Baskin v. P.C. Richard & Son, LLC, ___ N.J. ___ (2021). [Disclosure: I am one of the counsel for the successful plaintiffs in this matter]. In this case, the Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal, for failure to state a claim, of a putative class action under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, 15 U.S.C. 1681 (“FACTA”). That opinion, reported at 462 N.J. Super. 594 (App. Div. 2020), was discussed here. Plaintiffs’ claim was that defendants had violated FACTA by printing on sales receipts the credit or debit card expiration dates of plaintiffs and...

Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Secretary, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ___ Fed. Appx. ___ (3d Cir. 2020). This blog does not often cover non-precedential decisions of appellate courts. But today’s opinion by Judge Bibas (a Trump appointee), in which Chief Judge Smith and Judge Chagares joined, is an important exception. The opinion was non-precedential because plaintiff (“the Campaign”) appealed the District court’s rejection of the Campaign’s attack on the vote in Pennsylvania only “on a very narrow ground: whether the District Court abused its...

Premier Comp Solutions, LLC v. UPMC, 730 F.3d 316 (3d Cir. 2020). Under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, amendments to pleadings are liberally granted. But when a Scheduling Order sets a deadline for amending pleadings, Rule 16(b)(4) requires “good cause” for an amendment. In this case, plaintiff sought to add a defendant after an amendment deadline had passed (and after that deadline had been extended once). Plaintiff’s motion relied only on Rule 15’s “liberally granted” standard. When the UPMC defendants opposed the motion and called...