11th Circuit Rules Class Action Case to Go Forward in Alabama
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has ruled that a proposed class action lawsuit against Oasis Legal Finance, L.L.C., may go forward in the Northern District of Alabama. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that Judge Robert B. Propst was correct in his "well-reasoned memorandum opinionâ¦denying Oasis’s motion to dismiss the case for improper venue." Oasis had sought to have the case dismissed under a clause in its form-contracts that required actions involving these agreements to be filed in an Illinois court. Oasis’s headquarters are in Illinois.
The Alabama class action lawsuit, filed by the law firms of Hill | Turner, LLC, and the McFerrin Law Firm, challenges the validity of Oasis’s "non-recourse" legal funding contracts under principles of Alabama law that hold contracts involving gambling on the outcome of lawsuits invalid. Both Judge Propst and the judicial panel of the 11th Circuit who ruled on the matter noted that the agreements provide that any disputes would be determined under Alabama law; that issues regarding the validity of the contracts are a matter of Alabama law; that the potential class members are all Alabama residents; that the class members entered into their contracts in Alabama; and that under those circumstances it was unreasonable to hold that the forum selection clause in Oasis’s contracts seeking to restrict the cases to an Illinois court was unreasonable.
The lawsuit, styled Rucker, et al v. Oasis Legal Funding, L.L.C., will now move forward in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Class Action Lawsuit Attorneys in Alabama, Hill Turner, LLC
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