Justia Arkansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Appellees filed a class-action complaint against a Bank, asserting several claims arising from the Bank’s alleged practice of manipulating customers’ checking-account debit transactions to maximize the amount of overdraft fees charged to each customer. The Bank filed a motion to dismiss, or alternatively, a motion to compel arbitration based on an arbitration provision contained in the Deposit Agreement attached to Appellees’ complaint. In response, Appellees denied the existence of a valid arbitration agreement. The circuit court denied Bank’s motion, ruling that the arbitration provision was unconscionable and, thus, unenforceable. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that because the circuit court did not find that there was a valid arbitration agreement, the case must be remanded to the circuit court to determine whether there was a valid agreement to arbitrate between the parties. View "Bank of the Ozarks, Inc. v. Walker" on Justia Law

Theresa Holbrook requested her medical records from Millard Henry Clinic. Healthport, Inc., a private company that had a contract with Millard Henry Clinic to fulfill such requests, obtained copies of Holbrook’s requested medical records. Healthport subsequently sent Holbrook invoices for the records, including sales tax. Holbrook, individually and on behalf of all other Arkansans similarly situated, filed a class-action complaint seeking damages and requesting that the court find, inter alia, that Healthport illegally collected sales taxes for retrieving and copying her medical records. Holbrook later filed an amended complaint containing allegations against the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. The circuit court granted Defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment and denied Holbrook’s motion for partial summary judgment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the circuit court did not err in determining that the gross-receipts-tax statute imposes a sales tax on a patient’s ability to obtain a copy of the patient’s own medical records; and (2) the Arkansas Access to Medical Records Act does not exempt a patient’s request for copies of the patient’s medical information from any otherwise applicable tax or charge. View "Holbrook v. Healthport, Inc." on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of theft of property, and one count of second-degree battery. After the court of appeals affirmed on direct appeal, Appellant filed a petition for postconviction relief, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. The circuit court denied the petition after a hearing. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that trial counsel was not ineffective (1) for failing to move for a directed verdict at trial, as a directed-verdict motion would not have been successful; (2) for "opening the door" to certain testimony, as counsel's tactical decision about how to cross-examine the witness was supported by reasonable professional judgment; and (3) in investigating and preparing Appellant's case. View "Mason v. State" on Justia Law

Diamante, LLC (Diamante) operated a private-membership golf club. There were 450 privately owned lots around the golf club and clubhouse that were located in two subdivisions. Supplemental declarations of covenants and restrictions ran with the land and created certain obligations and restrictions, called tie-in rights, that required, among other things, lot owners to become full golf members of the Diamante Country Club and to pay monthly dues to the Club. Appellees filed a declaratory judgment action asking the circuit court to declare the tie-in rights unenforceable due to Diamante's failure to collect monthly dues from all full golf members. Appellees filed a motion for class certification. The circuit court certified the class, defining the class as current owners of the 450 lots in the subdivisions with limited exclusions. Diamante appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in granting class certification. View "Diamante, LLC v. Dye" on Justia Law

Several government entities (the class representatives) and all others similarly situated brought a class-action complaint against several online travel companies (OTCs) who marketed hotel rooms in Arkansas and elsewhere via the internet, asserting that the OTCs had failed to collect, or collected and failed to remit, the full amount of gross-receipts taxes imposed by the government entities on hotel accommodations. The circuit court granted the class representatives' motion to certify and certified two classes. The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's order granting class certification, holding that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in (1) certifying the classes where the class representatives and putative class members had no adequate administrative remedies available to exhaust before filing suit; and (2) finding that the predominance requirement for class actions was satisfied. View "Hotels.com LP v. Pine Bluff Advertising & Promotion Comm'n" on Justia Law

State Farm filed a complaint for negligence against Appellant, alleging that Appellant was at fault in an automobile accident with State Farm's insured. Appellant counterclaimed, alleging that State Farm was unjustly enriched as a result of having engaged in the deceptive and unlawful business practice of causing collection-style letters to be mailed in an attempt to collect unadjudicated, potential subrogation claims as debts. Appellant's counterclaim identified two putative classes. State Farm filed a motion to strike the class allegations. Rather than granting the motion to strike class allegations, the circuit court denied class certification "for the reasons stated in State Farm's motion." The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the circuit court acted without due consideration of the Court's foregoing case law on typicality, commonality, and predominance and therefore abused its discretion in prematurely denying class certification at the early pleading stage of this case. Remanded. View "Kersten v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co." on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of rape and first-degree sexual abuse and sentenced to life imprisonment and ten years' imprisonment, respectively. Defendant subsequently filed a petition for postconviction relief, alleging several claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The circuit court granted Defendant a new trial based on one ground of ineffective assistance as to the rape conviction and two grounds of ineffective assistance as to the sexual-abuse conviction. The State appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's grant of a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel, holding that, based on the standard of review under Strickland v. Washington, the circuit court was not clearly erroneous in its rulings on both of Defendant's convictions. View "State v. Estrada" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of rape and sentenced to seventy years' imprisonment. For his only point on appeal, Appellant argued that the circuit court erred in not allowing testimony concerning the victim's prior sexual conduct. Under the state's rape-shield law, evidence of a victim's prior sexual conduct is not admissible by the defendant for any purpose unless the circuit court makes a written determination that such evidence is relevant to a fact in issue and that its probative value outweighs its inflammatory or prejudicial nature. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant's arguments were not preserved for appeal. View "Stewart v. State" on Justia Law

A taxpayer class filed an illegal-exaction complaint. The case was remanded for the circuit court to ascertain a remedy consistent with the Supreme Court's decision that the taxpayers had proved a valid claim for illegal exaction of increased ad valorem library taxes for the 2007 ad valorem tax year. In this appeal, the taxpayers contended that the circuit court erred in applying the voluntary-payment rule to class members who paid the tax in question prior to the date the complaint for illegal exaction was filed. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal without prejudice, holding that the order appealed was not a final order and did not contain specific factual findings of any danger of hardship or injustice that could be alleviated by an immediate appeal, and therefore, the Court lacked jurisdiction over the appeal. View "Robinson v. Villines" on Justia Law

Petitioners, who were all employed by Respondent as public school bus drivers or dispatchers, claimed that Respondent failed to compensate them for regular and overtime wages in weeks in which they worked more than forty hours. Petitioners filed a class-action complaint in federal district court, alleging violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the Arkansas Minimum Wage Act (AMWA). Respondents opposed Petitioners' motion to amend their complaint, contending the amendment would be futile because Petitioners' AMWA claims were barred by the three-year statute of limitations set forth in Ark. Code Ann. 16-56-105. The Supreme Court accepted certification to answer what the appropriate statute of limitations was for a private cause of action pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. 11-4-218(e), which allows an employee to bring a private cause of action for relief against an employer for minimum wages, including overtime wages, but does not include a specific limitations provision. After acknowledging the Court's long history of applying section 16-56-105's three-year limitation period for statutorily created liabilities that do not contain an express limitations period, the Court answered that a three-year statute of limitations would apply to private causes of action brought pursuant to AMWA.