South Carolina Business Law Blog

But Bazzle Keeps Coming Back Up .... Introduction: Class Arbitration Castles Burning ....     Years ago this platform discussed at some length how more than one United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision has considered the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision in Bazzle : in the context of who decides issues of arbitrability, as well as whether arbitration agreements allow classwide arbitration. (For that background, click here . For a broader survey of arbitration and class actions in the context of SCOTUS and South Carolina-- at least at that point in time-- click here ). SCOTUS recently took up the issue of class arbitration again, ruling in Lamps Plus that an ambiguous contract to arbitrate could not authorize class arbitration. Lamps Plus extended the rationale of  Stolt-Nielsen , a 2010 SCOTUS decision concluding that an agreement that is "silent" on the question of class arbitration could not compel the parties to classwide arbitration. As ...

By Shaun Blake This post is the second in a series discussing the South Carolina Supreme Court’s decision in Herron in the context of recent United State Supreme Court decisions addressing arbitration. Click here for part one. Update: you may want to click here and listen while you read. Shady Grove In Shady Grove the Petitioner filed a putative class action in Federal District Court under CAFA to recover from Allstate interest on an insurance claim allowed under a New York law. The District Court dismissed the action after concluding it lacked jurisdiction because N.Y. Civ. Prac. Law Ann. §901(b) explicitly bars claimants from pursuing a class action to recover a "penalty" such as statutory interest. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately reversed this decision in a plurality decision, holding that Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and §901(b) conflicted, and therefore Rule 23 allowed the Petitioner to pursue a federal class action despite...

The U.S. Supreme Court issued three decisions this term addressing “arbitrability”—what matters are appropriate for arbitration-- pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act (the “Act”): Shady Grove , Stolt-Nielsen , and Rent-A-Center . The South Carolina Supreme Court also recently issued a significant decision addressing arbitrability in the context of the Act. Herron v. Century BMW (“ Herron ”) was briefed and argued before all three of these Supreme Court decisions were issued. This post and two subsequent posts will analyze Herron in the context of some of the issues in play in Shady Grove , Stolt-Nielsen , and Rent-A-Center . Herron Plaintiffs brought a class action in state court against Century BMW and other South Carolina auto dealers alleging that the dealers charged an illegal administrative fee in violation of the South Carolina Regulation of Manufacturers, Distributors, and Dealers Act ("Dealers Act"). Century moved to compel arbitration pursuant to a ...