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Mealey's Class Actions

  • October 10, 2025

    Past Settlement Of Kombucha Mislabeling Suit Dooms New Class Claims, Judge Says

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge dismissed four plaintiffs with prejudice from their class action accusing a kombucha maker of misleading consumers as to its beverage’s alcohol and sugar content in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) because they are members of a class that previously won a settlement against the same defendant for similar claims, but allowed putative class claims by other plaintiffs who didn’t start drinking kombucha until after the previous settlement.

  • October 10, 2025

    $150 Million GM Defective Engine Class Settlement Granted Final Approval

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted final approval of a $150 million settlement between General Motors LLC and consumers who sued over allegedly defective engines, opining the “[a]greement resulted from extensive arm’s length, good faith negotiations.”

  • October 10, 2025

    Immigrant Class Opposes High Court Review Of Now-Rescinded Metering Policy

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court should not grant a petition challenging a divided Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling on a border metering policy as the policy has since been rescinded, the appellate panel majority’s ruling was proper and the petition presents a poor vehicle, a nonprofit and the immigrant class it represents argue in an opposition brief.

  • October 10, 2025

    Partial Dismissal Granted In Data Breach Suit Against Chicago Children’s Hospital

    CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois partially granted a Chicago children’s hospital’s motion to dismiss a consolidated amended class complaint filed by patients and parents after nearly 800,000 patients’ personal and medical data was accessed by cybercriminals.

  • October 10, 2025

    $2.62M Settlement Over Debt Collection Company Data Breach Gets Final OK

    PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania has granted final approval of a $2,625,000 settlement in a consolidated class action over a 2023 data breach experienced by a national debt collection and accounts receivable management company, finding it “fair, reasonable, and adequate.”

  • October 09, 2025

    Man Files Class Action, Alleges Sleeping Supplement Contained Addictive Sedative

    ATLANTA — A recovering addict who unknowingly consumed a psychoactive sedative while taking a dietary supplement for sleep has filed a putative class action in a Georgia federal court, alleging that the label failed to list the sedative, which is banned in the United States; he also seeks to represent a subclass of California consumers alleging violation of the state’s unfair competition law (UCL) (Jason McCool v. Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc., No. 25-5668, N.D. Ga.).

  • October 09, 2025

    Reconsideration Denied After 2nd Circuit’s Arbitration Ruling In NFL Coach’s Suit

    NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc filed by the National Football League (NFL) and three teams after a panel ruled in August that rulings denying arbitration of a coach’s race bias claims against the Denver Broncos and NFL based on his employment agreement with the New England Patriots and denying reconsideration were proper.

  • October 09, 2025

    Interlocutory Appeal In Pandemic Closure Suit Granted As To Promises And Contracts

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California partially granted Pepperdine University’s motion for interlocutory appeal in a class action by students seeking partial refunds for tuition, fees and room and board after the school transitioned to online learning in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • October 09, 2025

    Judge Gives Final OK To $15M Class Settlement In Pipeline Securities Fraud Case

    PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Oct. 8 gave final approval to a settlement in a securities fraud class action related to the construction of a hydraulic fracturing pipeline, ruling that the deal, which provides a cash payment of $15 million to the plaintiffs, is “in all respects, fair, reasonable, and adequate.”

  • October 09, 2025

    Pa. Federal Magistrate Recommends Dismissing Pension Risk Transfer Case

    PITTSBURGH — Agreeing with two of the five recent rulings in similar Employee Retirement Income Security Act putative class actions and citing Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., a Pennsylvania federal magistrate judge recommended dismissing a pension risk transfer (PRT) challenge for lack of standing on the grounds that none of their three claimed injuries pass muster.

  • October 09, 2025

    Women Alleging Embryo Tests Were Faulty Say Clinic’s Dismissal Motion Fails

    DENVER — A fertility clinic company that moved to dismiss a complaint filed by a putative class of women who say the company made false and misleading representations to consumers about its preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) mischaracterized the “straightforward consumer fraud case” as a medical malpractice action, the women say in opposing the motion.

  • October 08, 2025

    5th Circuit: Conflict Over Securities Class Certification Adequately Addressed

    NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s interlocutory order that partially granted and partially denied class certification in a case brought by investors in an offshore development company that allegedly made misstatements in connection with a merger that caused the company’s stock to artificially increase, finding the lower court adequately addressed an intraclass conflict by dividing the class into two subclasses.

