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By DAVID G. SAVAGE
Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court dealt a blow to class-action lawsuits that involve small claims affecting thousands or even millions of people, ruling that corporations may use arbitration clauses to block dissatisfied consumers or disgruntled employees from joining together.
In a 5-4 decision Wednesday, the justices said the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925, originally aimed at disputes over maritime and rail shipments, ...

In an ongoing employment dispute, the plaintiffs asked for discovery of selected data from two laptops, but instead received millions of digital documents, which the defense described as "everything" possibly related to the matter. The plaintiffs counsel, Charles Stillman, founder of Stillman, Friedman & Shechtman in New York, did what he could to manage this sudden influx of data, including soliciting estimates from discovery experts regarding what it would cost to comb the ...

On May 26, a federal court issued an opinion in a discovery dispute that applies outmoded federal electronic privacy laws from the 1980s to Facebook and MySpace. The ruling could permanently change the way "social networking" sites are viewed by businesses and those involved in litigation. The decision also appears to offer the first in-depth analysis on the effect of "privacy settings" found on many social networking sites and whether information is protected from discovery by federal privacy laws.
The ...