The rise in class action settlements and federal government workplace litigation last year may not have been what business leaders expected the first year of a Republican White House.

Seyfarth Shaw's annual report, Workplace Class Action Litigation Report, published on Wednesday, found the top class action settlements shot up by $1 billion year over year to reach an all-time record high—$2.72 billion.

Government enforcement in the transition year ballooned, according to the report. Many Obama-era cases and enforcement methods were a spillover from the Democratic administration, according to the report.

“There were counterintuitive results of government enforcement litigation at the federal level,” said Gerald Maatman Jr., a Seyfarth Shaw partner in the Chicago and New York offices and author of the report. “A lot of business folks thought with the new Republican White House, enforcement agencies would be business friendly. It took until the late fall in terms of changes in policies and outreach to the business community.”

Maatman predicted 2018 will be a year of a dramatic shift and agencies are not expected to be pursue with the same vigor the number of suits they did in previous years. He noted that Trump administration appointees and nominees for various agencies have signaled a change in direction.

The Seyfarth Shaw report showed the monetary value of the top workplace class action settlements rose by more than $970 million to reach a new high of $2.72 billion in 2017. The report notes the rise in employment discrimination actions, statutory workplace class actions and a jump in government enforcement cases. The largest increase was in government enforcement.

The report also found there were better statistical outcomes for employers opposing class certification requests for the second year in a row. In wage-and-hour litigation, for instance, employers won 63 percent of decertification rulings, which represented a 20 percent increase from 2016.

The enforcement litigation sparked from the federal government appeared to spill over from the Obama administration, the report said. Filings from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission more than doubled—184 lawsuits compared to 86 the previous year. According to the EEOC, 124 of those suits were filed on behalf of individuals, 30 were non-systemic suits with more than one victims, and 30 were systemic suits.

The top government settlements also increased from $52.3 million in 2016 to $485 million last year.

Maatman said the Trump administration, as it settles and implements new approaches, would slow the rise in settlements. Still, he said he expects plaintiffs attorneys to step in.

Seyfarth Shaw's report also notes that employers are awaiting the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court case that considers the legality of class action waivers in arbitration agreements. The court heard arguments in the case in October.

“The wild card is what is before the Supreme Court right now,” Maatman said. “[The case] will have such a major cause and effect on workplace litigation.”

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