Can Class Action Waivers actually be enforced? I'm in Texas, about to sign a new lease. They've sent it to me to e-sign, and there's no option to submit the lease without signing/initialing something. I'm not expecting to be part of a class action or anything. I just don't like the idea of waiving my right to it. Text reads: Class Action Waiver. You agree that you will not participate in any class action claims against us or our representatives. You must file any claim against us individually, and you expressly waive your ability to bring, represent, join or otherwise maintain a class action collective action or similar proceeding against us in any forum. You understand that, without this waiver, you could be a party in a class action lawsuit. By signing this lease, you accept this waiver and choose to have any claims decided individually. The provisions of this Par. 43 shall survive the termination or expiration of this lease. I saw this question. It's related but not the same--asks about arbitration.
Apparently, Yes in Epic Systems Corp vs Lewis the US Supreme Court wrote: The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) generally requires courts to enforce arbitration agreements as written. See 9 USC §§2, 3, 4. The Act’s saving clause—which allows courts to refuse to enforce arbitration agreements “upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract,” §2—recognizes only “ ‘generally applicable contract defenses, such as fraud, duress,or unconscionability,’ ” AT&amp;T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U. S. 333, 339 The US Congress could change this by repealing or amending the FAA, but has shown no indication of doing so to date. Consumer Contracts In AT&amp;T Mobility Servs. v. Concepcion, he Court held that individual arbitration provisions in consumer contracts are enforceable and precluded parties to such contracts from bringing or participating in class action litigation. In Brian Griffoul v. Nrg Residential Solar Solutions the NJ Supreme court held that the Federal Arbitration Act applied to a lease by NJ residents of Solar Power equipment from a Delaware company, and held that a clause requiring arbitration, and one precluding class actions wore valid and enforceable. It wrote that: The [FAA] and the nearly identical [NJAA] enunciate federal and state policies favoring arbitration&quot; as a mechanism of resolving disputes that otherwise would be litigated. (quoting Atalese, 219 N.J. at 440) Arbitration is fundamentally a matter of contract. Employment In Epic Systems Corp vs Lewis (May 21 2018) Employees challenged a waiver of class action suits as contrary to the Federal National labor Relations Act's section 7 (NLRA Sec 7). The court denied this contention, writing: The employees ask the Court to infer that class and collective actions are “concerted activities” protected by §7 of the NLRA, which guarantees employees “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively . . . , and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,” 29 U. S. C. §157. But §7 focuses on the right to organize unions and bargain collectively. It does not mention class or collective action procedures or even hint at a clear and manifest wish to displace the Arbitration Act. ... In another contextual clue, the employees’ underlying causes of action arise not under the NLRA but under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which permits the sort of collective action the employees wish to pursue here. Yet they do not suggest that the FLSA displaces the Arbitration Act, presumably because the Court has held that an identical collective action scheme does not prohibit individualized arbitration proceedings, see Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20, 32. The employees’ theory also runs afoul of the rule that Congress “does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions,” Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 468, as it would allow a catchall term in the NLRA to dictate the particulars of dispute resolution procedures in Article III courts or arbitration proceedings—matters that are usually left to, e.g., the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Arbitration Act, and the FLSA. ... The Court has rejected many efforts to manufacture conflicts between the Arbitration Act and other federal statutes, see, e.g. American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, 570 U. S. 228; and its §7 cases have generally involved efforts related to organizing and collective bargaining in the workplace, not the treatment of class or collective action procedures in court or arbitration, see, e.g., NLRB v. Washington Aluminum Co., 370 U. S. 9. In the article [&quot;Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Employers in Upholding Arbitration Agreements Containing Class Action Waivers&quot;] this case is discussed. The authors wrote: The Court’s opinion, authored by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch for the majority, resolved three cases that were argued together — Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis; Ernst &amp; Young LLP v. Morris; and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA — in all of which an employee who had signed an arbitration agreement containing a class action waiver sought to litigate Fair Labor Standards Act and related state law claims through class or collective actions in federal court. The Seventh Circuit in Lewis and the Ninth Circuit in Morris had sided with the NLRB and the individual employees; the Fifth Circuit had rejected the NLRB’s view in Murphy Oil. Siding with the Fifth Circuit, the Court’s ruling requires employees who have signed arbitration agreements with their employers containing class action waivers to take their disputes to an arbitrator individually rather than as part of a putative class or collective action. ... Notably, the Court’s opinion discussed Congress’ ability to pass new legislation to reach a different result. In