On September 5, Judge Dlott (Southern District of Ohio) denied plaintiff’s motion for class certification in a case involving the “junk fax” provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. Perhaps perplexed that such cases still arise, the district court explained that, “[a]lthough it seems odd that the problem persists in the electronic age, the ‘junk fax’ provision attempts to curb the inundation of unwanted faxes.” In this case, there was no dispute that ... Keep Reading »
Privacy & Technology Class Action Articles
The latest class action developments and trends in the privacy and technology industry, including news, key cases, and strategies.
Defense Victories in Genetic and Biometric Privacy Class Actions
In what may be a glimpse into the next frontier in class action litigation, two federal courts recently disposed of putative class actions alleging violations of state privacy laws involving genetic and biometric data. In a rare defense victory in a circuit favored by the plaintiff’s bar, a Ninth Circuit panel affirmed a decision by the United States District Court for the District of Alaska denying plaintiff’s motion for certification of claims under Alaska’s ... 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 »
Aw Schnucks! Seventh Circuit Dismisses Data Breach Class Action by Financial Institution Plaintiffs Under Economic Loss Doctrine
The Seventh Circuit recently upheld the dismissal of a novel putative class action filed by financial institutions against grocer Schnuck Markets (“Schnucks”) based on the economic loss doctrine. Schnucks suffered a data breach that exposed nearly 2.5 million credit and debit cards over four months until the intrusion was discovered. Instead of being filed by the usual data breach class action featuring a putative class of customers, this case was filed by financial ... Keep Reading »
Will the Supreme Court Take a Charitable View of Cy Pres Settlements?
On April 30, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Frank v. Gaos, No. 17-961 to review the fairness of the ever-increasing use of cy pres remedies in class action settlements. Cy pres remedies are often used to fund charitable or educational organizations when it would be infeasible to provide monetary relief directly to class members. In Frank v. Gaos, No. 15-15858 (9th Cir. 2017), the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s approval of a cy pres-only ... Keep Reading »
No Celebration For Yahoo!: Data Breach Claims Survive Motion to Dismiss
After Yahoo! Inc. suffered three data breaches in a span of four years, plaintiffs brought a putative class action lawsuit against the internet service provider and a subsidiary (collectively, “Yahoo”), alleging defendants failed to use appropriate safeguards to protect users’ personal information despite their representations that such information was secure. The breaches included a 2013 hack allegedly due to outdated encryption technology, which affected all three ... Keep Reading »
District Courts Split on Whether Bristol-Myers Squibb‘s Specific Personal Jurisdiction Analysis Bars Nationwide Class Actions In Districts Beyond Defendant’s Home Venue
The ramifications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco Cty., 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), remain unsettled. In Bristol-Myers Squibb, the United States Supreme Court rejected California’s “sliding scale approach” to assertions of specific personal jurisdiction. California’s Supreme Court had addressed a nationwide mass action and held that California could assert specific jurisdiction over the claims of ... Keep Reading »
Careful What You Wish For – Additional Discovery Requested by TCPA Class Plaintiff Leads to Decertification Order in Northern District of Illinois
Federal courts have a continuing obligation to ensure that class action certification remains appropriate throughout the duration of a case. Accordingly, it is well established that if class certification is later deemed improvident, the district court may decertify a previously certified class. That is precisely what the Northern District of Illinois did in Johnson v. YAHOO! Inc., No. 14 CV 2028, 2018 WL 835339 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 13, 2018), in addressing a previously ... Keep Reading »
Ninth Circuit Gives Leg Up to Shoe Purchasers’ Data Breach Suit
On March 8, a Ninth Circuit panel held that fear of identity theft in the wake of a data breach satisfies the standing requirements of Article III of the United States Constitution. In so holding, the Ninth Circuit confirmed that its prior data breach standing precedent in Krottner v. Starbucks Corp., 628 F.3d 1139 (9th Cir. 2010) remained good law despite the Supreme Court’s 2013 holding in Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, 133 S. Ct. 1138 (2013). As we previously ... 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 »
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