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

Mealey's Class Actions

April 17, 2025
Colorado High Court: Discovery Sought In Hospital Lien Class Suit Isn’t Relevant

DENVER — In its second time considering a trial court’s order compelling discovery responses from an accident victim, the Colorado Supreme Court determined that the items sought by a hospital operator were not relevant to the plaintiff’s class claims under Colorado’s hospital lien statute and were not proportional to the needs of the case.
April 17, 2025
Final Approval Granted To $4.75M Plus Bitcoin Settlement In Crypto Mining Suit

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York gave final approval to a settlement in which a cryptocurrency mining company agreed to pay $4.75 million in cash and the U.S. dollar equivalent of 25 bitcoin to settle a suit brought against it, certain executives and underwriters, by shareholders who alleged that the value of the company’s stock dropped after its initial public offering because it made misstatements and omissions in its offering statements in violation of the Securities Act of 1933.
April 17, 2025
Defendant Seeks Immediate Appeal After PRT Challenge Survives Dismissal

GREENBELT, Md. — Requesting that denial of its dismissal motion be certified for immediate interlocutory appeal in a putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs), Lockheed Martin Corp. told a Maryland federal court that a sister court’s contradictory ruling highlights the need for review by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
April 17, 2025
U.S. High Court Reverses 2nd Circuit On ERISA Prohibited Transaction Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Issuing a unanimous reversal and accompanying concurrence in a dispute concerning what is necessary to state an Employee Retirement Income Security Act prohibited transaction claim involving a service provider, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 17 ruled that a certain exemption is not a claim element that a plaintiff must negate but rather an affirmative defense for which the burden falls on the defendant.
April 17, 2025
Judge Declines To Reconsider Opinion In Class Action Against Crypto Platform

NEWARK, N.J. — A federal judge denied a cryptocurrency platform’s motion for reconsideration of his opinion and order mostly denying its motion to dismiss a putative class action brought by investors alleging that the company and several of its executives and directors misrepresented material aspects of the platform’s business, holding that he did not overlook any legal issue when issuing the opinion.
April 17, 2025
Government Appeals Criminal Contempt Probable Cause Ruling In Removal Class Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government filed a notice of appeal on April 16 immediately following a ruling by a federal judge in the District of Columbia that probable cause exists to determine that the government’s actions in an immigrant removal class case constitute criminal contempt.
April 17, 2025
Plaintiffs Lack DUFTA Standing, Insurance Holding Company Says In Delaware Court

WILMINGTON, Del. — Arguing that the plaintiffs in a putative class suit lack standing to bring a Delaware Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (DUFTA) claim, an insurance holding company and its affiliates seek summary judgment in the Delaware Chancery Court over an alleged scheme to strip capital from an insurance subsidiary on which many policyholders depend for long-term care (LTC) disability benefits.
April 17, 2025
$195,000 Class Deal Gets Final OK In Suit Over Allegedly Fraudulent Policies

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Noting the absence of objections and that “the average class member payment will be $467.77, and the highest payment will be $5,204.40,” a California federal judge granted final approval to a $195,000 class settlement that resolves a suit over allegedly counterfeited insurance policies sold through a captive reinsurance arrangement.
April 16, 2025
Driver’s License Swiping Row Remanded To Oregon Court Without Attorney Fees Award

PORTLAND, Ore. — A putative class action over a gas station chain’s practice of swiping customers’ driver’s licenses for age-restricted purchases was remanded to state court, with an Oregon federal judge fully adopting a magistrate’s recommendation to grant the plaintiff’s motion to remand for lack of standing.
April 16, 2025
Federal Judge Dismisses Securities Suit Against Cybersecurity Company

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California dismissed investors’ putative class action complaint against a cybersecurity company and its executives for allegedly violating federal securities laws by making materially false or misleading statements about the company’s financials, finding that the investors failed to state a claim.
April 16, 2025
Apple Says Smartwatch PFAS Plaintiffs Fail To State Injury In Fact, Seeks Dismissal

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Inc. has filed a motion to dismiss a putative class action in California federal court for lack of standing, arguing that the plaintiffs who sued the company claiming that Apple’s smartwatch bands contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) do not allege an injury in fact.
April 15, 2025
Harm From Mattress Maker’s Strike-Through Pricing Unclear, Magistrate Judge Says

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California federal magistrate judge recommended granting a mattress manufacturer’s motion to dismiss a putative class action lawsuit against it for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws, writing that the plaintiff sufficiently alleged that she was deceived by “strike-through reference pricing” but failed to plead that she suffered damages as a result.
April 15, 2025
7th Circuit Denies Petition Over Refusal To Transfer ERISA Mortality Table Row

CHICAGO — Citing a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a mandamus petition concerning denial of a motion to transfer a putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act case challenging pension calculations that used a mortality table from 1984.
April 15, 2025
Effective Vindication Rule Is Focus Of ERISA Imprudence Appeal In 9th Circuit

