Mealey's Class Actions
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April 24, 2025
Jury Finds Norfolk Southern Completely At Fault For Ohio Train Derailment
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A federal jury in Ohio on April 23 ruled in favor of a railcar company and determined that Norfolk Southern Railway Corp. is completely at fault for the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that exposed residents to toxic chemicals. The jury also found that Norfolk Southern did not prove that it has paid more than its proportionate share of any common liability for harm to members of the class that sued it.
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April 24, 2025
Plaintiffs Dismiss Class Suit Over Fluoride Mouth Rinse For Young Kids
SAN DIEGO — Three plaintiffs on April 23 filed a notice of voluntary dismissal of their putative class action against a dental health products maker for allegedly violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by misrepresenting its fluoride mouth rinse product as safe for children under 6, one week after the defendant moved to dismiss on the grounds that its product is labeled with multiple warnings restricting its use to children over 6.
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April 24, 2025
Federal Jury Awards Class Nearly $39M In ERISA Fees Challenge
NEW YORK — A rare Employee Retirement Income Security Act jury trial resulted in a unanimous April 23 verdict awarding $38,760,232 in damages to a class of retirement plan participants who challenged the record-keeping and administration fees of a multiple employer retirement plan (MEP), according to a text-only entry on the New York federal court docket.
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April 23, 2025
Judge Strikes Class Claims From Google AI Copyright Suit, Allows Amendment
SAN JOSE, Calif. — As originally defined, a proposed class in an artificial intelligence copyright action constituted an improper fail-safe class, a federal judge in California said while allowing an amendment that cures the defect and finding two Google LLC entities’ challenge to the new class definition premature.
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April 23, 2025
Settlement Of Over $20.5M Proposed In Retiree Medical Benefits Termination Row
SAN FRANCISCO — A putative Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over termination of retiree medical benefits would be resolved for $20,545,000 under a settlement that the plaintiffs have asked a California federal court to grant preliminary approval.
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April 23, 2025
Class Action Alleges Toyota, Progressive Violated Federal Wiretap Act
SHERMAN, Texas — A class action was filed in a Texas federal court alleging Toyota Motor North America Inc., Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. and a provider of data analytics services in the automotive industry violated the Federal Wiretap Act and seeking to hold the defendants responsible for the injuries they inflicted on tens of thousands of class members because of their unauthorized collection and dissemination of private information from Toyota vehicles.
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April 22, 2025
Anthropic Says AI Copyright Action Too Unwieldy For Class Certification
SAN FRANCISCO — An artificial intelligence copyright class action spans a century, would include more than five million works owned by various people, trusts and other entities and would require the court to decide ownership millions of times over, a company tells a federal judge in California in an opposition to certification. In a separate letter brief, Anthropic PBC tells the court that the plaintiffs were misrepresenting a court’s order and the course and timing of discovery.
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April 22, 2025
Homeowners Accuse Insurers Of ‘Nefarious Conspiracy’ In Suit Arising From Wildfires
LOS ANGELES — California homeowners affected by the Los Angeles wildfires sued insurers in a California court for violations of the state’s Cartwright Act and unfair competition law (UCL), alleging that the insurers participated in a “nefarious conspiracy to eliminate competition between them, and to intentionally and systematically force Plaintiffs to obtain fire insurance from the state’s insurer of last resort.”
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April 22, 2025
En Banc 9th Circuit Finds Jurisdiction Over Shopping App For Cookie Collecting
SAN FRANCISCO — The en banc Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 21 reversed a panel’s ruling and found that personal jurisdiction exists over putative class claims against a payment processing and shopping app accused of violating California privacy and unfair competition laws by concealing that it was using cookies to collect California consumers’ personal data for resale.
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April 22, 2025
U.S. High Court Requests Respondents’ Input On ERISA Meaningful Benchmark Issue
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 21 asked respondents to weigh in on a petition for review of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ 2-1 revival of a putative class action challenging retention of a passively managed Northern Trust Focus Funds suite of target date funds (TDFs) and choice of share classes.
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April 22, 2025
Harriet Carter Website User Appeals Wiretap Ruling To 3rd Circuit
PITTSBURGH — In the wake of a Pennsylvania federal court’s summary judgment ruling that disposed of her state wiretapping claim against Harriet Carter Gifts Inc., a plaintiff filed a notice of appeal to the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals of the ruling that found that she gave her implied consent to a third party’s interception of her communications on the website.
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April 22, 2025
Former Employee Seeks Payment For Mandatory Pre-Shift COVID-19 Screening
CHICAGO — A former employee filed a purported class action against his employer seeking to recover unpaid wages for mandatory pre-shift COVID-19 screening during the pandemic under the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL), the Illinois Wage and Payment Collection Act (IWPCA) and quantum meruit, contending that the time spent screening and awaiting screening was controlled by the employer and necessary to his job and, thus, compensable.
