On November 10, 2022, the Ninth Circuit denied the request of Jan-Pro Franchising International Inc. (“Jan-Pro”) to review the United States District Court for the Northern District of California’s August 2, 2022 order granting a group of janitors class action certification in a lawsuit alleging Jan-Pro misclassified its janitors as independent contractors. The action began in 2008 when a group of janitors sued Jan-Pro in Massachusetts federal court. After the…
On November 1, 2022, Mohan Sundaram (“Plaintiff”) filed a class action complaint against software company Freshworks, Inc. (“Freshworks” or the “Company”) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The proposed class consists of all persons and entities that purchased or otherwise acquired Freshworks common stock issued in connection with the Company’s Initial Public Offering (“IPO”). Freshworks is a software company headquartered in San Mateo, California,…
On October 18, 2022, Plaintiffs filed an unopposed motion for preliminarily approval of a $2.9 million settlement agreement (“Settlement”) reached between Plaintiffs and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Inc. (a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School) (“Beth Israel”), the Board of Directors of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Pension Committee of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (collectively, “Defendants”). Plaintiffs, represented by Miller Shah LLP, sued Defendants on behalf…
On July 5, 2022, the Honorable Colm F. Connolly of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware denied the motion to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit against AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals L.P. and AstraZeneca L.P. (“AstraZeneca”); Handa Pharmaceuticals, LLC (“Handa”); and Par Pharmaceutical, Inc. (“Par”) (collectively, “Defendants”). The lawsuit alleges that Defendants engaged in monopolistic behavior to delay the production of a generic form of AstraZeneca’s antidepressant drug Seroquel XR…
On October 13, 2022, the Honorable Sharon Coleman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois approved a $105 million settlement ("Settlement") of a securities fraud class action against Walgreens and two former Walgreens executives (collectively, “Defendants”). Plaintiffs originally filed the lawsuit in 2015, alleging that Defendants violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by making misleading statements regarding Walgreens’ acquisition…
On October 28th, 2022, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry’s Joint Task Force on Misclassification of Employees (“Joint Task Force”) held its tenth meeting of the year. The Joint Task Force was created when Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed Act 85 into law in October 2020, which called for the creation of a Joint Task Force to be composed of seven members (or their designees) and chaired by the…
On September 22, 2022, a District Judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California certified a class of over 30,000 people in a lawsuit against Genentech, Inc., and the U.S. Roche DC Fiduciary Committee (collectively, “Genentech,” the “Company,” or “Defendants”). The Court defined the Class as “all participants and beneficiaries in the U.S. Roche 401(k) Savings Plan (the “Plan”) at any time on or after…
On October 6, 2022, a proposed class of indirect salmon buyers (the “Settlement Class”) obtained a class-wide settlement of $33 million to resolve antitrust claims against Norwegian salmon producers, alleging that they inflated farm-raised salmon prices in the United States. In the preliminary approval motion, counsel for the Settlement Class indicated that the settlement is “an excellent result for the class” since it would avoid lengthy litigation and the uncertainties…
On October 11, 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the Central District of California’s denial of a motion for a preliminary injunction to restrain the California Attorney General from applying California’s “ABC test,” as codified in California’s Assembly Bill 5 (“AB 5”), to political canvassers. Under precedent established in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, 4 Cal. 5th 903 (2018) to prove workers…
On October 13, 2022, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL") published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding a new standard for determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The proposed rule, entitled “Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standards Act,” would create a six-factor framework for classifying workers as employees or…