It Is Here ' Seyfarth's 2022 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report

• Published date: 05 January 2022
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Employee Benefits & Compensation, Employment Litigation/ Tribunals, Arbitration & Dispute Resolution, Class Actions
• Law Firm: Seyfarth Shaw LLP
• Author: Mr Gerald Maatman Jr.

Seyfarth Synopsis: Seyfarth's 18th Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report analyzes 1,607 rulings and is our most comprehensive Report ever at over 840 pages.

Click here to access the microsite featuring all the Report highlights. You can read about the five major trends of the past year, order your copy of the eBook, and download Chapters 1 and 2 on the 2022 Executive Summary and key class action settlements.

The Report has become the "go to" research and resource guide for businesses and their corporate counsel facing complex litigation. We are humbled and honored by the recent review of our 2021 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report by Employment Practices Liability Consultant Magazine ("EPLiC") - the review is here. EPLiC said: "The Report is a must-have resource for legal research and in-depth analysis of employment-related class action litigation." Further, the article noted that "No practitioner who deals with employment claims, whether as an underwriter, broker, risk manager, consultant, or attorney should be without it."

EPLic stated: "The encyclopedic . . . Seyfarth Shaw Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report insightfully examines and analyzes an array of class action decisions. In addition, the federal cases examined in the Report are indexed by federal circuit - an invaluable feature that further enhances the Report's utility. The Report is also available in e-Book format and is fully searchable."

The 2022 Report analyzes rulings from all state and federal courts - including private plaintiff class actions and collective actions, and government enforcement actions - in the substantive areas of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. It also features chapters on EEOC pattern or practice rulings, state law class certification decisions, and non-workplace class action rulings that impact employers. The Report also analyzes the leading class action settlements for 2021 for employment discrimination, wage & hour, ERISA class actions, and statutory workplace laws, as well as settlements of government enforcement actions, both with respect to monetary values and injunctive relief provisions.

We hope our loyal blog readers will enjoy it!

Executive Summary

Over the past decade, workplace class action litigation has exploded relative to its prevalence and complexity. The class action mechanism provides skilled plaintiffs' lawyers a tool to attempt to inflate the size and risk of litigation exponentially. The plaintiffs' class action bar has seized on and expanded its use of this tool to grow its practice and has adopted an array of tactics to command and build increasing pressure and leverage.

Today, workplace class actions remain at the top of the list of challenges that business leaders face. An adverse judgment in a class action has the potential to bankrupt a company. Adverse publicity from a threatened or ongoing class action has the potential to eviscerate good will and market share. At the same time, negotiated resolutions have the potential to spawn copy-cat class actions and follow-on claims from multiple groups of plaintiffs' lawyers who challenge corporate policies and practices in numerous jurisdictions at the same time or in succession. Compounding these risks, federal and state legislatures and administrative agencies continually add to a patchwork quilt of compliance challenges that shift and change with each administration, thereby bringing increased unpredictability.

Ever-attuned to the challenges facing business leaders, the plaintiffs' class action bar has leveraged these risks into increasingly large pay-outs. Skilled plaintiffs' class action lawyers and governmental enforcement litigators have continued to develop new theories and approaches to the successful prosecution of complex workplace litigation and enforcement lawsuits and have continued to convert the size and uncertainty of such litigation into settlements at increasing rates. This phenomenon was manifest in 2021 as the aggregate value of...