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

Mealey's Class Actions

March 20, 2025
NBA Asks Supreme Court To Decide If VPPA Harm Requires Public Disclosure

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Appealing a ruling by the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that revived a putative class claim against it for violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA), the National Basketball Association (NBA), in a petition for certiorari, asks the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify the standards for when a plaintiff has standing to bring a VPPA claim.
March 19, 2025
Judge Rebuffs Appointments Challenge In ERISA Benefits Suit Over Spinoff

PHILADELPHIA — After conducting a bench trial in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over corporate restructuring that affected retirement benefits and issuing a mixed December ruling as to liability, a Pennsylvania federal judge on March 18 denied a motion in which the defendants sought emergency relief regarding his appointment of “an independent technical adviser on ERISA” and a special master as to remedies.
March 19, 2025
9th Circuit Vacates Remand Order In Wage Class Suit Against Funeral Home

PASADENA, Calif. — A trial court judge failed to properly evaluate an employer’s violation-rate assumption in a wage-and-hour putative class suit, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, vacating an order sending the case back to state court.
March 19, 2025
Judge Dismisses Suit Against GEICO After Parties File Joint Notice Of Dismissal

CHICAGO — The same day the parties filed a joint notice of dismissal, an Illinois federal judge dismissed with prejudice insureds’ lawsuit alleging that auto insurers violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act by charging “excessive” premiums during the COVID-19 pandemic that failed to account for a dramatic reduction in driving.
March 19, 2025
9th Circuit Denies Petition In Attorney Fee Challenge After Voluntary Dismissal

PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a petition for writ of mandamus filed by consumers who argued that their voluntary dismissal of their class complaint alleging underfill of lower calorie ice cream could not be hinged on their payment of attorney fees to the defendants or limits on refiling.
March 19, 2025
Biometric Privacy Claims Over Neutrogena Online Skin Analysis To Proceed

TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. (J&J) must face putative claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a New Jersey federal judge held, denying the company’s second dismissal motion centering on its online Neutrogena Skin360 skin assessment product.
March 18, 2025
Camp Lejeune Plaintiff Wants ‘Conspicuous Notice’ Posted On Defendant’s Website

WHEELING, W.Va. — A woman suing law firms alleging that they engaged in illegal phone calls soliciting clients for mass tort cases relating to toxic water exposure at Camp Lejeune has moved in a West Virginia federal court for approval of a class notice plan and an order from the district court requiring one of the firms to post “conspicuous notice of the lawsuit and a copy of the Class Certification order” in a banner at the top of each page of its website.
March 18, 2025
Costco: Baby Wipes Case Fails Because Studies Do Not Show Harmful Effects Of PFAS

SAN FRANCISCO — Costco Wholesale Corp. has moved in California to dismiss a class action alleging that Kirkland Signature Baby Wipes contain unsafe levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), arguing that the plaintiffs do not cite “any state or federal regulations prohibiting or restricting the specific substances” at issue and do not point to a single study that purports to find harmful effects from those substances in humans.
March 18, 2025
Consumers Tell High Court Federal Food Laws ‘Expressly Permit’ California Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two parents filed an opposition brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that it should deny a baby food company’s petition for a writ of certiorari challenging a split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s decision allowing the company to be sued for violating California consumer protection laws by allegedly violating federal labeling rules, writing that federal law does not preempt states from adopting “‘identical’” labeling rules.
March 18, 2025
6th Circuit: ‘Inherently Transitory’ Exception Applies To Mooted Bail Class Claims

CINCINNATI — An arrestee’s putative class claims over having to prove bail bond funding sources prior to being released may have been mooted by his release, but the “inherently transitory” exception applies, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, reversing a trial court’s finding of mootness and clarifying “that a class-certification motion need not be pending” for the exception to apply.
March 18, 2025
Settlement With $8.75M Payment Proposed In ERISA Suit Over 401(k) Management

SAN FRANCISCO — Plaintiffs who sued over allegedly imprudent management of a 401(k) plan have moved in California federal court to certify a settlement class and to request preliminary approval of a deal that would include an $8.75 million payment and other relief.
March 18, 2025
VPPA Claim Over Videos On Scientific American’s Website May Proceed, Judge Rules

NEW YORK — A Florida man has sufficiently alleged that the owner of Scientific American (SA) violated the Video Protection Privacy Act of 1988 (VPPA) by disclosing videos that he watched on the publication’s website by collecting and sharing users’ personally identifiable information (PII) via Meta Platforms Inc.’s pixel tool, a New York federal judge ruled, denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss the putative class complaint.
March 17, 2025
Ex-Employee’s Suit Over Food Wholesaler’s Data Breach Dismissed For Lack Of Injury