SAN FRANCISCO — In separate briefs, a former 401(k) participant and amicus curiae organization Public Justice urge the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to affirm that a nonseverable arbitration provision is void because it contains a class, collective and representative action waiver that they say prevents effective vindication of plan participants’ substantive right under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
April 14, 2025
Dismissal Bid Fought In Dispute Over Disability Policy ‘Age 65’ Language

PHOENIX — Arguing in part that the defendants’ “desired interpretation runs counter to the well-pleaded facts, the parties’ expectations, any reasonable consumer’s expectations, and decisional law,” a plaintiff on April 11 urged an Arizona federal court to deny dismissal of his putative class complaint over whether certain individual long-term disability (LTD) benefits must be paid through eligible insureds’ 65th birthdays.
April 14, 2025
Federal Judge Rules GoDaddy TCPA Class Settlement Ruling Is Appealable

MOBILE, Ala. — A February order declining enforcement of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class settlement must be appealable as the decision involved a controlling question of law, “‘substantial’” differences of opinion exist and “‘immediate appeal may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation,’” a federal judge in Alabama ruled, quoting from 28 U.S. Code Section 1292(b).
April 14, 2025
University Of Oregon Title IX Class Suit By Female Athletes Survives Nearly Intact

EUGENE, Ore. — An Oregon federal judge has left largely intact a class action alleging that the University of Oregon violated Title IX by depriving members of the school’s women’s beach volleyball and rowing teams of scholarships, support and facilities compared to the men’s football team.
April 11, 2025
Appeals Court Revives 2 BIPA Suits Over Nursing Homes’ Biometric Timeclocks

MT. VERNON, Ill. — In a pair of almost identical unpublished opinions, a Fifth District Appellate Court of Illinois panel reversed a trial court’s dismissal of two putative class actions by former employees alleging violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) via nursing facilities’ use of biometric timeclocks.
April 11, 2025
Consolidated Suit Over Medical Device Firm’s Data Breach Partly Dismissed

BOSTON — A Massachusetts federal judge partly granted a medical device manufacturer’s motion to dismiss putative class claims against it stemming from a data breach, disposing of a fiduciary duty claim and several state law consumer protection claims, while largely allowing negligence, unjust enrichment and implied contract claims to proceed.
April 11, 2025
Illinois Genetic Privacy Act Does Not Apply To Life Insurance, Judge Rules

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — The Illinois Genetic Privacy Act (GIPA) “does not apply to the underwriting practices concerning life insurance policies,” an Illinois federal judge found, granting an insurer’s motion to dismiss a putative class claim under GIPA brought against it by a woman who claimed that she was denied a life insurance policy based on information she provided about her family’s medical history.
April 11, 2025
9th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Securities Case Against Gaming Company

PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the dismissal of a pension fund’s suit alleging that a gaming company falsely inflated its share price, finding that the pension fund failed to adequately plead its securities claims.
April 10, 2025
2 TROs, 1 Class Certification Granted In Cases Challenging AEA Immigrant Removals

Two temporary restraining orders and one class certification order were granted April 9 by federal judges in Texas and New York in two cases brought by immigrant detainees being held in those jurisdictions who are challenging their removals from the United Staes under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA); the habeas corpus filings by the immigrants and subsequent orders were all filed within two days after a divided U.S. Supreme Court vacated a temporary restraining order (TRO) and provisional class certification granted to the immigrants by a federal judge in the District of Columbia and ruled that the immigrants’ claims for relief “fall within the ‘core’ of the writ of habeas corpus and thus must be brought in habeas” and that the proper “venue lies in the district of confinement.”
April 10, 2025
Class Suit Against OnlyFans Over ‘Chatter’ Scheme May Proceed Anonymously

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge on April 9 declined to dismiss putative class claims brought by California subscribers of adult website OnlyFans for an alleged “chatter scheme” in which they were allegedly deceived into paying to communicate with adult content creators, but instead were connected to “professional chatters,” and said the plaintiffs may proceed anonymously to avoid the risk of embarrassment from revealing private messages discussing their “sexual interests.”
April 10, 2025
University Sued Over Lax Data Security, Delay In Breach Notification

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A university that took more than a year to notify affected individuals that their personally identifiable information (PII) was compromised in a data breach was hit with a putative class complaint in Tennessee federal court, with a prospective student alleging negligence and invasion of privacy.
April 09, 2025
Class Certification Bid Fails In ERISA Early Retirement Equivalence Case

MINNEAPOLIS — Plaintiffs who allege that early retirement benefits provided by their pension plan violate an Employee Retirement Income Security Act actuarial equivalence requirement saw their motion for class certification denied, with a Minnesota federal judge concluding that the proposed class had commonality and typicality problems.