Mealey's Class Actions

  • August 26, 2025

    Illinois Panel Reverses Class Certification In Pepperidge Farm BIPA Case

    CHICAGO — A trial court must “make explicit findings as to whether any possible conflict of interest” exists as to class counsel in an Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) case brought against Pepperidge Farm Inc. by an employee, an Illinois appellate panel ruled Aug. 25, reversing class certification after the sole named plaintiff’s daughter’s firm was permitted to remain as class counsel.

  • August 26, 2025

    BIPA Suit Against Coinbase Stayed Pending 7th Circuit Ruling In Parallel Suit

    CHICAGO — Granting a motion by Coinbase Inc., an Illinois federal judge stayed a putative class action accusing the cryptocurrency exchange operator of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by using photos in its user authentication process, with the judge concluding that the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ upcoming ruling in another case pertaining to user authentication using biometric identifiers is likely to affect the issues in the present case.

  • August 26, 2025

    Putative Class Suit Over ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Partially Dismissed, Transferred

    MIAMI — A federal judge in Florida dismissed a Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution due process claim as moot in a putative class suit over access to legal counsel by detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” and granted a motion by the Florida defendants to transfer the case from the Southern District to the Middle District.

  • August 25, 2025

    J&J, Talc Plaintiffs Debate Attempt To Strike Medical Monitoring Class

    TRENTON, N.J. — Plaintiffs representing genital talc users in a New Jersey suit seeking a medical monitoring class and various Johnson & Johnson entities have briefed a motion to strike the claims and whether varying state laws, causation standards and individual situations made handling the claims as a class impossible.

  • August 25, 2025

    Split N.C. High Court Vacates Class Certification In Sales Promotion Suit

    RALEIGH, N.C. — A split North Carolina Supreme Court on Aug. 22 vacated class certification in a long-running case by a consumer who alleges that an illegal sales promotion under North Carolina law was used when he purchased his home water treatment system; the majority ruled that while consumers from both North and South Carolina were included in the class, the claims by the residents of South Carolina would arise under that state’s law where inducement is an element, unlike in North Carolina, and inducement creates “individualized fact questions.”

  • August 25, 2025

    Plaintiffs Suing Therapy App For Privacy Violations May Proceed Anonymously

    SAN FRANCISCO — The anonymity of putative class plaintiffs accusing online therapy company BetterHelp Inc. of violating privacy laws by selling their personal data to third parties in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) does not require dismissal, a California federal judge ruled in denying the company’s motion to dismiss, citing the nature of the plaintiffs’ privacy protection claims.

  • August 25, 2025

    Federal Judge: Fraud, Breach Of Contract Claims Survive In Suit Over Musk PAC

    AUSTIN, Texas — Granting dismissal only as to a claim the plaintiff agreed to drop, a Texas federal judge allowed fraud and breach of contract claims against Elon Musk and political action committee America PAC to proceed under “the lost benefit of the bargain theory of standing” in a putative class action concerning personally identifiable information (PII) provided to sign an online petition in the run-up to the November 2024 election.

  • August 25, 2025

    ERISA Forfeiture Developments Include 2 More Rulings Denying Dismissal

    Just over two years after a wave of Employee Retirement Income Security Act suits challenging a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions were filed, the case law is developing rapidly; although the majority of dismissal motions have been granted, federal judges in North Carolina and Florida recently denied dismissal in putative class cases filed against Bank of America Corp. (BOA) and NextEra Energy Inc.

  • August 25, 2025

    6th Circuit Vacates Class Certification In Action Against FirstEnergy

    CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a lower court’s class certification order in a suit against FirstEnergy Corp. brought by investors regarding a bribery scheme that delivered approximately $2 billion to the company through lobbying the Ohio Legislature to pass House Bill 6,  finding that the lower court applied the wrong presumption in certifying the class.

  • August 22, 2025

    Administrative Stay Dissolved, Order Vacated In Immigrant Removal Class Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dissolved its June 10 administrative stay of a June 4 order by a trial court that partially granted a preliminary injunction and class certification to immigrants challenging their removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) and transfer to a prison in El Salvador; the mandate was filed 11 days after the appellate panel vacated the trial court’s order after the class members were “released from Salvadoran custody and transferred to Venezuela, where they are not likely to remain in custody.”

  • August 22, 2025

    Judge Tosses Online Privacy Class Suits Against ‘People Search’ Providers

    CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — A federal judge dismissed with prejudice putative class action suits filed by a retired law enforcement officer alleging violations of West Virginia’s Daniel’s Law, which provides a private right of action for disclosure of home addresses or unpublished phone numbers of current or former judicial officials, finding that a certain provision of the statute “regulates speech based on its content” and “cannot survive strict scrutiny” under the U.S. Constitution “because it is not narrowly tailored.”

  • August 22, 2025

    Breach Of Contract, Bad Faith Claims Will Proceed Against Homeowners Insurers

    SAN DIEGO — An insured’s breach of contract and bad faith claims will proceed against homeowners insurers in a putative class action suit filed by a homeowner who claims that her insurer wrongfully refused to renew her homeowners policy because the insured sufficiently alleged facts in support of the claims, a California federal judge said.

