The D.C. Circuit today issued an opinion granting a Rule 23(f) petition and vacating a district court’s denial of class certification on the grounds that the class definition created an impermissible “fail-safe” class– i.e., a class whose membership can only be ascertained through a determination of the merits of the case. The plaintiffs, former employee […]
Category Archives: Class Actions
Almost twenty years ago, various groups of merchants filed antitrust litigation against Visa, Mastercard, and banks that serve as payment-card issuers for those networks, tied to the “interchange fees” charged for each transaction. (In full disclosure, I worked on one of the district court cases over a decade ago. I remember close-to-nothing about the case.) […]
Since its 2019 decision in Salcedo v. Hanna, which held that a Telephone Consumer Protection Act plaintiff who received only a single unwanted text message lacked standing to sue because he had not suffered an actual injury, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has been out of step with the other federal […]
Many of us learned about multlievel-marketing company and purveyor of women’s clothing LuLaRoe in 2021, when dueling documentaries about the company’s rapid growth and decline were released. As featured in those documentaries, the company was the subject of extensive litigation and investigations as to its relationships with its “fashion retailers” — i.e., those recruited to […]
In its decisions in Spokeo v. Robins and TransUnion v. Ramirez, the Supreme Court held that consumers lack Article III standing to challenge violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act absent the showing of some concrete harm beyond the publication of inaccurate credit information. On Tuesday, the Fourth Circuit confronted how those decisions interact with […]
Last month, a district court in the Sixth Circuit issued opinions in two related cases that refused to approve two class action settlements, taking class counsel to task for proposing $5,000 incentive awards to the class representatives, because the class members only received $248 each. Moeller v. The Week Publications, 1:22-cv-10666 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 15, 2022); Strano […]
Read this December 15, 2022 article in Consumer Reports, titled “Lead and Cadmium Could Be in Your Dark Chocolate,” which found, based on product testing, “dangerous heavy metals in chocolate from Hershey’s, Theo, Trader Joe’s and other popular brands.” (The article also found that other products are safer.) Two class actions have been filed against Trader Joe’s […]
Here, from the Edelson firm. Or click below
Adam S. Zimmerman of Loyola of Los Angeles has written The Class Appeal, 89 University of Chicago Law Review (Forthcoming 2022). Here's the abstract: For a wide variety of claims against the government, the federal courthouse doors are closed to all but those brought by powerful, organized interests. This is because hundreds of laws—colloquially known […]
Here. Excerpt: * * With no announcement, the company recently changed its terms of service to allow customers to file lawsuits. Already, it faces at least three proposed class actions, including one brought May 18 alleging the company’s Alexa-powered Echo devices recorded people without permission. The retail giant made the change after plaintiffs’ lawyers flooded […]