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 »
Class Action Standing Articles
The latest class action standing developments and trends, including news, key cases, and strategies.
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 »
Eighth Circuit Privacy Class Action Fails to Clear Second Hurdle
In Carlsen v. GameStop Inc., plaintiff – a paid subscriber to defendant’s online gaming magazine – brought a putative class action lawsuit against defendant for alleged breach of its privacy policy by disclosing plaintiff’s Facebook ID and his browsing information for the defendant’s online content to Facebook. Plaintiff asserted claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, money had and received, and violation of Minnesota’s Consumer Fraud Act. Defendant moved to ... Keep Reading »
Another One Bites the Dust: Maryland Federal District Court Dismisses Putative Data Breach Class Action for Lack of Standing
The United States District Court of Maryland recently dismissed a putative class action alleging that CareFirst’s failure to adequately secure the computer hardware storing their customers’ personal information led to two separate data breaches in June 2014 and May 2015. Plaintiffs alleged that CareFirst knew or should have known that a data breach could have occurred because the information stolen is “highly coveted by and a frequent target of hackers.” Plaintiffs also ... Keep Reading »
2016 Carlton Fields Class Action Survey Reveals Important Trends in Class Action Management
The fifth annual edition of the Carlton Fields Class Action Survey has just been released, and in this year’s survey corporate counsel report that class action spending has increased after four consecutive years of decline. Spending is also projected to increase in 2016. This marks a key turning point. The Numbers Across industries, the companies surveyed report that they spent $2.1 billion on class action lawsuits in 2015. The number of companies facing at least one ... Keep Reading »
Data Breach Class Actions: 2015 Year in Review and 2016 Preview
As 2015 draws to a close, questions over standing in data breach class actions remain. Earlier this year, the Seventh Circuit denied retailer Neiman Marcus’s petition for rehearing en banc of a panel opinion holding that plaintiffs whose credit card information was stolen in a data breach had standing to sue under Article III of the United States Constitution based on alleged fear of future identity theft; in so doing, the Seventh Circuit confirmed that the circuit split ... Keep Reading »