Last month the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court decision approving a class settlement regarding Volkwagen’s marketing of clean diesel vehicles that used so-called “defeat devices” to circumvent emissions tests. Hundreds of “defeat device” lawsuits against Volkswagen were consolidated in the Northern District of California for pretrial proceedings. The proposed settlement provided over $10 billion in potential damages and class members’ recovery depended on whether ... Keep Reading »
Class Action Settlement Articles
The latest class action settlement developments and trends, including news, key cases, and strategies.
Seventh Circuit Approves Cy Pres Settlement
We previously reported on the uncertainty of cy pres settlements in class action lawsuits. Although the Supreme Court granted cert on the issue, the Seventh Circuit weighed in during the interim by approving a settlement that included a potential payout to cy pres recipients. The case arose out of a million phone calls made to consumers throughout 2011 and 2012 in which people were offered a chance to go on a free cruise if they agreed to participate in a political ... 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 »
District Court Denies Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement Citing Dearth of Information and Failure to Follow Court’s Settlement Guidelines
The District Court for the Northern District of California denied a motion for preliminary approval of a proposed settlement, citing the plaintiffs’ disregard of the court’s guidelines and various concerns as to whether the proposed settlement was “fair, reasonable, and adequate.” The matter involves claims stemming from allegedly defective touch screens and related software in Ford vehicles, and the proposed settlement provided for various forms of monetary relief and ... 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 »
Yahoo Enters $80 Million Securities Class Action Settlement After Data Breach
On March 2, Yahoo, Inc. (“Yahoo”) filed a proposed settlement in In re Yahoo Inc. Securities Litigation, which was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The $80 million proposed settlement relates to a securities class litigation stemming from Yahoo’s 2013 and 2014 data breaches. While many elements of the Yahoo securities class action may be factually unique, the settlement is a milestone because it is the first significant securities fraud settlement from a ... Keep Reading »
Too Fast and Furious: Ninth Circuit Unwinds Hyundai and Kia Nationwide Class Action Settlement
In a split panel, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court’s certification of a nationwide class action settlement because the lower court failed to conduct a sufficient predominance inquiry under Rule 23(b)(3). In 2012 Hyundai and Kia were accused of overstating their fuel efficiency estimates in advertisements and car window stickers for certain of their vehicles. A flurry of putative class action litigation ensued across the country, and the MDL ... Keep Reading »
State of Louisiana, as Absent Class Member, Escapes CAFA Settlement Trap
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a Pennsylvania district court decision holding the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution prevented a private party from enjoining the state of Louisiana from bringing claims identical to those previously thought released in a class action settlement. As our prior post detailed, in 2013 pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) settled a class action brought against it by indirect purchasers of the allergy ... Keep Reading »
Keep the Change – The Southern District of New York Authorizes Claims Administrator to Retain Portion of Accrued Interest on Settlement Funds
When class action settlement funds are not amenable to individual claims or to a meaningful pro rata distribution, courts have used the cy pres doctrine to distribute the funds to nonprofit charitable organizations whose work indirectly benefits the class members and advances the public interest. However, cy pres proved unnecessary in Dial Corp. v. News Corp., No. 13CV6802, 2017 WL 5613949 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 20, 2017). That antitrust action involved the distribution of a ... Keep Reading »
Fall Data Breach Roundup and 2018 Preview: Supreme Court, OPM, Equifax and More!
As 2017 draws to a close, data breach class actions abound, while questions regarding what suffices for Article III standing in these cases remain—with litigants hoping the Supreme Court will soon weigh in. Earlier this year, as previously reported, the D.C. Circuit decided Attias v. CareFirst, No. 16-7108 (Aug. 1, 2017), a putative class action filed after the health insurance company suffered a data breach that affected more than one million records. After the D.C. ... Keep Reading »
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