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

Mealey's Class Actions

April 09, 2025
U.S. High Court Declines To Hear Appeal Of Detainee Wage Collective, Class Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a Maryland county seeking a ruling on “[w]hether inmates working in furtherance of public works projects for the government charged with their custody and care” are employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
April 09, 2025
Federal Judge Approves Lyft Shareholder Derivative Settlement Requiring Reforms

OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted final approval to a settlement in a shareholder derivative class action brought against Lyft Inc., under which the company agrees to implement several safety reforms.
April 09, 2025
Google, Class Plaintiffs Settle 14-Year-Old AdWords Suit For $100M

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A consumer and his company representing two certified classes of advertisers who claim that Google LLC misrepresented the benefits of its AdWords advertising service have moved in California federal court for preliminary approval of a $100 million settlement to claims against Google first filed in 2011 and say their attorneys will seek a 33% attorney fees award.
April 09, 2025
7th Circuit Revives MeTV VPPA Suit, Finds Website Users Are ‘Subscribers’

CHICAGO — Reversing a trial court’s dismissal of a Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) putative class claim over the operator of MeTV sharing website users’ online viewing histories with Facebook, a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel concluded that the plaintiffs qualify as “subscribers” or “consumers” under the act because they provided something of value — their personally identifiable information (PII) — in exchange for a subscription to the website.
April 09, 2025
Federal Judge Grants Final Approval Of $433.5M Securities Fraud Settlement

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York has granted final approval of a $433.5 million settlement to end a securities fraud class action brought by investors against a Cayman Islands corporation headquartered in Hangzhou, China, and current and former executives for allegedly violating federal securities laws by making misrepresentations regarding the initial public offering of another company in which the defendant company owned a 33% equity interest and not disclosing material facts surrounding an investigation by Chinese regulators into allegedly illegal merchant exclusivity practices.
April 09, 2025
Harriet Carter Website User Had ‘Constructive Notice’ Of Interception, Judge Rules

PITTSBURGH — Even though a consumer opted not to review the privacy statement on Harriet Carter Gifts Inc.’s website, a Pennsylvania federal judge found that she gave her implied consent to a third party’s interception of her communications because the practice was fully disclosed in the statement.
April 08, 2025
Montana City Sues 3M, Others For Making Firefighting Gear With PFAS

BUTTE, Mont. — A municipality in Montana has filed a class action against 3M Co., DuPont de Nemours Inc. and others in Montana federal court seeking compensatory and punitive damages because they made what is called “turnout gear” for firefighters that contained per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which the plaintiff says is causing firefighters to develop cancer “at an alarming rate higher than the general population.”
April 08, 2025
Split U.S. High Court Vacates TRO Orders In Immigrant Removal Class Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on April 7 in a per curiam opinion vacated a trial court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) and an order extending the TRO issued in a class case over the removal of immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), declining to reach the argument as to whether the immigrants in question fall under the AEA but opining that their 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 08, 2025
Los Angeles Seeks Review Of Summary Judgment Reversal In Parking Fine Class Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel erred when it reversed summary judgment for Los Angeles in a putative class complaint challenging the city’s parking fee and late payment penalty, the city argues in its petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide a government’s burden of proof when defending itself against an excessive fines claim.
April 07, 2025
Judge Handles Exclusion Bids, Denies Summary Judgment In Excessive Fee Case

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A class action over a retirement plan’s record-keeping fees and share classes is progressing toward a bench trial after a North Carolina federal judge granted two of the defendant’s three reliability challenges as to expert opinions and then cited competing expert opinions in denying summary judgment.
April 07, 2025
1 Settlement OK’d In MOVEit Data Breach MDL; Attorney Fees Sought In Another

BOSTON — The day after a Massachusetts federal judge granted final approval to a $2.8 million settlement with a health care billing firm that is one of the defendants in a multidistrict litigation over a 2023 ransomware attack that affected users of the MOVEit file-transfer app, the lead defendant in another component suit in the MDL, which had a $9.95 million settlement preliminarily approved in September, on April 4 filed a motion for attorney fees.
April 07, 2025
Citing ‘Too Late’ Arguments, 2nd Circuit Affirms Residual Annuities Ruling

NEW YORK — Saying in an unpublished April 4 summary order that the trial court correctly applied the law-of-the-case doctrine in a long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over residual annuities, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld entry of a revised final judgment; the appeal concerned a preretirement mortality discount (PRMD) and interest rate for projecting forward employee contributions.
April 07, 2025
More Than $12M In Attorney Fees, Expenses Awarded After Apple Gift Card Settlement

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge in California, over objections by Apple Inc. and Apple Value Services LLC (together, Apple), granted approval of $11.65 million in attorney fees and more than $500,000 in expenses sought by the plaintiffs and class counsel as part of a $35 million settlement in a case over an alleged iTunes gift card scam.
April 07, 2025
Pa. Voter Files Class Suit Over Promised Payments For America PAC Petition Referrals

