Consumer fraud class action update: Western Culinary Institute, Le Cordon Bleu, Career Education Corp.

Late yesterday, Career Education Corp and Western Culinary Institute/Le Cordon Bleu Portland filed a motion to compel arbitration in our consumer fraud class action. More on the case here.

Short version is that three years after we filed the case, after the trial court certified a class action, after class notice went out, and after the opt out period ran, the defendants filed a motion to compel arbitration. The motion will require a lot of work from the class legal team, but of course, that is why we are here.

It’s a bit hard to fathom why the Career Education Corp and its school waited so long to file their motion. Their story is that they could not have won their motion until the U.S. Supreme Court decided AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. For reasons best left to the briefing, they are so very wrong in a number of ways.

In many places in their brief, they make arguments that remind me of this video:

Inconceivable!

I suppose in the end we are talking about delay. But of course that’s a problem that bites them as hard as it bites the class. They are on the hook for prejudgment interest if we prevail. That means that every day of delay is more interest on the amounts at issue. With approximately 2500 in the class, we are talking about a lot of money.

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