Mealey's Class Actions : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Class Actions

May 29, 2025
Final OK Given To $3.25 Million Settlement Of Class Action Over USAA Data Breach

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — An almost 4-year-old suit over a 2021 data breach experienced by United Services Automobile Association (USAA) was resolved when a New York federal judge approved a $3.25 million settlement between the insurance company and a lone lead plaintiff, disposing of claims including negligence and violation of the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA).
May 28, 2025
$8.9M Settlement By Soda Company For ‘Prebiotic’ Claims Gets Preliminary OK

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted an unopposed motion for preliminary approval of an $8.9 million settlement by the manufacturer of a soda product that was sued by consumers for violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws due to the product being deceptively labeled as “Prebiotic” and “gut healthy” and approved the plaintiffs’ plan to request a 30% attorney fee award.
May 28, 2025
Golden Corral, Employees Settle Data Breach Class Action For $1.85 Million

RALEIGH, N.C. — A $1.85 million settlement of class claims over a 2013 data breach experienced by Golden Corral Corp. received final approval from a North Carolina federal judge, who deemed the restaurant chain’s agreement with a class of employees whose personally identifiable information (PII) was compromised in the breach to be “fair, reasonable, adequate, and in the best interests of the” class.
May 28, 2025
High Court Gets More Feedback On Review Bid Concerning ERISA Benchmark Issue

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Retirement plan participants and an amicus curiae underwriter offer divergent views in briefing an Employee Retirement Income Security Act review petition, with the participants telling the U.S. Supreme Court that “participant-led ERISA fiduciary breach litigation has reduced by nearly 50% the expenses of retirement plan investments” and the underwriter contending that “lower courts’ failure to strike the right balance in fiduciary breach cases has been hugely disruptive and wasteful.”
May 28, 2025
Another ERISA Case Over A Health Plan Tobacco Surcharge Survives Dismissal

RICHMOND, Va. — Calling Mehlberg v. Compass Grp. USA, Inc. “analogous and compelling persuasive authority,” a Virginia federal judge declined to dismiss a putative class action that is part of a recent wave of similar Employee Retirement Income Security Act suits over health plan tobacco surcharges.
May 27, 2025
U.S. High Court Won’t Review Summary Judgment Reversal In Parking Fine Class Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 27 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Los Angeles after a split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed summary judgment for the city in a putative class complaint challenging the city’s parking fee and late payment penalty.
May 27, 2025
2nd Circuit Finds It Has No Jurisdiction To Review State Labor Class Judgment

NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain an appeal of a judgment on state law wage and hour class claims because the trial court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ unadjudicated Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) claims to allow for intermediate appeal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) was conditional.
May 23, 2025
9th Circuit Agrees That Lack Of ‘Meaningful Benchmarks’ Dooms ERISA Funds Case

HONOLULU — Saying that retirement plan participants “did not plausibly allege that [Intel Corp.]’s funds underperformed other funds with comparable aims,” the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 22 affirmed dismissal of a putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit challenging retirement plan investments in hedge funds and private equity; the ruling was accompanied by a nine-page concurring opinion that aimed “to clarify the role of comparisons and circumstantial allegations in duty-of-prudence claims.”
May 23, 2025
Recommendation For Individual Arbitration Flagged In Effective Vindication Row

ATLANTA — A recent report and recommendation from a Florida federal court has been flagged as a supplemental authority in an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenge to use of the effective vindication doctrine in a putative class action filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act; the appeal has drawn amicus curiae input from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and an advocacy organization.
May 22, 2025
Class Mostly Certified In Privacy Suit Alleging Tracking By Ovulation App

SAN FRANCISCO — A group of women in a consolidated suit alleging privacy violations by the creator of the Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker app saw their motion for class certification mostly granted by a California federal judge who found that the plaintiffs satisfied the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 “with a few specific, claim-related exceptions.”
May 21, 2025
23andMe Reports Bankruptcy Asset Sale, Suggests Global Settlement Of Privacy Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Two months after a consolidated privacy suit over a breach of 23andMe Inc.’s network was stayed for bankruptcy proceedings, the financially troubled DNA testing company informed a California federal court in a March 20 joint case management statement that “substantially all” of its assets had been purchased in a three-day auction pursuant to Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code.
May 20, 2025
$6 Million Settlement Of Class Suit Over Union’s Data Breach Gets Final Approval

NEW YORK — Two union members were granted final approval of class negligence and breach of contract claims against a labor union over a 2023 data breach, with a New York federal judge deeming the $6 million settlement to be preferable to the expenses and “uncertainties of continued litigation.”
May 20, 2025
Pension Fund Seeks Rehearing En Banc Of Securities Case Against Gaming Company

PASADENA, Calif. — A pension fund filed a petition for rehearing en banc with the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, arguing that a panel was wrong to affirm the dismissal of its class action suit alleging that a gaming company it invested in falsely inflated its share prices by finding that it needed to plead loss causation as part of its stock scheme claims.
May 19, 2025
Judgment Proposal, Fee Request Are Disputed In ERISA Spinoff Benefits Case

