Mass Torts vs. Class Actions: A Tale of Two Strategies
Eighth Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Putative Class Claims
Class Action | Eleventh Circuit Reinstates No Hire Antitrust Claims Against Burger King
John Lewis of BakerHostetler Discusses Use of Social Media in Gawker Class Action
Wearables and the Future of Intellectual Property Law
The Roundup covers notable class action decisions each month from federal appellate courts, as well as notable Supreme Court class action cert petitions....more
A recent Texas Supreme Court decision in a class action caught my eye because it addressed several significant class certification issues, including one that I’ve seen regularly and another that the court analyzed in a new...more
Imagine you are an investor and you decide to file a lawsuit after a company that you invest in suffers a stock drop. When you get to the courthouse, you find that you are the first person to file a federal securities class...more
Although class actions have been common in the United States for decades, they have not been as widely used in the rest of the world. The situation and risks remain in flux, however, as more countries have renewed momentum to...more
A federal court in Missouri granted class certification in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) action that could cost the defendant almost $4 million for allegedly sending unsolicited faxes....more
Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal recently reversed class certification and directed dismissal, holding that the plaintiff had failed to establish any concrete harm from an alleged violation of the TCPA and thereby...more
A recent Ninth Circuit decision illustrates how defendants can use evidence on an individualized defense to potentially defeat class certification. In Van v. LLR, Inc., — F.4th –, 2023 WL 2469909 (9th Cir. Mar. 13, 2023),...more
Over the years, there have been very few class certification rulings in actions arising from data breach incidents. Of those that have been published, most have favored the defense....more
On April 27, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania certified a class comprised of individuals alleging the Defendants violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). Plaintiffs...more
The en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's recent watershed decision in Olean Wholesale Grocery Cooperative Inc. v. Bumble Bee Foods LLC established several significant benchmarks for determining class...more
In this age of mass manufacturing, each unit in a product line is usually the same as every other. But manufacturing isn’t perfect. Sometimes, for various reasons, some units in a product line will deviate from the...more
A court in the District of Oregon recently granted a defense motion to deny class certification, largely because the issue of whether the putative class representative’s phone number was “residential”—a prerequisite to TCPA...more
Article III standing is a threshold jurisdictional requirement in all cases, including putative class actions. It is well settled that a named plaintiff must have constitutional standing throughout a case for subject matter...more
On July 27, 2020, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania confirmed that a plaintiff lacks Article III standing to state a claim for violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) premised solely on the failure to receive a...more
Interpreting Bristol-Myers : Are Unnamed Members of Nationwide Class Actions ‘Parties’? If So, When? In 2017, the Supreme Court decided Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California (BMS), holding that a...more
In Ramirez v. Trans Union, the Ninth Circuit addressed whether, at the class certification stage of a putative class case, only the named plaintiff or all class members must have Article III standing (i.e., a concrete injury...more
The Eleventh Circuit last week issued a common-sense ruling vacating class certification in a TCPA case—an area of the law where common sense does not always prevail. In Cordoba v. DIRECTV, LLC, No. 19-12077 (11th Cir. Nov....more
On September 23, 2019, Judge Denise J. Casper of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts denied class certification in a securities fraud action brought against a biopharmaceutical company (the...more
On May 30, 2019, the Fourth Circuit affirmed a $61,000,000 classwide judgment against Dish Network based on violations of the TCPA’s National Do Not Call Registry (“DNC”) rules committed by Dish’s outside agent Satellite...more
In recent years, courts have reached divergent conclusions about the circumstances in which a damages class containing uninjured persons can be certified. Although there is some room to debate what constitutes injury, it is...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently closed the door on a potential argument for defendants fighting multi-state class certification. In Langan v. Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc., as part of an...more
This edition focuses on rulings issued between November 16, 2017, and February 15, 2018. In this issue, we cover five decisions granting motions to strike/dismiss class claims, seven decisions denying such motions, 15...more
On March 22, 2018, Chief Judge Colleen McMahon of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted in part and denied in part class certification in a putative class action alleging breach of...more
On January 10, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied Plaintiff Tiffanie Branch’s renewed motion for class certification in Branch v. Government Employees Insurance Company, No....more
Have the GOP’s Hopes for Enacting the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act Been Dashed? – Passed in March 2017 by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017, H.R. 985, has...more