fact, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reading her dissent from the bench, urged Congress to address the matter. Even if Congress does not act, the Court’s rejection of the NLRA-based challenge does not mean that class action waivers will now be enforced uniformly. The Court acknowledged the FAA’s statutory exception, which permits arbitration agreements to be invalidated “upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” The Court held that exception inapplicable here because it includes only defenses that apply to “any contract” (such as duress or fraud), and the NLRA’s arguable attack only on class action waivers does not offer a general defense to contract enforcement. But general state-law contract doctrines such as procedural and substantive unconscionability have played a greater and greater role in disputes over arbitration agreements, and the Court’s decision does not affect those debates. This article and This one offer similar comment. See also hte Wikipedias article &quot;Class action waiver&quot; whre it is stated that: Class action waivers may be found on a standalone basis, though they are more commonly found as part of an arbitration clause, and when paired with such clauses, frequently include jury trial waivers ... the United States Supreme Court ruling in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis that such clauses are enforceable. Jurisdiction This answer is entirely US-Centric. The original question asked about a Texas agreement, and I have focused on the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), which largely governs such issues in Texas and other parts of the US. But similar issues arise in other countries, and this answer has not considered those.
No landlord-tenant laws that I have ever seen impose an obligation on a landlord to give a point by point response to everything in an email from a tenant. However, a tenant probably has the right or obligation to provide a landlord with written notification of a problem requiring remedy. You might then be required by law to provide a specific reply within some time frame, for example "We will fix that tomorrow afternoon", or "We are not required to fix that": it would depend on the jurisdiction and the accusation. Some caution in how you respond is warranted, because your answers can be used against you in a court of law, thus you want to be sure that your response is not misleading, and that you don't accidentally promise to do something that you won't actually do. There is a concept of "adoptive admission", where silence can be used against you. A typical case is if Smith says to Jones "That was really cold-blooded, the way you murdered Thompson", and Jones does not respond to the accusation – that fact can be introduced as evidence, because there is an assumption that if Jones were really innocent, they would protest the accusation. I don't see any way for "failure to respond to everything" in this manner could constitute an adoptive admission – an "admission" means that you directly or indirectly indicate that you did a thing, which is not the same as ipso facto agreeing to something (for example, not replying to a statement "I'd like my rent reduced by $100 per month" is not an "adoptive agreement").
Yes. The formation of a contract requires (among other things) that the parties intend to be legally bound. Their sending the offer from a corporate email address shows this. You replying in the same way shows your intention. Signatures are optional. Consider, verbal contracts are binding; how do you sign those?
Most leases have a provision allowing a landlord to make entry without notice in an emergency, but the better course of action, as noted in a comment by @BlueDogRanch, is to call the police and ask them to make a &quot;welfare check.&quot; You would ordinarily be permitted to cooperate with police by unlocking doors in furtherance of their welfare check. The police are trained to do this properly in a way that properly balances the need to aid someone who is sick or ill, the need to preserve evidence if there was a death or crime that needs to be understood legally, and to protect the legitimate privacy interests of the tenant. You are not. You could incur liability for failing to prevent death or aggravating injury, could be wrongfully implicated if physical evidence from you contaminates the scene or you destroy evidence showing the true cause, and could be sued for invading the tenant's privacy if it was found that you entry was unreasonable and that it wasn't really an emergency, which is always easier to conclude with 20/20 hindsight. As it is, your biggest potential source of liability is delaying in calling the police seeking a welfare check. They often respond quite quickly to these by the way, although it is not the very highest priority for law enforcement.
Do I have recourse against seller? Is the seller liable or obligated to disclose this and if so what are my options? Probably not. The general rule is that you accept any condition which could be discovered with reasonable inspection. When &quot;At the time of sale I waived inspection and did As-Is&quot; you are greatly limiting your claims. If the seller believe that the work done fixed the problem, you probably have no remedy. It could be that the seller made a false representation in the disclosure (you'd have to look at the exact language) but even then proving it with only the kind of circumstantial evidence provided would be very challenging. In particular, as a practical matter, it isn't really economic to sue in a $10,000 non-disclosure case without open and shut clarity of fault, as opposed to some suggestive but ultimately inconclusive indicators. You could always ask and state the case in a demand letter, but if you came to me as a potential client, I wouldn't take your case because the high cost combined with the low likelihood of success would make it unlikely that an attorney could bring the case in a way that would generate net value to the client.
