Amazon Archives - Stoll Berne | Attorneys | Class-Action, Securities, IP, Real Estate, Business Litigation

Amazon.com Inc. recently and quietly dropped the arbitration requirement in their terms of service. The change was made after more than 75,000 individual arbitration demands were made on Amazon. The individual demands were made on behalf of Amazon’s Echo users. Because of the individual arbitration demands, the costs for the filing fees were in the tens of millions of dollars. These fees, under Amazon’s own policies, were payable by Amazon.

The change to the terms of service now allows customers to file lawsuits, including potential class actions. However, users will need to agree to adjudicate in the state or federal courts in King County, Washington.

Amazon is currently involved in several class actions, including one on its Echo devices.

This blog is intended to provide information to the general public and to practitioners about developments that may impact Oregon class actions.

The First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied Amazon’s request an en banc panel rehearing in a case which decided that Amazon delivery drivers are considered transportation workers. The three judge panel originally sided with plaintiffs finding that an Amazon driver, working as an independent contractor, was within the definition of a transportation worker who engaged in interstate commerce. As a consequence, those workers were exempt from arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act.

The First Circuit held that Amazon delivery drivers are considered interstate commerce transportation workers regardless if they only made a single state’s deliveries.

The case, filed in Massachusetts, began as a wage-and-hour class action in 2017. This suit alleged that Amazon misclassified delivery drivers as independent contractors in order to bind them to an arbitration agreement. That designation allowed Amazon to allegedly avoid suppling work-related necessary items like delivery vehicles, insurance, cell phones, gasoline and others.

The case is Bernard Waithaka v. Amazon.com Inc. et al., case number 19-1848, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

This blog is intended to provide information to the general public and to practitioners about developments that may impact Oregon class actions.

A federal judge in Washington state has ruled that Amazon delivery drivers that had filed a collective action alleging that Amazon misclassified drivers as independent contractors fit the definition of transportation workers who are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour relied on a recent ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, which said in New Prime v. Oliveira that transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce, including those classified as independent contractors, are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act.

The case is Rittmann et al. v. Amazon.com Inc. et al., case number 2:16-cv-01554, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

This blog is intended to provide information to the general public and to practitioners about developments that may impact Oregon class actions.

A proposed class action complaint filed in California federal court on December 20, 2017, alleges that T-Mobile, Amazon, and hundreds of other companies are discriminating against older workers by limiting the audience for their Facebook advertisements to only reach younger users.

Continue reading “Advertising age discrimination class action filed against T-Mobile, Amazon, and many others”

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