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

Mealey's Class Actions

June 09, 2025
Lenders Waive Response To Mortgagors’ High Court Petition In Appraisal Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rocket Mortgage LLC (formerly known as Quicken and Quicken Loans Inc.) and Amrock LLC (formerly known as Amrock Inc. and Title Source) (collectively, Rocket) on June 6 waived their right to respond to a petition for a writ of certiorari in a case over home appraisals in which mortgagors ask the justices to decide whether a class may be certified “when some members of the proposed class lack any Article III [of the U.S. Constitution] injury.”
June 09, 2025
Student-Athletes’ More Than $2.5B NIL Settlement Granted Final Approval

OAKLAND, Calif. — A names, images and likenesses (NIL) class settlement between student-athletes and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and four conferences that provides $2,576,000,000 in damages and changes to NCAA rules that enable schools to share athletic revenues with Division I student-athletes and eliminate scholarship limits was granted final approval by a federal judge in California on June 6.
June 09, 2025
9th Circuit Institutes Test For ERISA Releases, Reverses As To Named Plaintiffs

SAN FRANCISCO — Saying it is taking the same approach as two sister circuits, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals quoted Vizcaino v. Microsoft Corp. in holding “that releases and waivers under” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “must ‘withstand special scrutiny designed to prevent potential employer or fiduciary abuse’”; it accordingly reversed and remanded summary judgment against the two named plaintiffs in a long-running class action concerning severance benefits.
June 06, 2025
4th Circuit Again Decertifies Marriott Data Breach Classes Without Another Remand

RICHMOND, Va. — Almost two years after it decertified several classes for claims against Marriott International Inc. and its information technology provider related to a massive data breach, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel again decertified the same classes, finding them to be barred under a class action waiver that was part of the hotel chain’s contract with customers.
June 05, 2025
$7.9M Deal Gets Initial OK In ERISA Lawsuit Over Proprietary Funds In 401(k)

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A proposed $7.9 million class settlement in which the named plaintiff estimated that the average gross recovery would be “about $40,000” has won preliminary approval; the Employee Retirement Income Security Act case in Connecticut federal court focuses on alleged underperformance that the plaintiff claims was caused by a hedge fund management company directing all the assets of its 401(k) plan into proprietary hedge and mutual funds using “alternative” strategies.
June 05, 2025
Supreme Court Dismisses As Improvidently Granted Petition Over Uninjured Class

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 5 dismissed as improvidently granted a petition for a writ of certiorari by Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (Labcorp) challenging the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that a class containing uninjured members may be certified; oral arguments in the case were heard April 29.
June 05, 2025
$4.95M Deal Gets Final OK In ERISA Tobacco Surcharge Suit That Preceded Wave

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A Missouri federal judge has granted final approval to the $4.95 million class settlement of a suit that was filed months before a recent wave of similar Employee Retirement Income Security Act challenges to health plans’ tobacco surcharges; the named plaintiff said the total represents “approximately 35% of the tobacco surcharges at issue in the full, six-year look-back window.”
June 05, 2025
Noncitizens Class Challenging Removals To A ‘3rd’ Country Oppose Injunction Stay

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A class of noncitizens who sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. attorney general and the superintendent of a correctional facility challenging a policy or practice of removing members of the class to a country other than the initial or alternative countries identified in immigration proceedings without first providing an opportunity for those individuals to apply for protection from removal filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on June 4 an opposition to the government parties’ application to stay a trial court’s preliminary injunction.
June 05, 2025
$525,000 Settlement Of Data Breach Suit Against Property Manager Gets Initial OK

NEW ORLEANS — A proposed agreement that would settle putative class claims brought by a former tenant against a property manager over a 2021 data breach that he says exposed his personally identifiable information (PII) received preliminary approval from a Louisiana federal judge, who deemed the $525,000 settlement fund to be “within the range of what is reasonable.”
June 04, 2025
Judgment Amended To Add Over $10M In Prejudgment Interest In Insurers’ ACA Dispute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge issued an order granting objecting members of nondispute subclasses’ motion to amend a judgment to include prejudgment interest in a risk-corridor payment class action dispute under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), finding that the equitable award should be based upon the common fund escrow account rate.
June 04, 2025
Judge Refuses To Exclude Experts Retained To Argue For Class Certification

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge denied without prejudice two motions to exclude experts in a putative class action over whether an arts and crafts store falsely advertised discounted sales prices, finding “that at this point in the proceedings,” the testimony is not inadmissible.
June 04, 2025
Investors Urge 9th Circuit Not To Hear Class Certification Issue In Stock Loss Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — A group of investors urged the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals not to grant Wells Fargo & Co.’s petition for permission to appeal a California federal judge’s order granting class certification to the investors in their suit against Wells Fargo and certain executives alleging that news of the company’s practice of using fake interviews to give the impression of complying with internal diversity hiring practices led to a drop in stock value, arguing that the judge properly found that their out-of-pocket event study damages methodology satisfies the necessary requirements.
June 04, 2025
Wiretapping, Data-Sharing Claims Against Eyewear Website Dismissed For Second Time

