Plaintiff, seeking declarative and injunctive relief, brought a putative class action alleging that the city and county of San Francisco failed to comply with certain requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, specifically alleging that many of San Francisco’s public rights-of-way, pools, libraries, parks, and recreation facilities were not readily accessible to and usable by mobility-impaired persons. Reversing in part the decision of the District Court for ... Keep Reading »
Archives for June 2017
SCOTUS Holds American Pipe Tolling Does Not Apply to Securities Class Action Opt-Out Claims Filed Outside Repose Period: CalPERS v. ANZ Securities, Inc.
We have blogged about the evolution and application of the American Pipe tolling rule, as further expanded by Crown Cork, many times (here, here, here, and here), most recently following the Ninth Circuit’s Resh decision last month (here and here). Under American Pipe, individual claims of unnamed class members in a previously dismissed action may proceed as a subsequently filed class action after the limitations period would otherwise have expired. Today, we switch ... Keep Reading »
Game Over – SCOTUS Holds a Voluntary Dismissal With Prejudice Is Not a Viable Means to Appeal a Denial of Class Certification
A group of plaintiffs hoped to hit the reset button on the Ninth Circuit’s denial of their Rule 23(f) petition to appeal from an order striking class allegations in their case against Microsoft, the maker of the popular Xbox line of videogame consoles. Plaintiffs, who alleged their Xbox 360 consoles had a tendency to scratch game discs, attempted this reset by appealing the certification order after taking a voluntary dismissal of their putative class action with ... Keep Reading »
Next Stop the Supreme Court?: Circuit Court Extends American Pipe Tolling to Preserve Class Claims
The Ninth Circuit recently held that plaintiffs whose claims were tolled during the pendency of two class actions were not time-barred from bringing a third related putative class action when the first two classes were not certified. Plaintiffs alleged that the defendant, a Chinese holding company, along with its directors and managers, violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by misstating revenue and income related to its subsidiaries’ purported fertilizer ... Keep Reading »
Consolidated Cholesterol Drug Cases Lack Critical Mass for CAFA Jurisdiction
The Central District of California district court recently weighed in on the limits of mass action jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). The matter began as various individual state court actions alleging that a cholesterol medication caused women taking the drug to suffer from Type II diabetes; after the state court granted a request for “coordination” of the cases, defendant pharmaceutical company removed the cases to federal court based on CAFA’s ... Keep Reading »
Lease-Termination Fee Class Fails Third Circuit Ascertainability Requirement
Using the Third Circuit’s comparatively robust ascertainability standard, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently denied certification of a class of tenants allegedly charged an improper lease-termination fee and subjected to collections calls in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692, et seq. In its order, the district court explained that under the Third Circuit’s ascertainability precedent, ... Keep Reading »