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 »
Class Action Standing Articles
The latest class action standing developments and trends, including news, key cases, and strategies.
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 »
Ninth Circuit Expands American Pipe Tolling to Subsequent Securities Class Action by Unnamed Class Members, but Leaves Related Comity and Issue Preclusion Questions for Another Day
The Ninth Circuit in Resh v. China Agritech, Inc., No. 15-55432, 2017 WL 2261024 (9th Cir. May 24, 2017), revived the third successive putative shareholder class action against a fertilizer manufacturer after the district court dismissed this last case as untimely. By reversing the lower court’s holding that the case was time-barred, the Ninth Circuit expanded the American Pipe tolling rule (as further expanded by Crown Cork) to allow the individual claims of unnamed ... Keep Reading »
A Damages Class Is Certified, but No Standing for Declaratory and Injunctive Class
A representative plaintiff who purchased Aveeno sunscreen products and baby bath products brought putative class actions against the products’ manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, in the United State District Court for the District of Connecticut. Both of plaintiff’s asserted classes challenged Aveeno’s product labeling under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA) and the similar consumer protection laws of several other states and the District of ... Keep Reading »
Nothing Crafty About Michaels’ Disclosure Under Spokeo
A New Jersey District Court followed Spokeo’s Article III standing analysis and dismissed claims by three putative class representatives against Michaels Stores. Plaintiffs claimed that Michaels’ online employment application violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and similar New Jersey and California state laws by failing to provide notice of the store’s intent to obtain a background check in a dedicated, stand-alone document. Plaintiffs conceded their ... Keep Reading »
TCPA Class Certified Based Largely on “Concrete Injury” Determination
Following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1549 (2016) – which held that Article III standing requires a concrete injury, even when an injury has otherwise been established for statutory purposes – there has been a debate as to what constitutes Article III “concrete injury” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. § 227. With certain exceptions, the TCPA creates a statutory cause of ... Keep Reading »
No, Yes, or Back to State Court? Three Circuits Address Standing in Statutory “No Injury” Class Actions
In Spokeo, the Supreme Court declined to answer the certified question of whether a plaintiff suing for violation of a federal statute satisfied Article III’s standing requirement by alleging no concrete injury as a result of that violation. Instead, the Court vacated and remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit to address whether the plaintiff satisfied the “concreteness” requirement for Article III standing. On January 20, the Seventh and Third Circuits weighed in ... Keep Reading »
The Future of Standing in Data Breach Class Actions
In today’s world, as technology costs decrease and personal information becomes more valuable on the black market, data breaches have seemingly joined the ranks of death and taxes as certainties. Add to that litigation: companies suffering data breaches face exposure to lawsuits by consumers, employees, and even financial institutions. One particular concern for companies is the possibility of costly consumer class actions. Though such lawsuits still account for fewer ... Keep Reading »
Spokeo Gets Lyft Off
The Northern District of California dismissed a Fair Credit Reporting Act case against Lyft upon finding that plaintiff lacked Article III standing based on the Supreme Court's decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016). The court found that plaintiff did not suffer any actual injury, or a real threat of such injury, as a result of Lyft’s alleged FCRA violations. The court’s ruling was consistent with several recent district courts’ decisions based on ... Keep Reading »