adds a $25,000 civil penalty per violation, summary disbarment for qualifying capping convictions, whistleblower protection for firm staff, and written-contract rules for lawyer loans to clients.
Policy Desk · 14 min
A Los Angeles federal judge has refused to vacate the JPMorgan deli platter arbitration award, leaving ex-broker Brent Bodner's $4.25 million FINRA win in place. The court called JPMorgan's objections serious but held that an unexplained award that is merely wrong still stands.
Courts Desk · 15 min
A Philadelphia federal judge has refused to send a minor's video game addiction lawsuit to arbitration, holding that the teen rejected the Roblox clause delegating contract-formation questions to an arbitrator. Four months earlier, the same judge compelled a similar case.
Courts Desk · 14 min
Judge Gonzalo Curiel certified a class of California Tampax buyers on September 29, 2026, sending the claim that P&G hid lead in Tampax Pearl and Radiant tampons toward trial, despite a July 2026 FDA study finding metal release negligible.
Torts Desk · 17 min
A Delaware Superior Court opinion dated 21 September 2026 paused AIG's suit seeking a ruling that it owes Google nothing for the social media addiction cases, deferring to Google's action filed 16 days earlier in Santa Clara. Who pays for YouTube's defense will now be decided in California.
Torts Desk · 15 min
A 24 September 2026 docket entry fixed the hair relaxer bellwether trial date at 7 September 2027 and set eight monthly conferences before it. The case has not been picked, the Rule 702 general causation motion is still undecided, and 12,129 federal claims wait on the result.
Torts Desk · 23 min
A federal jury in Charleston, West Virginia awarded Ramaco $30 million on 25 September 2026 against two Chubb insurers for the cost of an eight-year coverage fight over a collapsed silo. The retrial puts West Virginia's Hayseeds doctrine back at the center of first-party bad faith practice, and fees are still to come.
Courts Desk · 14 min
The Apple $5.7 billion patent verdict: a San Diego jury found on 25 September 2026 that Apple owes Taction Technology $5,721,961,750 for two haptics patents. Burford Capital says about $1.4 billion is its share, in a case where Apple failed to subpoena the funders.
Economics Desk · 12 min
California SB 37 attorney advertising rules let private plaintiffs sue attorneys, cappers and uncertified referral services for $5,000 to $100,000 per violation or treble damages. Nine months in, observers expect it to be used against plaintiffs' firms, including to attack class counsel.
Policy Desk · 15 min
Google filed its notice of appeal on 21 September 2026, taking the $425.7 million Web & App Activity verdict for 98 million users to the Ninth Circuit after Chief Judge Seeborg refused to set it aside and awarded class counsel $146.8 million. No class member is paid until the appeal ends.
Courts Desk · 13 min
Royal Caribbean has settled the Royal Caribbean 33 drinks lawsuit over Michael Virgil's death aboard Navigator of the Seas. A Miami federal court approved the minor son's share as in his best interest; the amount is sealed. Here is what the deal settles, and the maritime rules that priced it.
Torts Desk · 14 min
In the Valve Steam arbitration appeal, the Ninth Circuit will decide whether Valve could rewrite Steam's terms to pull 358 users out of pending arbitrations, while six users challenge orders refusing to confirm their awards. The ruling will shape how companies exit arbitration.
Courts Desk · 16 min
On September 25, 2026, the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the denial of Baker Tilly's motion to compel arbitration, holding that engagement-letter arbitration clauses did not reach tax work the letters excluded and that the parties handled on unwritten terms.
Courts Desk · 13 min
The Clorox recall lawsuit filed on 24 September 2026 in the Northern District of California accuses the company of knowing that 6.3 million bottles of Mistolin and Lestoil cleaners risked Pseudomonas aeruginosa contamination. The refund program, not the bacterium, is the real battleground.
