Home Depot filed a certiorari petition in the United States Supreme Court aimed at closing an emerging loophole in CAFA jurisprudence in various circuits. According to the petition, some circuits have “narrowly construed CAFA’s removal statute to forbid removal by a newly-added counterclaim defendant in an otherwise removable class action.” This litigation began as a collection dispute brought by the original plaintiff against certain customers, the original ... Keep Reading »
Federal District Courts Class Action Articles
The latest class action developments and trends in Federal District Courts, including news, key cases, and strategies.
More Bad News for Uber, This Time From the Southern District of California
Uber’s attempts to defeat a false advertising lawsuit recently failed. The Southern District of California largely denied the ride share company’s motion to dismiss and motion to strike class allegations. A taxi company claimed Uber violated the Lanham Act with allegedly false and misleading statements concerning passenger safety that compared Uber and traditional taxicab rides. The court narrowly granted the motion to dismiss regarding Uber’s claim that certain ... Keep Reading »
An Offer You Can Refuse
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently confronted (again) a situation where a defendant made an offer of judgment to the putative class representative to provide all of the relief available to the individual plaintiff. How does such an offer affect a putative class representative prior to class certification? May the putative class representative refuse the offer of judgment and avoid a determination of mootness? In particular, the defendant in this case served ... Keep Reading »
Class Representatives Do Not Hold Veto Power Over Class Settlement
In In re FedEx Ground Package Sys., Inc. Employment Practices Litig., No. 3:05-CV-595 RLM, 2017 WL 632119 (N.D. Ind. Feb. 14, 2017), only one of a total of seven class representatives signed off on accepting a proposed class settlement with the defendant, FedEx. Further, the class representative who assented to the proposed class settlement later withdrew his signature once he realized that the other six representatives objected to the proposed settlement. In ... Keep Reading »
Class Notice Online Works Just Fine
In a case involving alleged violations of ERISA and the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, the District Court of the Western District of Kentucky certified a class of Anthem Health Plan insureds who were denied coverage or reimbursement for Applied Behavior Analysis, a particular treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorders. The court then ordered plaintiff to submit a proposed draft notice to be sent to class members. The parties agreed (for the most part) on the ... Keep Reading »
No Pick-Off, No Problem: How a Pre-Certification Rule 68 Offer Survived (Twice)
A magistrate judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania denied plaintiff’s motion to strike a Rule 68 offer of judgment served prior to class certification. The Rule 68 offer in this case – unlike those at issue in numerous conflicting opinions culminating in the United States Supreme Court’s 2016 Campbell-Ewald decision – was not an attempt to “pick off” the named plaintiff because it also included the putative class members. ... Keep Reading »
New York District Court Flushes Nationwide Class, Permits New York Classes to Go Forward
In three related actions before the Eastern District of New York, consumer plaintiffs who purchased moist toilet wipes manufactured and produced by Kimberly-Clark and sold by Costco alleged that defendants mislabeled the wipes as “flushable.” The court denied certification of a nationwide class, but did certify three New York class actions all involving New York law and New York purchases but different defendants and a different product. The court declined to certify ... Keep Reading »
A Not-So-Modest Proposal: Class Action Changes Could Have Big Impact
Like many things these days, the legal landscape is changing. One target is class action litigation. Some important new proposals have the potential to dramatically alter class actions in the near future. In particular, these changes would impact class certification and the settlement process. Rule 23 Amendments First, a spate of amendments may bring changes to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The comment period on the amendments closed on February 15th and the ... Keep Reading »
Adequacy is Adequate: DC District Court Certifies Pacer Fee Class
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia certified a class of all individuals and entities who paid fees to obtain court records though the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. The proposed class representatives, three nonprofit legal advocacy organizations, overcame the government’s primary challenge to class certification, which was that they were not adequate class representatives. The National Veterans Legal Services ... Keep Reading »
No Love For Proposed Consumer Class Settlements
Two consumer class actions recently hit a roadblock when courts denied final approval for class settlements. In In re Target Consumer Data Security Breach, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota preliminarily certified a settlement class in early 2015 and approved the parties’ agreement calling for a $10 million settlement fund to be distributed to the class. Subsequently, after overruling objections, including a challenge to the adequacy of the class ... Keep Reading »
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