  • October 08, 2025

    Judge Tentatively Orders Sanctions For Disclosures To U.S. Labor Department

    OAKLAND, Calif. — Days after granting the plaintiffs’ third motion for class certification in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over alleged underpayment for out-of-network behavioral health treatment, a California federal judge issued a tentative order on Oct. 7 for a law firm representing the plaintiffs to pay $50,000 for disclosures to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that she found constituted “a knowing and intentional breach of” a stipulated protective order in the case.

  • October 08, 2025

    Valuation, Attorney Fee Issues Lead To Preliminary Denial Of Privacy Settlement

    PHOENIX — An Arizona federal judge denied preliminary approval of a proposed class settlement to resolve claims over a mental health provider’s alleged use of Meta’s Pixel to share patient data, holding that the agreement lacked evidence to establish its overall value and contained an attorney fee structure that was disproportionate to class recovery.

  • October 06, 2025

    Key ERISA Claims Survive Dismissal In Yet Another Tobacco Surcharge Challenge

    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The tally of challenges to health plan tobacco surcharges that have at least partly survived dismissal continues to grow, with a Tennessee federal judge letting key claims continue in a putative class action that is part of a recent wave of similar lawsuits.

  • October 06, 2025

    U.S. High Court Won’t Decide Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s FAA Reach Questions

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Ticketmaster LLC asking whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) protects all or only certain arbitration agreements and whether the federal act preempts California’s severability doctrine.

  • October 06, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms That Monetary Obligations Are Not Compensable Takings

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Court of Federal Claims ruling, holding that contributions to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Transitional Reinsurance Program (TRP) are a statutory obligation to pay money rather than a compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment, and that two self-insured group health plan trusts failed to show that the U.S. government appropriated their property.

  • October 06, 2025

    U.S. High Court Won’t Decide Nissan’s Question Regarding Class Members’ Standing

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Nissan North America Inc. that asked the justices to decide a question left open in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez regarding when class members must show standing and whether a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) class may still be certified if “no one in the class has suffered or will suffer an Article III [of the U.S. Constitution] injury,”

  • October 06, 2025

    Judge: Retirees In PRT Challenge Have Standing But Didn’t State Claims

    BOSTON — Overruling objections from each party in a putative class action that is part of a wave of challenges to pension risk transfers (PRTs), a Massachusetts federal judge granted dismissal motions upon concluding that the plaintiff retirees narrowly have standing because of allegations that they “received an inferior financial benefit than that to which they were entitled” — but failed to state their claims.

  • October 06, 2025

    Partial Dismissal Granted To LinkedIn Over Claims Of Data Gathering, Sharing

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — LinkedIn Corp. partially succeeded in its motion to dismiss claims that it used a tracking pixel to intercept and share users’ personal data with third-party advertisers, with a California federal judge disposing of one claim under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) and dismissing one of four putative class complaints in its entirety.

  • October 06, 2025

    Defendants Win Dismissal In 4 More ERISA Cases Over Use Of Forfeitures

    Case law continues to accumulate in the wave of putative Employee Retirement Income Security Act class suits challenging a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions, with four recent additions to the majority of rulings granting dismissal motions.

  • October 03, 2025

    Judge Dismisses Case That Challenged ESOP’s Use Of Low-Earning Cash Buffer

    STATESVILLE, N.C. — Declining to adopt the reasoning of a contrary Employee Retirement Income Security Act ruling issued in a different district, a North Carolina federal judge granted dismissal of a putative class action that challenged the use of a cash buffer by an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP).

  • October 03, 2025

    Split Panel Says California Interest Law Not Preempted After High Court Vacatur

    SAN FRANCISCO — A split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Oct. 2 said that it cannot overrule its own precedent holding that the National Bank Act (NBA) does not preempt a California state law requiring a minimum 2% interest on certain mortgage escrow accounts and affirmed a more than $9 million judgment in favor of a class of borrowers, while a dissenting judge said the precedent at issue was “‘effectively overruled’” by the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • October 03, 2025

    Some Subclasses Certified In Accellion Privacy Suit; Some Expert Opinions Struck

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — The plaintiffs in a consolidated class action over the hacking of software created by Accellion Inc. saw some of their expert’s testimony stricken for his lack of experience by a California federal judge who also partly granted the plaintiffs’ motion to certify several subclasses related to Accellion’s customers who were affected by the data breach incidents.

  • October 02, 2025

    After Bench Trial, Judge Rules For 401(k) Plan Fiduciaries In Management Dispute

    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Saying the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “demands prudence, not perfection,” a Tennessee federal judge entered judgment in favor of AutoZone Inc. and related defendants following a bench trial in the class action that was filed over several aspects of their management of a 401(k) plan.