DALLAS — Almost eight months after a Texas federal judge dismissed a putative class action alleging that an eyewear retailer’s website was sharing customers’ private health information (PHI) with Meta Platforms Inc., the judge dismissed an amended complaint, finding that the plaintiffs still failed to allege that any PHI, in the form of eyewear prescriptions, was among the data that was shared.
June 03, 2025
7th Circuit Won’t Revisit Mandamus Denial In ERISA Mortality Table Transfer Row

CHICAGO — In a one-paragraph June 2 order, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals declined to rehear an unsuccessful mandamus petition over refusal to transfer a putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act case that challenges the use of a 1984 mortality table in pension calculations; among other things, the petitioner argued that the order at issue “deviates from all eleven of its sister circuits and presents a question of exceptional importance that multiple circuits have decided en banc.”
June 03, 2025
Dismissal Of BIPA Suit Denied; Amendment Limiting Damages Is Not Retroactive

CHICAGO — An August 2024 amendment to the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) that limits the amount of damages an individual may recover was a change rather than a clarification and was not retroactive, a federal judge in that state ruled, denying a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction filed by the operators of medical facilities accused by employees of collecting and storing their information.
June 03, 2025
Federal Judge Approves TCPA Class Settlement In Newspaper Subscription Suit

PHILADELPHIA — A Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) settlement that will provide class members with at least $800 each “is in excess of many class-action settlements in cases under the” TCPA, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled, granting final approval of the $450,000 agreement between a telecommunications company and a certified class of individuals who received more than one newspaper subscription phone call in the last four years despite being on the National Do-Not-Call Registry (DNC).
June 03, 2025
Aerospace Engineering Firms’ Settlements Granted Final OK In No-Poaching Suit

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal judge in Connecticut issued a pair of orders granting final approval of approximately $60.5 million in settlements reached in a class case by workers who accuse aerospace engineering firms and executives of conspiring to not solicit, recruit, hire without prior approval or otherwise compete for engineers and other skilled employees and awarding attorney fees, costs and service awards.
June 02, 2025
Prejudgment Interest Denied After Verdict In Tea Labeling Class Suit

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California denied a motion for prejudgment interest filed by a class of tea consumers after a jury returned a verdict in their favor in a case over the labeling on R.C. Bigelow’s tea products, finding that the length of litigation was not the fault of the defendant and rejected settlement offers were not “grounds to warrant prejudgment interest in this case.”
June 02, 2025
Judge Consolidates Class Discovery In Deceptive Marketing Zyn Suits

MIAMI — A Florida federal judge on May 30 granted an unopposed motion by the companies that manufacture and sell Zyn nicotine pouches to consolidate discovery in four pending putative class actions against them for allegedly deceptively marketing the products as nicotine cessation products.
June 02, 2025
U.S. High Court To Decide Appealability Of Order In Forced Labor Class Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court this morning granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the operator of a private immigration detention facility in Colorado that asked the justices in a class suit by detainees alleging forced labor to decide whether interlocutory orders holding that a federal contractor does not meet the requirements under Yearsley v. W.A. Ross Construction Co. for a defense to liability for damages are immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine.
May 30, 2025
9th Circuit Denies Rehearing After Student Loan Class Settlement Standing Ruling

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing en banc filed by a for-profit university after a split panel ruled that that school and two others failed to show that they had standing to challenge a final class settlement approval in a student loan dispute based on their inclusion in a settlement exhibit.
May 30, 2025
Ex-Employees’ Claims Over Duty-Free Shops’ Data Breach Partly Survive Dismissal

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — Negligence and breach of implied contracts brought by two former employees against the operators of airport duty-free shops may proceed, a New York federal judge ruled, while dismissing unjust enrichment and fiduciary duty claims related to a 2023 data breach.
May 30, 2025
U.S. High Court Stays April Order In Class Suit Challenging Immigration Changes

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on May 30 granted an application by the federal government and stayed an April order by a trial court in Massachusetts that granted temporary relief on a classwide basis in a case alleging that changes to immigration policies via President Donald J. Trump’s Jan. 20 executive orders (EOs) and a memorandum issued the same day by the acting secretary of Homeland Security have dismantled “legally established and Congressionally authorized pathways to the United States.”
May 30, 2025
Judgment Partly Granted To Meta, App Maker In Ovulation App Privacy Class Action

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge delivered a mixed summary judgment ruling to Meta Platforms Inc. and Flo Health Inc., as he partly dismissed privacy and consumer protection claims in a class action over allegations that users’ personally identifiable information (PII) was shared when they used the Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker app.
May 30, 2025
Nonprofits Whose Grants Were Canceled Sue DOJ, Seek Preliminary Injunction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Five justice-related nonprofit organizations have filed a civil complaint against the U.S. Justice Department and related officials saying they violated the Administrative Procedure Act and constitutional guarantees of due process by canceling, without notice or explanation, more than 370 agreements and contracts with private organizations worth more than $820 million.