TOPEKA, Kan. — An Oklahoma man’s putative class complaint over a 2023 data breach experienced by his former employer was dismissed without prejudice by a Kansas federal judge, who found that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring negligence and privacy claims, among others, for failing to allege that his personally identifiable information (PII) was actually misused after it was stolen in the breach.
March 17, 2025
Drug Costs Under Employee Health Plan Are Focus Of Another ERISA Suit

NEW YORK — In an Employee Retirement Income Security Act fiduciary duty complaint similar to those filed in two other putative class cases, former and current JPMorgan Chase & Co. employees sued the company and related defendants over the prescription drug part of its health plan, alleging that mismanagement is evident from prices paid to pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) “for many generic drugs that are widely available at drastically lower prices.”
March 17, 2025
Veterans, Government Dismiss ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Suit After Settlement

SAN FRANCISCO — Veterans and the federal government filed a joint stipulation of dismissal in a federal court in California in the veterans’ class lawsuit one day after a magistrate judge granted final approval of a class settlement that provides removal of references to sexual orientation from the discharge paperwork of servicemembers discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) and other similar policies.
March 17, 2025
Class Complaint Challenges HUD’s Termination Of 78 Fair Housing Grants

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Feb. 27 termination of 78 Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) grants for 66 organizations was carried out for reasons that make no “sense” and has had an “immediate and devastating impact” on the organizations and the communities they serve, four nonprofit fair housing groups allege in a class complaint filed in a federal court in Massachusetts.
March 17, 2025
Federal Government Appeals Order Enjoining Removal Of Immigrant Class

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. government officials filed a notice of appeal on March 15 following a minute order that day by a federal judge in the District of Columbia that provisionally certified a class of immigrants facing removal pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) and enjoined the government from removing member of that class for 14 days or until further order by the court.
March 14, 2025
$299,000 Deal Gets Initial OK In ERISA Suit Over Plan’s Tobacco Surcharge

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge granted preliminary approval to a $299,000 class settlement that would resolve an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over annual $1,152 surcharges imposed on about 431 health plan participants who use tobacco.
March 13, 2025
Putative Class Says Girl Scout Cookies Contain Toxic Heavy Metals, Glyphosate

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Two women have filed a putative class action in New York federal court against the Girl Scouts of the United States of America alleging that the cookies sold by the organization contain heavy metals, including aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury, as well as glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup.
March 13, 2025
GoDaddy’s Deadline Extended For Response To Motion To Appeal Settlement Ruling

MOBILE, Ala. — A federal judge in Alabama on March 12 set April 3 deadlines for a response from GoDaddy.com LLC to a motion by class representatives to certify for appeal a February order declining enforcement of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class settlement and for a response from class representatives to GoDaddy’s motion to dismiss claims by a deceased class representative; that order was filed one day after the judge declined to reconsider the February decision and directed GoDaddy to respond to the motion to certify the order for appeal.
March 13, 2025
Crypto Companies Seek Interpretation Of CEA Venue, Nationwide Service Provisions

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two cryptocurrency companies filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in a suit brought against them by an investor alleging that they conspired to deflate the value of a crypto asset, asking the court to determine whether the paired venue and nationwide service provisions of the Commodities Exchange Act (CEA) should be interpreted independently or as a whole.
March 12, 2025
Labcorp To High Court: Article III Requires All Members To Show Injury

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred when it ruled that a class containing uninjured members may be certified, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings’ (Labcorp) tells the U.S. Supreme Court in its petitioner brief in a case over the inaccessibility of the company’s self-service kiosks for those who are visually impaired.
March 12, 2025
Plaintiffs Suing Over Fake Discounts May Seek Equitable Relief Based On Pleadings

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge denied a window coverings seller’s motion to dismiss a putative class action lawsuit alleging that it violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other statutes by misrepresenting its regular prices as time-limited sales, siding with other federal courts within the Ninth Circuit that reserve “stricter” scrutiny of equitable relief pleadings for the summary judgment stage.
March 12, 2025
Defendants Win Compensation Row; Judge Rules Plan A Bonus One Exempt From ERISA

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Finding that the plan at the center of a compensation dispute “is a bonus plan exempt from” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a North Carolina federal judge granted summary judgment in favor of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. and other defendants in a putative class action.
March 11, 2025
Putative Class Claims Over Sugary Protein Bars May Proceed, Judge Says

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted in part and denied in part a protein bar maker’s motion to dismiss a putative class action accusing it of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and New York consumer laws by advertising and labeling its products as healthy when they in fact contain high levels of sugar.