Torts Desk · 16 min
On 23 September 2026 Judge Dan Aaron Polster appointed Motley Rice managing partner Donald Migliori as plaintiffs' co-lead counsel in MDL No. 2804, filling the seat Joe Rice held for eight years before his death on 3 September, just as the PBM phase of the opioid litigation reaches the Sixth Circuit.
Torts Desk · 10 min
A federal jury in Indianapolis found Richmond, Cornerstone Trading Group and owner Seth Smith negligent over the April 2023 plastics fire, putting 40% on the city. Richmond is now weighing an appeal while damages for a class of roughly 2,000 evacuees remain to be set.
Torts Desk · 12 min
The TikTok Alabama settlement, signed 25 September 2026 three days before trial, buys peace for $116.2 million now and up to $183.8 million more if enough states execute qualifying agreements. The consent decree, not the check, is what mass tort counsel should read.
Torts Desk · 16 min
A Georgia federal court stayed Hicks v. Waffle House on 25 September 2026 until it rules on the company's motion to compel arbitration of a nationwide ERISA class claim over a $92-a-month tobacco surcharge. The arbitration gate, not the merits, is now the decisive question in a 50-case wave.
Courts Desk · 12 min
Two Memphis residents filed a federal class action against X.AI Corp. and MZX Tech LLC on 23 September 2026 over round-the-clock gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi. It is the second nuisance class action aimed at one power plant from opposite sides of the state line.
Torts Desk · 17 min
The American Arbitration Association and Jus Mundi surveyed 557 US arbitration professionals and found average trust in AI of 2.18 out of 5.00 — but 3.42 among daily users and 0.83 among non-users. The report landed five days after the AAA seated 37 lawyers in an AI Ambassador Program.
Rules Desk · 15 min
New York's Appellate Division, Second Department held on 23 September 2026 that the EFAA defeats a motion to compel arbitration of an EFAA arbitration negligence claim against a sorority nobody accuses of the assault. The test is a logical connection, not fault.
Courts Desk · 15 min
A Los Angeles judge refused on 24 September 2026 to vacate the Eric Schmidt arbitration award that ordered Michelle Ritter to pay $10.7 million for falsely accusing him of rape. The clause that sent the case to arbitration was signed in December 2024 — after the dispute had arisen — so the EFAA never applied.
Courts Desk · 17 min
A Santa Fe jury found on 25 September 2026 that Facebook willfully violated New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act roughly 43.9 million times. At $5,000 a violation, the arithmetic reaches $219.5 billion - and Judge Francis Mathew, not the jury, decides what Meta pays.
Courts Desk · 14 min
On 25 September 2026 a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel held that Kalshi's sports event contracts are not 'swaps,' so the CFTC has no exclusive jurisdiction over them and Ohio and Tennessee may enforce their gambling laws. The ruling deepens a three-way circuit split and unlocks a wave of private claims.
Courts Desk · 16 min
A federal jury in Atlanta awarded $44 million in compensatory and $120 million in punitive damages against Lincoln Bancorp, LLC, operator of a Super 8 by Wyndham where a 15-year-old was trafficked. Counsel call it the largest such verdict in US history. Collecting it is a separate question.
Torts Desk · 14 min
A California appellate panel refused to enforce GEO's arbitration agreement because a confidentiality agreement signed in the same onboarding packet sent the employer's own likely claims to a Florida court. The clause was never read alone.
Drafting Desk · 15 min
MDL 3180, the federal Dupixent cutaneous T-cell lymphoma litigation, meets Judge Zahid N. Quraishi for its initial case management conference on 1 October 2026, four months after centralization and with new complaints still arriving — including one filed in Connecticut on 16 September 2026.
Torts Desk · 18 min
In Geller v. Uber Technologies, decided 24 September 2026, a unanimous Illinois Supreme Court held that a widow's own Uber terms of use - delegation clause and all - cannot pull her wrongful death claims arising from her husband's ride into arbitration.
Courts Desk · 12 min
A Peloton treadmill entrapment lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California on 21 September 2026 says a child's hand was pulled under a moving belt. The first fight will be forum: Peloton's consumer terms route disputes to NAM, and one reported decision has already split a family over that clause.