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April 21, 2025
U.S. High Court’s Other ERISA Prohibited Transaction Petition Is Redistributed
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Days after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling concerning the Employee Retirement Income Security Act pleading standard for prohibited transaction claims, a separate review petition concerning a different prohibited transaction dispute on April 21 was distributed for conference for a second time.
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April 21, 2025
High Court Will Hear Arguments On Stay Of Birthright Citizenship EO Injunctions
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order consolidating and deferring until after oral arguments consideration of three applications by the federal government seeking partial stay of nationwide preliminary injunctions in three cases, one of which is a putative class action, that are challenging President Donald J. Trump’s executive order (EO) concerning birthright citizenship.
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April 21, 2025
GM Agrees To $150M Class Settlement In Defective Engine Case
SAN FRANCISCO — General Motors LLC (GM) will provide a $150 million settlement to end an engine defect class case by consumers, according to a motion for preliminary approval filed in a federal court in California; the amount will provide each class member with $4,419 before attorney fees and other expenses are paid, an amount larger than that achieved at an October 2022 trial.
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April 21, 2025
District Court’s Contempt Related Ruling Stayed In Immigrant Removal Class Case
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 18 administratively stayed a trial court’s ruling that probable cause exists to determine that the government’s actions in an immigrant removal class case constitute criminal contempt in order for the appellate court to consider the government’s emergency motion for stay pending appeal or a writ of mandamus.
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April 21, 2025
Consolidated Donation Misuse MDL Against Mormon Church Dismissed With Prejudice
SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge in Utah dismissed with prejudice a consolidated multidistrict litigation accusing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints of misusing donations, finding that the donors’ claims were barred by the statute of limitations and were “not adequately pled.”
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April 21, 2025
Split U.S. High Court Bars Removal Of Putative Class Of Texas Immigrant Detainees
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on April 19 ordered the U.S. government to not remove under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) any member of a putative class of immigrant detainees in Texas until further order by the high court.
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April 21, 2025
Jury Awards $2.36M In ‘Made- In-The-U.S.’ California Tea Class Action Trial
LOS ANGELES — A California federal court jury awarded $2.36 million to a class of Californians who purchased tea from R.C. Bigelow Inc. after the jury found that the defendant violated the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) through unfair and deceptive trade practices, beached its express warranty and made false representations about the tea being made in the United States.
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April 18, 2025
Citing High Court, Judge Dissolves TRO In DOGE Fair Housing Grants Case
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Following U.S. Supreme Court precedent in a similar case, a Massachusetts federal judge dissolved his temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting the federal government from terminating the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP), saying the case belongs in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
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April 18, 2025
Tobacco Surcharge Suit That Is Part Of Recent Wave Survives Dismissal
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Saying in part that there is precedent under which the named plaintiffs “have adequately alleged that Defendant’s tobacco surcharge violated [the Employee Retirement Income Security Act] because it did not offer a retroactive reimbursement,” a Missouri federal judge declined to dismiss a putative class action that is part of a recent wave of similar suits.
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April 18, 2025
$20 Million Global Settlement Of Fortra Software Data Breach MDL Gets Initial OK
MIAMI — The Florida federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation over a 2023 security breach, experienced by users of Fortra LLC’s file-transfer app, granted preliminary approval to a $20 million global settlement that encompasses eight of nine putative class actions filed against the software company, its clients and their customers that provides for payments of up to $5,000 for affected class members.
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April 18, 2025
OnlyFans’ California Profits Create Jurisdiction, Subscribers Tell 9th Circuit
SAN FRANCISCO — Two subscribers of adult website OnlyFans urge the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reverse a California federal judge’s dismissal for lack of jurisdiction of their lawsuit accusing OnlyFans’ foreign owner of unlawful subscription renewals in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL), writing that the website purposefully avails itself of California and makes $400 million in annual revenue from the state.
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April 18, 2025
Pennsylvania Federal Judge Awards Reduced $982,998 In Fees In Denny’s Settlement
PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania federal judge has awarded a plaintiff in a wage and hour class settlement involving Denny’s restaurants $982,998 in attorney fees, reducing the requested amount by 11% for a variety of reasons, including reasonable fees for the Pittsburgh legal market.
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April 17, 2025
$5M Deal Gets Final OK, With Trimmed Awards, In ERISA Fees, Funds Case
PHILADELPHIA — A $5 million class settlement including an agreement to conduct requests for proposals (RFPs) has been granted final approval in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit challenging a multiemployer retirement plan’s fund choices, share classes and record-keeping, but a Pennsylvania federal judge awarded reduced incentive awards and attorney fees of $1,000 and $950,000, respectively, instead of the $8,000 and $1,666,500 requested.