Category Archives: Consumer Litigation

NYT: Uber trying to get contingency fees capped at 20% in Nevada

Here (behind paywall). it would be a ballot referendum. The argument in favor of the referendum is that it would protect clients from lawyers charging excessive fees. Here’s an excerpt from the article: Many legal experts said a ceiling of 20 percent would make it financially difficult for many lawyers to take on complex cases […]

Seventh Circuit Asks (and Answers) “What is Reasonable Consumer Behavior?”

In order to state a claim for deceptive practices, many state consumer protection laws require plaintiffs to prove that the challenged acts or practices are “likely to deceive reasonable consumers.” In an opinion issued today, the Seventh Circuit grappled with the question of what exactly that means. The opinion comes in a class action brought […]

Seventh Circuit Holds Company Can Flout Arbitration Agreement Without Consequence

Generally, when you read an opinion holding that there was insufficient evidence of an arbitration agreement between a consumer and a corporation, it’s a win for the plaintiff. But in Wallrich v. Samsung Electronics America, decided by the Seventh Circuit yesterday, the opposite was true. Paula Wallrich and several thousand other consumers had filed arbitration […]

DC Federal Court Remands “Junk Fee” Challenge Due to Lack of Article III Standing

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 […]

Supreme Court addresses National Bank Act preemption

The Supreme Court today issued a unanimous decision on an issue concerning the scope of preemption under the National Bank Act. In this case, a borrower sued Bank of America for failing to pay interest on his mortgage escrow account, as required by New York law. The bank argued that the National Bank Act preempts […]

9th Cir. grants en banc review to consider personal jurisdiction over online businesses

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week granted en banc review in a case called Briskin v. Shopify, to consider whether a state may exercise specific personal jurisdiction over a defendant that unlawfully uses its nationally accessible web platform to extract data from in-state consumers. As reporter Alison Frankel of Reuters wrote, “The court’s […]

Eleventh Circuit Vacates GoDaddy TCPA Settlement

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 […]

Divided Second Circuit Holds Texts to Pre-Existing List of Numbers Not Covered by TCPA

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulates unsolicited calls using “any automatic telephone dialing system [(ATDS)] or an artificial or prerecorded voice.”  The statute defines an automatic telephone dialing system as “equipment which has the capacity…to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and…to dial such numbers.” […]

Consumers sue to stop Alaska-Hawaiian Airlines Merger

The period from 2001 through 2016 saw several major mergers amongst US passenger airlines. In recent years, though, efforts to merge or coordinate have faced opposition from courts and antitrust regulators. In December 2023, Alaska Airlines (which already has a huge Hawaiian presence) announced a deal to acquire Hawaiian Airlines.  The immediate response from government […]

8th Circuit Allows Claims Against Hertz for Falsely Reporting Car as Stolen to Proceed

Over the past few years, there have been numerous stories of rental car company Hertz reporting customers as having stolen rental cars, when the cars were not stolen at all. In 2022, the company entered in a class action settlement covering 364 of these reported “thefts.” Today, the Eighth Circuit issued a decision in Wood […]