Torts Desk · 18 min
Judge Jed S. Rakoff held that a ticket buyer accepted StubHub's individual-arbitration terms when he clicked 'Buy Now'. Plaintiffs' counsel answered within days that the same buyers will now arrive one at a time, in what he called a contemplated mass arbitration.
Courts Desk · 12 min
In Joyner v. Frontier Airlines, decided 1 September 2026 and now the subject of a wave of practitioner analysis, the Tenth Circuit held that a district court defined the FAA Section 1 class of workers too narrowly by asking what three named plaintiffs actually did rather than what their class typically does.
Courts Desk · 12 min
A four-plaintiff complaint filed in Delaware Superior Court on 15 September 2026 against Corteva, Dow Chemical and Loveland Products shows the chlorpyrifos Parkinson's lawsuit docket is scaling. The UCLA data put the residential odds ratio at 2.68 — and Durnell has already taken the warning claim off the table.
Torts Desk · 19 min
A computer duster inhalation lawsuit survived dismissal in the District of Minnesota on 18 September 2026 after Judge Katherine M. Menendez held that the adequacy of the warnings cannot be decided on the pleadings and that the state's seller exception does not shield the retailer defendants.
Torts Desk · 13 min
Judge Patti B. Saris has set the second Covidien hernia mesh bellwether trial for 11 January 2027 in MDL No. 3029, five months after a Boston jury returned $88 million in Patterson v. Covidien — a failure-to-warn verdict with no fraud finding and no punitive damages.
Torts Desk · 18 min
Pfizer and Global Blood Therapeutics moved for preliminary approval on 17 September 2026 of an Oxbryta class action settlement funding up to $750,000 in refunds. Two years after the withdrawal, the injury cases are settling one at a time and there is still no MDL.
Torts Desk · 18 min
The $76 million Nissan rollover verdict returned in Rapides Parish on 23 September 2026 went to a Bunkie man left quadriplegic in a 2021 crash, on claims that a 2015 Infiniti's roof was defective and its lane assist failed to warn. What it is worth turns on a Civil Code article nobody has mentioned.
Torts Desk · 17 min
Judge Vince Chhabria hears Sony's PlayStation motion to compel arbitration on 1 October 2026 in Heycock v. Sony, No. 3:26-cv-06016. Briefing closed 11 September. Section 14 of the PlayStation terms names the AAA, waives class actions — and collapses entirely if that waiver falls.
Courts Desk · 17 min
The California Legislature passed SB 574 on 31 August 2026 without a dissenting vote. Governor Newsom has until 30 September to sign or veto it. A new Code of Civil Procedure section 1282.1 would bar arbitrators from delegating any part of decisionmaking to generative AI.
Policy Desk · 14 min
In re ChatGPT Product Liability Cases, JCCP 5431, holds a further case management conference in San Francisco today, 23 September 2026, its first since leadership was appointed on 4 August. Twenty-three coordinated actions, no federal MDL, and no motion to compel arbitration anywhere on the docket.
Torts Desk · 15 min
A Pennsylvania bettor who says he wagered about $2.4 million across both apps sued DraftKings and FanDuel on 16 September 2026. The new DraftKings and FanDuel VIP manager lawsuit meets two gates already set against claimants: a same-district ruling finding no duty of care, and an enforced arbitration clause.
Torts Desk · 20 min
A Larimer County jury returned a unanimous $65 million wrongful death verdict on 21 September 2026 over the 2022 I-25 bridge strike that killed Megan Arneson. Colorado caps noneconomic damages but not economic loss, and the driver's vehicular homicide plea does not lift the cap.
Torts Desk · 12 min
The Ohio litigation funding law enacted as Sub. H.B. 105 becomes operative on 6 October 2026, creating Revised Code Chapter 1357, repealing R.C. 1349.55 and imposing the first state ban on foreign governments, corporations and investors backing US claims. Consumer funders get 90 more days to register.