Is there any legal doctrine whereby E's agreement with A continued to apply to E in his work for company N? No, because the parties to the non-compete agreement were Employee E and company A, not the human who owned and sold A. What about B? Do they have any standing to block E's going to work for a B's customer? No. My rationale is that the decisions you describe result in a waiver of the non-compete clause. An employment relation between B and E never existed. Thus, the only vestige of B's non-compete rights binding E that could have been preserved stem from E's former employment at A. However, that vestige disappeared at the instant B --apropos of the hospital project-- waived its non-compete clause with N. Given B's waiver with regard to N, N's failure to establish a non-compete clause with E enables the latter to conduct business with (or accept employment at) the hospital. If anything, B would have standing to sue N for negligence or related torts. But neither B nor N has any viable non-compete claims against E.
We don't want this issue to adversely affect our credit and got legal consulting which suggested we should pay the debt collector to protect our credit score, and then sue the landlord for the money back in small claims court. I'm a little worried about this strategy since it requires to hand away the money first, and am trying to get second opinions. The debt collector is probably either the owner of the claim against you, if it is an assignee of the claim, or an agent of the landlord for purposes of collection. Thus, payment to the debt collector is equivalent to payment of the landlord. The law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction regarding whether payment constitutes of waiver of a right to sue over the debt. Sometimes it is necessary to designate the payment "under protests" or "reserving all rights", but that is not a uniform rule of law that applies in all jurisdictions, and I do not have the time and familiarity with that state's law to research Massachusetts case law on that point accurately.
This all depends upon where you are. I am a landlord and I am answering based upon the laws of the U.S. and the states that I operate in. First things first. You are not the property owner. While this does not limit the answer, it is a factor. You do not have the right to the property even if you have a key and the permission of the tenant. You are not the property owner, do not represent the property owner nor the tenant, and by contract do not have legal rights to the apartment. It does put you in a different situation. As a landlord, it is against the law for me to provide access to a tenants apartment to anyone without authorization. This, of course, precludes emergencies such as welfare checks. In the case of the police, a warrant is required or a form that the police fill out that allows the police to gain access. This would be used in cases such as when a spouse requires the recovery of personal property during a domestic dispute. A judges order is not always possible in these cases. These are often limited cases and the form absolves the landlord of liability even in cases where the police act incorrectly. So without a warrant or a form that certifies any lawful request, anyone including the landlord can be arrested for a crime. For your situation, a quick call to the landlord would have been appropriate. Without a warrant or certification, the police still had options including waiting for the person in question to either leave or return to the apartment or even request a warrant by phone. Often, the warrant, once signed by the judge, can be read over the phone. Any landlord should always have a paper copy provided within minutes since some cruisers will have a printer and can print the warrant. Your refusal appears to be legal. However, in the future, you can ask for a copy of the warrant that you provide the landlord. I do not wish to paint a negative image of the police who do the hard work that most people will never take on, they are after all heros, however, some do not know the law perfectly well especially tenant landlord law. As well, some will try and get away with skirting the law trying to get an important job done. It does happen. I hired a lawyer just last week for an illegal request unrelated to the question here. Addressing the OPs comment: Hello, I believe I misstated the situation a bit in that the locked door in question was for the apartment building and not a tenet's apartment itself. I have edited my question. Does this change anything? Technically, this does not change much of anything, however, the request by the police can be seen as a reasonable one. They just may want to talk to the individual which is reasonable. In this case, I might have let them in if the access I was giving them was to a common space such as a hallway. In this case, the outer door locks are only to keep Intruders from entering the building and not meant to restrict access for valid purposes. Are you in trouble? I would say no. If anyone asks, you can give reasonable arguments for your situation. However, the next time, consider what I have written here. The police have a tough enough time doing their jobs. If you can help and stay within the proper boundaries of what the law allows, that would be best.