The Roundup is a monthly publication that covers the previous month’s notable class action decisions from federal appellate courts, as well as notable Supreme Court cert petitions related to class actions. Third Circuit Barclift v. Keystone Credit Services, LLC – This decision concerns a putative class action asserting claims under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The named plaintiff alleged that the defendant debt collector violated the FDCPA by ... Keep Reading »
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Mark Cuban’s Cryptocurrency Conundrum: The Road to Filing Sanctions
Selecting a named plaintiff in a putative class action can be one of the most important, but overlooked, decisions that a plaintiff’s counsel makes. Picking the wrong plaintiff can lead to delay, dismissal of claims, denial of class certification in some circumstances, and motions for sanctions. The high-profile putative class action against Mark Cuban, the “Shark Tank” multimillionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team, illustrates all of these ... Keep Reading »
Class Action Survey: Baseless Claims a Common Concern for Corporate Counsel
Six out of 10 in-house counsel reported that the growth in baseless putative class actions poses a substantial risk to their companies. They describe these class actions as those that have no merit, but where the companies are forced to defend them nonetheless. Top legal decision-makers believe courts are becoming more lenient in allowing class actions to move forward, which creates a significant cost that is disproportionate to the merits of the claim. Almost one in ... Keep Reading »
Delivery in 30 Minutes or Less: Supreme Court Punts on Who Qualifies Under FAA Exemption for Interstate Commerce Workers
In Domino’s Pizza LLC v. Carmona, Domino’s petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify whether drivers making only in-state deliveries of goods, ordered by in-state customers from an in-state warehouse, engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, exempting them from arbitration under Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act. The Supreme Court on October 17, 2022, granted Domino’s petition for certiorari, vacated the Ninth Circuit’s ruling allowing the drivers to ... Keep Reading »
Fitting a Square Plaintiff Into a Circle Class? No Can Do Says Florida Federal Court
A recent decision issued by Chief Judge Timothy J. Corrigan of the Middle District of Florida highlights a straightforward yet consequential class action principle: a plaintiff cannot serve as a class representative for a class to which he or she does not belong. The specific case is Gartrell v. J.J. Marshall & Associates Inc. In Gartrell, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Florida Consumer ... Keep Reading »
Eleventh Circuit Approves Largest, Most Comprehensive Data Breach Recovery in U.S. History
On June 3, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, with one caveat, the Northern District of Georgia’s approval of the settlement of the consolidated class actions against Equifax Inc. and its affiliates arising from the 2017 data privacy breach. The district court described the parties’ settlement as “the largest and most comprehensive recovery in a data breach case in U.S. history by several orders of magnitude.” Notably, the Federal Trade Commission, the ... Keep Reading »
The Conservative Case for Class Actions: A Provocative Proposal
Vanderbilt University law professor Brian Fitzpatrick has written a new book titled The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). An excerpt was published in the winter 2020 issue of Vanderbilt Law. I haven’t read the book yet, but since I am a class action lawyer, a conservative, and a Vandy grad, I found the excerpt intriguing and worthy of mention. Fitzpatrick proposes that class action lawsuits are good for conservative principles, ... Keep Reading »
Seventh Circuit Snapshots Hole in Groupon’s Notice of Removal of Instagram User Suit
The Seventh Circuit remanded an Instagram user's appeal after the court found that Groupon's notice of removal did not allege the citizenship of any diverse member of the putative class. The decision highlights the importance of actually alleging the minimal diversity requirement for removal under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). The plaintiff, Christine Dancel, obtained permission under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f) to appeal the lower court's denial of ... Keep Reading »
Are Administrative Fees and Costs a Benefit to the Class as a Whole? A Circuit Split Continues
In 2017, the Eighth Circuit reversed the certification of a settlement class in the Target 2013 security breach litigation. See In re Target Corp. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., 847 F.3d 608, 613 (8th Cir. 2017). The court remanded the case to the district court to conduct a proper class certification analysis. On remand, the district court again certified the settlement class. A second appeal was taken by two objectors and, this time, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the ... Keep Reading »
Out of Proportion: Court Denies Discovery Requests in Putative TCPA Class Action Due to Burden On Defendant
This putative Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action arose from alleged marketing calls by Quicken Loans (Quicken) to potential mortgage customers. After the magistrate judge granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel production of “all documents of any type or kind or records of communications received by Defendant or any third party from a proposed class member requesting that Defendant not contact that consumer or customer,” Quicken objected to the ... Keep Reading »