Policy Desk · 15 min
The federal Ozempic NAION lawsuit inventory went from a reported 110 actions on 1 June 2026 to 216 on 1 September, and a wave of national coverage on 21-22 September put Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly back in the frame. Judge Marston has ordered causation and preemption litigated first.
Torts Desk · 22 min
Closing arguments in mid-September 2026 ended a two-month bench trial in King County Superior Court. Washington wants roughly $2.2 billion from Albertsons and Safeway as their share of a $44.4 billion abatement plan, and Judge Janet Helson, not a jury, will decide.
Torts Desk · 11 min
Governor Newsom has signed AB 2305, chaptered as Chapter 393, Statutes of 2026. From 1 January 2027 a corporate legal funder that interferes with a substantive litigation decision commits the unauthorized practice of law in California, exposed to $10,000 per violation or treble damages.
Policy Desk · 16 min
A $400,000 settlement reported on 22 September 2026 put the Camp Lejeune Track 1 trial trade-off in plain view. To reach trial, the 25 selected plaintiffs gave up every claim outside five diseases — and none of them will see a jury.
Torts Desk · 21 min
Hawaii's high court heard argument on 15 September over Maui wildfire attorney fees: Judge Cahill capped them at 3% to 10% and carved $222 million from the $4.037 billion settlement into a common benefit fund. Until the court rules, not one of 21,750 claimants gets paid.
Economics Desk · 13 min
On 18 September 2026, Senior Judge Richard D. Bennett denied a motion to stay pending JPML transfer in DiToto v. Nevro, holding that pausing a case that could reach trial within a year would not promote judicial economy. The Panel argues the Nevro petition on 24 September.
Torts Desk · 19 min
One Ohio Turnpike toll plaza crash lawsuit has become three, all pending in Lucas County Common Pleas Court and reported together on 22 September 2026. The NTSB said on 16 September that the crash would have been avoided with fully electronic tolling — a finding federal law keeps out of evidence.
Torts Desk · 14 min
A third Oakland County jury returned roughly $32.7 million on 11 September 2026, taking the total from three damages-only trials over a single 2023 test track crash past $931 million. Continental conceded liability in all three — and never made a settlement offer.
Torts Desk · 13 min
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation hears argument on 24 September 2026 on an NCAA eligibility MDL — No. 3198 — sought by the NCAA itself for the Middle District of Tennessee. The Idaho plaintiffs opposed on 18 September, and the injunction still standing is a Louisiana state one.
Torts Desk · 15 min
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation hears argument on 24 September 2026 on building an Apple AirTag MDL — No. 3199 — out of the federal stalking actions. Apple says it settled 20 cases in two months and needs no MDL at all; claimants want Arizona.
Torts Desk · 15 min
MDL 3081 goes back to trial on 13 October 2026 with an infection case from Florida, five weeks after a Phoenix jury returned $40m on a catheter fracture and four months after the first Bard PowerPort bellwether trial produced a defense verdict and a hung jury on design defect.
Torts Desk · 19 min
Roblox and Discord are due to move to compel arbitration on 22 September 2026 across more than 160 child exploitation actions in MDL No. 3166. A 2022 statute, and the date a child was harmed, will decide most of it.
Courts Desk · 15 min
The first § 1407 petition over the 2026 cyclosporiasis outbreak — MDL No. 3196, aimed at the Northern District of California — was deemed withdrawn and struck from the 24 September JPML calendar. A second motion, MDL No. 3203, now asks for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Torts Desk · 17 min
Every deadline in the largest MDL in the federal system is frozen while Negotiation Counsel report claimant sign-ups every two weeks, starting 15 September 2026. The talc settlement participation threshold — 95% — is a private contract term no judge will ever approve.
Torts Desk · 19 min
The Judicial Panel hears argument in Chicago on 24 September 2026 on the first tariff refund MDL petition. Roughly 100 consumer suits are pending across about 30 federal districts, and the defense with the best chance of disposing of most of them is not a merits defense at all.