  • August 21, 2025

    Deal Reported In Former Twitter Workers’ $500M Lawsuit For Severance

    SAN FRANCISCO — In a joint Aug. 20 filing citing an unspecified “imminent class-wide settlement agreement,” the parties in an appeal where former Twitter Inc. employees received support from amicus curiae the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in seeking revival of their putative class action for more than $500 million in severance benefits asked the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to postpone oral argument that is scheduled for Sept. 17.

  • August 21, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Ruling For Government In MPRA Pension Cuts Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Affirming summary judgment for the government in a class action, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that retirees’ attempt to get federal compensation for cuts made to their vested pension benefits fails because the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA) “was not a physical taking and plaintiffs did not prove it was a regulatory taking.”

  • August 21, 2025

    Judge: Pension Trust Must Pay Class Nearly $25M In Early Retirement Row

    KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Wrapping up a 6-year-old Employee Retirement Income Security Act case filed by labor union members whose early retirement benefits were stopped or denied because of non-boilermaker work, a Kansas federal judge ordered defendants to pay class members a total of $24,851,056 and to refrain from “acting in a manner that is contrary to” an April 30 summary judgment order.

  • August 20, 2025

    Modified Class Certified In USAID Workers’ Shutdown Suit

    GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland certified a modified class of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) workers who allege that actions by Elon Musk and others in the federal government to shut down the agency violate the U.S. Constitution.

  • August 20, 2025

    Addressing Standing, 2nd Circuit Partly Remands ERISA Row Under Cunningham

    NEW YORK — Mostly affirming dismissal of an Employee Retirement Income Security Act challenge to retirement plan fees and funds, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals used a precedential opinion “to clarify our standards applicable to the standing of a defined contribution plan plaintiff individually and on behalf of a putative class” and a simultaneous summary order to vacate judgment on two claims and remand for further consideration under the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 17 Cunningham v. Cornell University ruling.

  • August 20, 2025

    Investors’ Fraud Claims Over Ethylene Oxide Statements Are ‘Flawed,’ Company Says

    CINCINNATI — A company that sterilizes medical equipment has filed a brief in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that it should dismiss the appeal of investors who allege the company committed securities fraud in relation to statements it made about litigation involving a subsidiary of the company over personal injury claims connected to exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO), the chemical used in the sterilization process. The company argues that the investors assert the “same flawed arguments” on appeal that they asserted at the lower court.

  • August 20, 2025

    Man Says Otter Notetaker Records, Saves Conversations Without Consent

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California man alleges that Otter.ai Inc. does not obtain prior consent of all participants in a virtual meeting before its Notetaker transcription app is engaged to record a conversation, leveling claims of computer fraud, invasion of privacy and unfair competition against the artificial intelligence (AI) technology firm in California federal court.

  • August 20, 2025

    College Gets Final OK To Settle Data Breach Suit For Up To $3,500 Per Person

    SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Almost five months after preliminarily approving the settlement of a putative class action over a 2023 data breach experienced by an upstate New York college, a New York federal judge granted final approval to the settlement, which boasts an uncapped settlement with an estimated value of $44,720,782.68, including out-of-pocket expenses, credit monitoring and injunctive relief in the form of enhanced data privacy measures on the school’s part.

  • August 19, 2025

    Genetic Data Privacy Suit Against Porta Potty Firm Survives Dismissal

    CHICAGO — A job applicant’s putative class action against a sanitation company under the Illinois Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA) may proceed, an Illinois federal judge ruled, concluding that the plaintiff sufficiently pleaded that interview questions about his family’s medical histories constituted a request for genetic information under the statute.

  • August 19, 2025

    2nd Circuit Upholds Arbitration Denial In NFL Coach’s Race Bias Suit

    NEW YORK — Rulings denying arbitration of a National Football League (NFL) 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 as the coach’s agreement “provides for arbitration in name only and accordingly lacks the protection of the Federal Arbitration Act (‘FAA’),” the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled, affirming the trial court’s orders in a putative class suit by three current and former NFL coaches.

  • August 19, 2025

    9th Circuit Reverses ‘Child In Care’ Interpretation In Foster Children Class Row

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a lower court ruling that interpreted the term “child in care” as used in a class action settlement to exclude two groups of children for whom the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) had legal but not physical custody, finding that the children in the groups have a due process right “to be free from serious abuses even when placed with their biological parents.”

  • August 18, 2025

    Class Responds To Anthropic, Amici’s Attempt At Immediate Appeal

    SAN FRANCISCO — A class of copyright holders told the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in opposition to artificial intelligence company Anthropic PBC’s petition for an immediate appeal of a class certification ruling that summary judgment in the case left only allegations that Anthropic PBC pirated and retained works en masse and that any claim that a verdict would be a death knell for the company is undercut by an agreement to cap the appellate bond at $5 billion.

  • August 15, 2025

    3rd Circuit Holds Shareholder Can’t Opt Out Of Class Action 3 Years Late

    PHILADELPHIA — A Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s ruling that a pharmaceutical company’s shareholder could not opt out of a settlement of a securities fraud class action more than three years after the class opt-out period ended, finding that the shareholder’s continued separate action against the company did not properly show its intent to opt out of the class.