South Carolina Business Law Blog

On April 27th, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Stolt-Nielsen v. Animalfeeds invalidating an arbitration panel's determination that the parties' agreement implicitly allowed class arbitration. We intend to do some more in-depth analysis of Stolt-Nielsen (as well as the Supreme Court's Shady Grove Opinion ) as time permits, but in the meantime, the folks at the ADR Prof Blog offer some very thought-provoking takes on Stolt-Nielsen.

The importance of identifying and producing electronic information continues to underscore attorney obligations to be actively engaged in client document production. As reported in the Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog , a Delaware Court of Chancery Vice Chancellor determined that the client's "unsatisfying" production demonstrated that its "self-collection" was insufficient, and ruled that the attorney should meet in person with the client to physically review the devices (including personal computers) where electronic information may be stored.

On April 26, 2010, the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the South Carolina Public Service Commission (Commission) approving SCE&G’s application to construct and operate a two-unit nuclear facility in Jenkinsville, South Carolina and to revise its rates to reflect the cost of capital applied to the project. Friends of the Earth v. The Public Service Commission of South Carolina , et al ., Op. No. 26811 (S.C. April 26, 2010). Friends of the Earth, a not-for-profit group, opposed the new facility before the Commission. On appeal, Friends of the Earth urged the Court to apply a new standard of “heightened scrutiny” when reviewing this decision of the Commission under the recently enacted Base Load Review Act . The Court found no basis in law for this request, stating that varying degrees of scrutiny are ordinarily limited to those cases where a state statute’s constitutionality is being challenged under the Equal Protection Clause. Accordingly, the Court app...

In Dukes v. Wal-Mart , the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a District Court decision certifying a nationwide class consisting of all women who have worked at Wal-Mart since the end of 1998. According to the ABA Journal , this is the largest class action suit ever, consisting of over one million plaintiffs. As noted by the Marquette Law School Faculty Blog , the dissent by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski sets up a Petition for Certiorari , and the case may be headed for the United States Supreme Court.

Good article in the National Law Journal by Marcia Coyle about the City of Ontario, Calif. v. Quon case that the Supreme Court will hear on Monday. SCOTUSblog also has a detailed analysis of the case. At issue is whether a member of the Ontario SWAT team had a Fourth Amendment "reasonable expectation of privacy" in text messages transmitted on his SWAT pager, and whether the senders of messages to the SWAT pager had their own reasonable expectation that the City of Ontario would not review their messages.

Article from MidlandsBiz

A decision from the New Jersey Supreme Court is required reading for any company with a policy setting out acceptable email and online use for its employees. In Stengart v. Loving Care , the NJ Supreme Court addressed how much privacy and confidentiality an employee could expect when she exchanges personal emails with her attorney via a password-protected, web-based email account accessed on a company computer. Loving Care provided Stengart with a laptop to use for company business, from which she had access to the Internet through Loving Care's computer server. Stengart used the laptop to access a personal, password-protected Yahoo email account on Yahoo's website, by which she communicated with her attorney about her work situation. Stengart was unware that the computer's browser software automatically saved a copy of each webpage Stengart viewed-- including each email message she exchanged with her attorney-- on the computer's hard drive. Loving Care had a fo...