Courts Desk · 17 min
Judge Mary Rowland halved the hair relaxer MDL bellwether pool on 17 September 2026, reversing the hedge she built five months earlier — and she did it while the Rule 702 general causation motion that could end all 12,129 federal cases sits undecided.
Torts Desk · 21 min
A Philadelphia jury took 90 minutes on 15 September 2026 to find that the Neutrogena aerosol sunscreens two women used were not defective. The Neutrogena sunscreen benzene verdict never reached general causation, specific causation or damages.
Torts Desk · 15 min
In 24 hours the Sixth Circuit reversed the remand of Kentucky's pharmacy benefit manager opioid suit and took delivery of Judge Dan Polster's answer to a mandamus petition that would strip roughly 800 amended complaints out of MDL 2804. The forum fight and the aggregation fight are now in the same courthouse.
Courts Desk · 12 min
The Judicial Panel hears argument on 24 September 2026 on separate Abbott and Nevro spinal cord stimulator MDLs, four months after it refused to build one industry-wide docket. MDL 3181 now holds 29 Boston Scientific actions; every other claim is still filed case by case.
Torts Desk · 17 min
Six claimants have asked a federal court to freeze Camp Lejeune Elective Option settlement offers due to lapse on 27 September 2026, saying four were priced in the wrong exposure band. The government's answer is that its own published grid has no force of law.
Torts Desk · 21 min
The Depo-Provera MDL causation ruling is still under advisement as Judge Rodgers convenes MDL 3140 in Pensacola today, alongside Pfizer's undecided preemption motion. A global settlement covers roughly 80% of the 6,403 pending actions; those rulings decide the rest.
Torts Desk · 22 min
The Rule 702 hearing in MDL 3094 was reserved for 10-18 September 2026 and reaches its final scheduled day today. Judge Karen Marston must now decide whether the general causation experts behind roughly 4,022 gastroparesis and ileus claims may testify at all. No ruling has issued.
Torts Desk · 20 min
On 4 September 2026 Magistrate Judge Lara K. Eshkenazi barred Public Partnerships, LLC from distributing a dispute resolution agreement with a class action waiver to roughly 200,000 settlement class members before final approval of a $162 million wage settlement. Opt-outs close 19 September.
Courts Desk · 12 min
Roundup settlement final approval is under submission: Judge Timothy Boyer reserved decision after the 14 September fairness hearing in St. Louis and directed proposed orders that week. Approval would bind roughly 65,000 pending claims and a nationwide futures subclass for sixteen years.
Torts Desk · 18 min
Oppositions to motions in limine in Jane Doe QLF 001 v. Uber were due today, 18 September 2026, with jury selection on 30 September and openings on 5 October. The fourth bellwether trial in MDL No. 3084 will be the first tried under a state statute that bars exemplary damages for a third party's criminal act.
Torts Desk · 19 min
Two new appellate fronts opened this summer, and neither one is about whether the protocol is unconscionable. The Second Circuit is being asked whether the FAA reaches the dispute at all; the Nevada Supreme Court, whether there is an agreement to enforce.
Courts Desk · 21 min
A letter filed on 14 September 2026 asks the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules to draft a uniform Rule 26 litigation funding disclosure requirement. The committee takes it up on 21 October — and the rule, if written, cannot bind anyone before December 2029.
Policy Desk · 17 min
A litigation funder tried to compel arbitration against the German claims vehicle it financed, from inside a discovery docket. The Third Circuit held that no court had jurisdiction to hear the motion. On 28 September the Justices decide what to do about it.
Courts Desk · 17 min
Judge Rakoff sent the StubHub self-dealing class action to arbitration on 14 September 2026 and stayed the case rather than dismissing it. The StubHub arbitration ruling removes the class device without removing a single claim.
