30 arbitration, the agreement was unenforceable because it operated as a “prospective waiver” of the plaintiff’s “right to pursue statutory remedies.” The Fourth Circuit’s decision solidifies and extends a trend in the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits of rejecting arbitration agreements that seek to apply exclusively tribal law in payday loan cases. The Supreme Court. Goodwin reported in its 2016 Year in Review that Midland Funding, LLC, v. Johnson, No. 16–348, was a case to watch in 2017. The Supreme Court issued its opinion in that case, holding that the FDCPA does not prohibit a debt collector from asserting a time-barred claim in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceeding. WHAT TO WATCH IN 2018 Of interest to litigators in the class action space is China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh, No. 17-432, in which the Supreme Court will decide whether the filing of a putative class action tolls the statute of limitations for all the absent class members to bring their own putative class actions. The Supreme Court held in American Pipe and Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974), that the pendency of a putative class action tolls the limitations period for absent class members to bring individual lawsuits. In China Agritech, the plaintiffs were unnamed putative class members in two securities lawsuits against China Agritech. Class certification was denied in each suit, so the plaintiffs filed their own class action. The district court dismissed the case, holding that the limitations period had run because the statute had only been tolled as to absent class members’ individual claims, not class claims. The Ninth Circuit reversed and held that, under American Pipe, the limitations period was tolled even as to class claims that would have been untimely had the first lawsuit not been filed. If affirmed, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling would result in the statute of limitations in some cases being tolled for significantly longer periods of time, as class actions could be stacked on top of class actions.