Stuart Davis, Author at The Class Action Blog by Carr Maloney PC

About Stuart Davis

Stuart Davis is an associate attorney at Carr Maloney P.C. He focuses his practice on General Liability, Professional Liability, Business Law and Commercial Litigation, and Government Investigations and Enforcement.

Prior to joining the firm, Stuart clerked for the Hon. Michele D. Hotten on the Maryland Court of Appeals. As a law clerk for Judge Hotten, Stuart prepared and wrote extensive bench memoranda and drafted numerous written opinions for complex civil and criminal cases.

A graduate of the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, Stuart was editor-in-chief of the Maryland Journal of International Law and the President of the International Law Society. He worked in the Fair Housing Clinic and the JustAdvice Project. He also was a member of the International Moot Court Board, the Maryland Public Interest Law Project, and the student representative for the American Bar Association Compliance Committee. Stuart received the Law School Alumni Association Award for demonstrating outstanding character and leadership and the Joseph Bernstein Journal Scholarship Award at graduation. Stuart also participated in the Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court Competition and earned a top 20 oralist distinction during the 2020 Mid-Atlantic competition.

During law school, Stuart interned with the United States Department of Education, Office of Hearings and Appeals, in Washington, D.C, where he contributed legal analysis to Orders and Initial Decisions determining private educational lenders’ compliance with federal statutes and regulations. Stuart also interned with the Hon. Clayton Greene, Jr. on the Maryland Court of Appeals. Stuart worked as a research assistant to Professor William Moon. He provided research and editorial support for Professor Moon’s published journal article examining the international market for corporate and tax law. William J. Moon, Delaware’s New Competition, 114 NW. U. L. Rev. 1403 (2020). Stuart also worked as a summer law clerk for a boutique criminal defense firm in Washington D.C.

Stuart graduated with honors from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in Political Science and History.

Avoiding “False Advertising” and “Genuineness of Product” Class Action Litigation

What makes champagne “champagne”? According to the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), only bubbly wine made through traditional methods and grapes from the Champagne region of France. The United States agreed to this definition in a 2006 trade agreement. Not just wine makers must think twice before affixing the word “champagne” to their product. The CIVC even threatened litigation against Apple for using “champagne” as a color name for the iPhone.

Businesses in the United States increasingly face copy-cat litigation emulating the arguments employed by the CIVC. For example, coffee growers in the Hawaii Kona […]

By Stuart Davis|2023-09-05T13:14:08-04:00September 5th, 2023|Practice Areas: Class Action|Topics: consumers, false advertising, FDA|

Read the Full Article

The Supreme Court Upholds the Automatic Stay During an Arbitration Appeal

On June 23, 2023, the Supreme Court held, in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) imposes an “automatic stay” on litigation while an appellate court decides whether the parties must resolve their dispute through arbitration. The decision ends a federal circuit split in which some courts have required class action defendants to bear the cost of seeking to enforce an arbitration clause while litigating the underlying claims in federal court. This ruling eliminates such unnecessary expense because it requires federal courts to pause litigation and allow the appellate court to determine whether […]

By Stuart Davis|2023-06-27T22:56:36-04:00June 27th, 2023|Practice Areas: Class Action|Topics: Coinbase, Federal Arbitration Act (FAA)|

Read the Full Article

The Supreme Court Contemplates Ending the Automatic Stay During an Arbitration Appeal

In December, this blog noted that the Supreme Court, in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, would consider whether federal law requires courts to automatically stay litigation during an arbitration appeal. The Supreme Court heard oral argument on the issue yesterday and several justices expressed a willingness to potentially end the automatic stay during an arbitration appeal. Such a decision would likely increase the cost of defending class-action lawsuits in most jurisdictions.

Arbitration generally provides a less costly and more efficient procedure for resolving disputes than litigation. Arbitration clauses, a staple of business contracts, compel would-be litigants to resolve […]

By Stuart Davis|2023-03-24T16:36:53-04:00March 24th, 2023|Practice Areas: Class Action|Topics: Arbitration, Coinbase, Electronic Funds Transfer Act|

Read the Full Article

Court Certifies Class Action Against NFL for Allegedly Violating Antitrust Laws With Its “Sunday Ticket” TV Package

On February 8, 2023, the United States District Court for the Central District of California certified a class action seeking $6 billion in damages against the National Football League (NFL). The complaint alleged that the league violated anti-trust law for limiting the availability of televised games through its “Sunday Ticket” package. Sunday Ticket allows subscribers to watch all NFL Sunday afternoon games, regardless of geographic location or local market. Non-subscribers may only watch a limited set of local “in market” games. According to the plaintiffs, without the alleged anticompetitive Sunday Ticket package, a greater number of […]

By Stuart Davis|2023-02-13T17:33:24-05:00February 13th, 2023|Practice Areas: Class Action|Topics: Class Certification, NFL, predominance|

Read the Full Article

Supreme Court Considers Whether to Automatically Stay Litigation During an Arbitration Appeal

In 2021, two plaintiffs filed separate class-action lawsuits against Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the U.S. Coinbase moved to compel arbitration in each case because both plaintiffs signed Coinbase’s User Agreement directing any dispute to arbitration. The United States District Court for Northern California denied arbitration in both cases. Coinbase appealed the denial of arbitration and moved to stay the underlying class actions. The District Court again denied Coinbase’s motion and allowed both the arbitration appeal and the class action litigation to proceed concurrently.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court in both cases. […]

By Brian O’Shea and Stuart Davis|2023-01-14T08:35:50-05:00December 21st, 2022|Practice Areas: Class Action|Topics: Arbitration, Coinbase, Electronic Funds Transfer Act|

Read the Full Article

Student Files Class Action Lawsuit to Recover In-Person Tuition and Fees During Covid-19 Pandemic

In May 2020, Plaintiff Keller J. Mellowitz, a student at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, filed a class-action complaint against the University for breach of contract and unjust enrichment. The student contended that the university failed to reimburse students for on-campus college activities interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic during the Spring of 2020. The class action seeks to recover the cost of in-person tuition and other fees for a proposed class of approximately twenty-thousand affected students.

Initially, the suit was derailed because of a 2021 Indiana law retroactively prohibiting class-action lawsuits against state universities over COVID-19 […]

By Stuart Davis|2022-12-13T14:20:27-05:00December 13th, 2022|Practice Areas: Class Action, General|Topics: Breach of Contract, COVID-19, Tuition, University|

Read the Full Article