Courts Desk · 13 min
Five years after abandoning consumer arbitration under the weight of 75,000 Alexa demands, Amazon reinstated it on 14 August 2026. The new clause is the most complete defence-side answer to mass arbitration yet drafted: a 60-day condition precedent, escalating JAMS batching, appeal rights on every batch, and a first-of-its-kind obligation to hand over litigation funding agreements.
Clause Desk · 4 min
Two providers, two philosophies. The AAA applies its mass regime at its own discretion and flattened the initiation fee; JAMS will only run its procedures if you wrote them into the contract. The gap between those choices decides who has leverage on day one.
Rules Desk · 4 min
The Ninth Circuit struck down a bespoke mass arbitration regime root and branch, including its delegation clause. Certiorari was denied in October 2025. Every protocol drafted since has been written in that decision's shadow.
Courts Desk · 3 min
Twenty-five coordinated claims per round. Aggressive resolution targets. A tolling provision the drafter could contest. The Northern District of California found the combination unconscionable — and gave every clause reviewer a checklist.
Courts Desk · 3 min
Thirty-five thousand claimants, a $4.1 million invoice, and a respondent that declined to pay. The Seventh Circuit held a district court could not order it to — a ruling whose reach depends entirely on the words a clause uses to incorporate provider rules.
Courts Desk · 3 min
Twenty-five claimants trigger the protocol; ten claims move at a time; nothing sets an outer limit and nothing tolls the clock. A New Jersey appellate court declined to sever, and struck the agreement in its entirety.
Courts Desk · 3 min
Richard Frankel's empirical study of corporate responses to mass arbitration documents what the redrafting wave actually produced — and argues that the resulting procedural apparatus may have drifted outside what the Federal Arbitration Act protects at all.
Research Desk · 3 min
The first systematic account of mass arbitration argued it constitutes a genuinely new model of dispute resolution — and documented defendants abandoning the clauses they had spent two decades securing.
Research Desk · 3 min
The institutional frameworks do not exist, consumer disputes are non-arbitrable across much of Europe, and investor-state filing fees make the model economically impossible. Mass arbitration looks likely to remain an American phenomenon.
Research Desk · 3 min
The defence bar has converged on one point: mass arbitration is a drafting problem, and the drafting window closes the moment the first tranche is filed. What a clause reviewed with mass exposure in mind actually contains.
Practice Desk · 4 min
Keller Postman began filing advertiser demands against Google in April 2026, built on the 2024 monopolisation rulings and an economist's overcharge model running to $218 billion. The claimants are not consumers with negative-value claims. They are businesses, and Google's own arbitration clause is what routes them there.
Courts Desk · 3 min
The claim is that an email address became a permanent tracking identifier that survived cookie deletion. The procedural point is that the campaign was launched as a mass arbitration from the outset, with claimant recruitment running through a partner intake platform rather than a class definition.
Economics Desk · 3 min
Case management fees, not filing fees, were what made mass arbitration devastating. The AAA eliminated them. Here is what the numbers look like on either side of that change — and where the cost has migrated to.
Rules Desk · 3 min
Two sweepstakes casino operators sued the firms that had built mass arbitration campaigns against them for malicious prosecution. On 31 March 2026, Justice Phaedra F. Perry-Bond dismissed every claim under New York's anti-SLAPP statute — and made the fee award mandatory.
Courts Desk · 3 min
Litigation funders increasingly finance mass arbitration campaigns. A funder's return depends on aggregate portfolio recovery; counsel owe duties to each individual claimant. No uniform disclosure regime exists to surface the tension.
Research Desk · 3 min
Broad restrictions on consumer and employment arbitration have gone nowhere. The 2022 sexual assault and harassment statute did pass — and it established the template every serious reform proposal now follows.
Policy Desk · 3 min
Litigation theory held that claims worth less than the cost of bringing them cannot be litigated without a procedural aggregation device. Mass arbitration showed that premise depended on institutional design — and everything since has been an attempt to restore it.
Research Desk · 4 min