PHILADELPHIA — America PAC, Group America LLC and Elon Musk violated the Pennsylvania law when they failed to fulfill offers of payments to Pennsylvania voters who signed or referred others to sign America PAC’s petition supporting the First and Second amendments to the U.S. Constitution, a Pennsylvania voter and canvasser alleges in a class complaint filed in a federal court in that state.
April 04, 2025
ERISA Meaningful Benchmark Issue Is Focus Of U.S. High Court Review Petition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Noting that their unsuccessful petition for en banc rehearing of the 2-1 decision was supported by six amici curiae, a retirement plan sponsor and related petitioners asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ revival of a putative class action concerning retention of a passively managed Northern Trust Focus Funds suite of target date funds (TDFs) and choice of share classes.
April 04, 2025
Judge Approves $15 Million Settlement Of Cash App Data Breach Class Action

SAN FRANCISCO — Almost 10 months after a California federal judge preliminarily approved a $15 million settlement of a consolidated class action against the owners of Cash App over a pair of data breaches that exposed users’ personally identifiable information (PII) and account data, the judge granted the named plaintiffs’ motion for final approval, settling 16 claims, including negligence, fraud, invasion of privacy and unfair competition.
April 03, 2025
AI Copyright Plaintiffs Ask Judge To Confirm Extension After Discovery Breach

SAN FRANCISCO — Artificial intelligence copyright plaintiffs on April 2 asked a federal judge in California to enforce a recent ruling granting more time to respond to a summary judgment motion as result of the violation of a discovery agreement, saying the failure to turn over what the court already recognized as relevant evidence and its broad privilege claims are making responding “burdensome.”
April 04, 2025
Judge Nixes Claims In Case Over Heavy Metals In Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate

SAN DIEGO — A federal judge in California has granted summary judgment to Trader Joe’s Co. on class claims that its dark chocolate products contain lead and other heavy metals, ruling that information on the presence of heavy metals in chocolate has been “reasonably obtainable, easily discoverable, and available” for many years; therefore, the judge was “not persuaded” that the plaintiffs had created a genuine issue of material fact.
April 04, 2025
Securities Suit Over After-Acquisition Statements Dismissed For Lack Of Scienter

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York dismissed a suit against a virtual health care services provider regarding alleged misstatements the company and its executives made after its $18.5 billion merger with another health care company, finding that the investors who brought the suit had not adequately pleaded scienter.
April 03, 2025
Class Allegations, Most Parts Of Claims Survive In ERISA Benefit Statements Case

LOS ANGELES — Resolving two motions filed by the remaining defendant in a pension benefit statements case that is on its second remand from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a California federal judge on April 2 declined to strike putative class allegations and partly denied dismissal.
April 03, 2025
2nd Circuit Vacates Ruling That ERISA Claims In Pension Row Were Untimely

NEW YORK — Saying in an April 3 nonprecedential summary order that the lower court “was permitted to find that the pension projection statements were incorporated by reference, but it erred in relying on the accuracy of the dates in those statements without providing the parties with the opportunity to submit additional materials,” the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated dismissal of a joint and survivor annuity (JSA) dispute over allegedly outdated mortality tables.
April 03, 2025
Class Representative Seeks $73M Judgment Against Company For Fake Reviews

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A plaintiff representing a certified class of consumers who claim that they were deceived by a Chinese manufacturer-owned company’s practice of faking reviews on Amazon.com to sell shoddy electronics in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws filed a motion in California federal court for default judgment following the withdrawal from proceedings by the defendant.
April 03, 2025
6th Circuit Says Fracking Operator Underpaid Royalties, Affirms $10M Award

CINCINNATI — A panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 2 affirmed a lower court’s ruling that awarded royalty owners $10 million against a hydraulic fracturing operator for the underpayment of royalties, ruling that, under the contract, the fracking company cannot deduct the costs of “processing” and “fractionation” from the royalties they pay landowners.
April 03, 2025
Amici Support Auto Insurers In U.S. High Court Dispute Over Class Decertification

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association and the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, as well as the Washington Legal Foundation, filed amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of automobile insurers, challenging a majority of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ conclusion that a lower court abused its discretion when it decertified a negotiation class because the insureds established that “injury could be calculated on a class-wide basis.”
April 03, 2025
Reversing Dismissal, 9th Circuit Lets ERISA Excessive Fee Plaintiff Try Again

PASADENA, Calif. — Ruling in an unpublished April 2 memorandum disposition that dismissal of an Employee Retirement Income Security Act challenge to a retirement plan’s fees and funds for lack of standing should have been without prejudice, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed and remanded.