PHILADELPHIA — Following a bench trial and numerous posttrial rulings in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over corporate restructuring that affected retirement benefits, the parties are briefing disputes over the plaintiffs’ proposed final judgment, with their disagreements generally centering on whether certain groups of employees are included in the certified class.
May 19, 2025
‘First And Only’ Forfeiture Row To Reach Stage Could Settle For Nearly $2M

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Calling the Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit “the first and only case to reach settlement on this novel theory of recovery,” a plaintiff whose key claims regarding the use of forfeited nonvested retirement plan contributions to offset the plan sponsor’s future matching contributions survived dismissal asked a California federal court on May 16 for preliminary approval of a $1,995,000 class settlement.
May 19, 2025
Privacy, Computer Fraud Claims Against Musk, Agencies Voluntarily Dismissed

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A putative class complaint brought by six U.S. citizens in District of Columbia federal court against Elon Musk and two U.S. government agencies over the purported “unlawful ongoing, systematic, and continuous disclosure of personal and financial information” was voluntarily dismissed without explanation before the government could respond to the complaint.
May 19, 2025
Judge Certifies Collective Action In Workday AI Hiring Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Any differences between members of an employment discrimination case related to Workday Inc.’s use of artificial intelligence to sort and rank job applicants are meaningless at this stage because the members are “alike in the central way that matters,” a federal judge in California said May 16 in granting conditional certification after finding that the sorting and ranking of job applicants creates a unified policy and that its rankings could constitute a hiring recommendation.
May 19, 2025
Coal Miner Insists RFK Jr.’s Cuts To NIOSH Black Lung Program Violate The Law

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Two days after a federal judge in West Virginia issued an injunction enjoining the reduction in force (RIF) notice at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Respiratory Health Division in Morgantown, W.Va., a coal miner with black lung filed a brief arguing that the judge should deny a motion to dismiss his putative class action against Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., insisting that he has standing for his claim that Kennedy violated federal law when he terminated the majority of staff at the NIOSH office.
May 19, 2025
Split U.S. High Court Enjoins Putative Class Members’ Removal From U.S. Under AEA

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court in a May 16 opinion issued a temporary injunction halting the federal government’s removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of two named individuals and the putative class they seek to represent, all alleged by the government to be Venezuelan nationals who are members of Tren de Aragua; further, the majority’s per curiam opinion treated the individuals’ application as a petition for a writ of certiorari, granted it, vacated the judgment in the case by the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and remanded to the appellate court.
May 16, 2025
Judge Says Class Has Plausible Claim Against Costco Related To PFAS In Baby Wipes

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California has ruled that under current pleading standards, Costco Wholesale Corp.’s motion to dismiss a class action alleging that Kirkland Signature Baby Wipes contain unsafe levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), “must be denied,” because the plaintiff has a plausible claim for economic injury.
May 16, 2025
Class Would Get Up To $6.75M In Proton Beam Row Under Proposed Settlement

BOSTON — A consolidated Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over refusal to reimburse proton beam radiation therapy (PBRT) costs would be resolved under a settlement proposal granted preliminary approval in a Massachusetts federal court, with the settlement class getting up to $6.75 million and class counsel separately getting up to $2.5 million for attorney fees and costs.
May 16, 2025
Debtors Seek Judgment In Bankruptcy Dispute Over Deferred Compensation Plans

HOUSTON — In the aftermath of a decision that two deferred compensation plans associated with Steward Health Care System LLC are “top hat” ones and therefore roughly $60 million in “rabbi trusts” used for them could be liquidated as part of Chapter 11 bankruptcies, the debtors urged a Texas federal bankruptcy court to rule that a putative class adversary complaint in which plan participants invoke the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “is foreclosed by the doctrines of law of the case and issue preclusion.”
May 16, 2025
Nationwide Injunctions Debated In U.S. High Court In Birthright Citizenship Cases

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The constitutionality of nationwide or universal injunctions was debated before the U.S. Supreme Court in May 15 oral arguments concerning three consolidated applications by the federal government seeking a partial stay of the injunctions halting enforcement of President Donald J. Trump’s Jan. 20 birthright citizenship executive order (EO).
May 15, 2025
Health Care Firm’s Data Breach Suit Settlement Provides Up To $5,000 Per Claimant

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal judge on May 14 granted an unopposed motion for preliminary approval to the settlement of class claims over a health care provider’s 2023 data security incident, giving an initial thumbs up to an agreement that would provide for payments of up to $5,000 for each claimant in a settlement class he said “is likely to include millions of people.”
May 15, 2025
Company Mislabeled Products As Domestic And ‘Cold Pressed,’ Consumer Claims

SAN DIEGO — A consumer filed a putative class action in California federal court alleging that a sugar and body product company’s products are deceptively advertised in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws, including due to being labeled as “cold pressed” and “crafted with LOVE in Southern California” when in fact the products are not cold pressed and made with “foreign-sourced ingredients and components.”