The Sixth Circuit today vacated a district court’s certification of 10 classes relating to claims about Nissan’s automatic electronic braking systems. The court first held that the district court had inadequately considered commonality and predominance. It then went onto address a question that has divided the circuits over the past decade- whether expert testimony considered […]
Category Archives: Class Actions
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Heckman v. Live Nation Entertainment, where it affirmed a district order denying a motion to compel mass arbitration of a consumer antitrust class action about online ticket sales practices by Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Finding the arbitration agreement “borderline unintelligible,” the panel majority held that both the […]
The Class Action Fairness Act provides for federal jurisdiction over “any civil action … in which monetary relief claims of 100 or more persons are proposed to be tried jointly on the ground that the plaintiffs’ claims involve common questions of law or fact.” But what constitutes a “proposal” that cases be “tried jointly”? Today, […]
Travelers United is a DC-based nonprofit that has sued a number of travel and hospitality providers for putative violations of DC’s consumer protection laws. In one recent case, the organization sued Hilton for their “deceptive Junk Fee practices” that “trick consumers into paying more” to book a hotel room “than they otherwise would.” Travelers United […]
The parties in consolidated class actions against GoDaddy brought under the TCPA negotiated a settlement, under which Go Daddy would provide up to $35 million to pay both class members’ claims and up to $10.5 million to their lawyers as attorney’s fees. The district court certified a settlement class. The day Rule 23(c)(2) notices were […]
In 2015, consumers sued the manufacturers of KIND products –first over the company’s use of the word “healthy” in describing its products, and then over the “All Natural/Non-GMO” claim on product packaging. The class action included claims for violation of several state laws. After class certification and discovery, the district court excluded the testimony of […]
In 2019, a group of former for-profit college students brought a class action against the Department of Education, based on the agency’s failure to rule on their applications for borrower defense relief to their loans–or anyone else’s–for more than a year. After years of litigation, the parties reached a settlement, which was approved in November […]
Richard Frankel of Drexel has written Fighting Mass Arbitration: An Empirical Study of the Corporate Response to Mass Arbitration and Its Implications for the Federal Arbitration Act. Here’s the abstract: Over the last forty years, corporations have increasingly inserted mandatory arbitration provisions into their consumer and employment contracts. Most prominently, and with the Supreme Court’s blessing, […]
Plaintiffs filed class actions against Costa, a sunglasses manufacturer, for charging them over $100 to repair sunglasses that had been covered by lifetime warranties. The cases were consolidated, and an amended complaint requested both monetary damages and injunctive relief. The parties reached a settlement, agreeing on payments in the form of product vouchers and injunctive […]
In recent years, home sellers around the country have filed lawsuits against regional multiple listing services and affiliated realtors, generally alleging that by requiring sellers to agree to a single, set offer of compensation to any broker who found a buyer for their home in order to have their listing included (the “Buyer-Broker Commission Rule”), […]