Attorney Spencer Sheehan brought a class action in the Northern District of New York, arguing that Starbucks’ representation that a specific blend of coffee was “100% Arabica Coffee” was misleading, since it suggested there were no additives, including potassium. The district court dismissed the complaint, noting that there was no allegation that there actually was […]
Category Archives: Consumer Litigation
If items are always on sale, are they really on sale at all? This is the question underlying the plaintiff’s claim in Hennessey v. The Gap, a case in which an Eighth Circuit decision issued yesterday, affirming the dismissal of a consumer class action. The named plaintiff sued the Gap and Old Navy, alleging that sale […]
Jamie Huber brought a putative class action under the FDCPA, alleging that confusing collection letters she received from Simon’s Agency, Inc. were misleading and deceptive. A district court certified a class, and granted summary judgment in its favor. In so doing, it found that Ms. Huber had standing based on an informational injury, and that […]
When a consumer finds an error on his or her credit report, the FCRA provides two mechanisms for raising a dispute. The consumer can raise a “direct” dispute with the person or entity that furnished the incorrect or incomplete information (the “furnisher”), or an “indirect” dispute with the credit reporting agency, which then must provide […]
Some cases are destined to continue forever, and the case of Carlton & Harris Chiropractic v. PDR Network may be one of them, given the Fourth Circuit’s decision yesterday- its third encounter with the case since it was filed back in 2015. As Judge Harris explains, the basic facts are that the plaintiff, “a chiropractic […]
Last week, the Fourth Circuit decided In re Marriott International, Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, in which it vacated a district court’s class certification order. The district court had granted certification before addressing the merits of Marriott’s argument that the plaintiffs were barred from proceeding as a class under a waiver. While acknowledging “it […]
In Bohnak v. Marsh & McLennan Companies, the Second Circuit considered how the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in TransUnion, LLC v. Ramirez impacted earlier Second Circuit precedent as to how to establish Article III standing in data breach cases. In short, the court held that TransUnion altered its precedent as to whether an injury arising […]
Last Thursday, the Second Circuit agreed with an objector, and vacated a district court’s approval of a class action settlement of claims relating to automatic renewals of New York Times subscriptions, in a thorough decision that clarifies the circuit standard as to several Rule 23(e) issues. The court held that the 2018 Amendments to Rule […]
This week, inTrim v. Reward Zone USA LLC, the Ninth Circuit issued two separate opinions collectively affirming the dismissal of a claim brought under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A), based on the plaintiff’s receipt of unsolicited text messages. That statutory provision only applies to calls made using an “automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or […]
In 2004, California amended its unfair competition law to eliminate associational standing–that is, membership organizations could no longer bring claims based on injuries to their members. Only claims based on injuries to the organizations themselves could serve as a basis for suit. Yesterday, in California Medical Association v. Aetna Health of California, the California Supreme […]