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

Mealey's Class Actions

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.
March 11, 2025
Workday Says AI-Hiring Suit Inappropriate For Collective Action

SAN FRANCISCO — A lawsuit targeting artificial intelligence hiring software involves too many individual questions surrounding applications, qualifications and the plaintiffs and are “dissimilar in virtually all the ways that matter,” Workday Inc. told a federal judge in California in opposing certification as a collective action.
March 11, 2025
Prisoners With Gender Dysphoria File Class Suit Over Gender-Affirming Health Care

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Three prisoners housed in federal facilities in New Jersey, Florida and Minnesota filed a class complaint against President Donald J. Trump and other federal government officials in a federal court in the District of Columbia alleging that a Jan. 20 executive order (EO) that bans gender-affirming health care for those in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
March 11, 2025
Consolidation Bid Yields Coordination Order In ERISA Suits Challenging 2016 Deal

NEW YORK — A New York federal judge declined to consolidate related Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuits challenging the same July 2016 Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) deal but directed that the cases — one filed by plan participants in 2022 and the other filed the U.S. Department of Labor in 2024 — proceed on the same schedule.
March 10, 2025
Company Seeks Exit From Shale Antitrust Case Citing ‘Implausibility’ Of Claims

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Expand Energy Corp., which is a defendant in antitrust multidistrict litigation related to shale oil, has filed a brief in support of a motion to dismiss in New Mexico federal court arguing that the consolidated class complaint should be dismissed because of the “implausibility of Plaintiffs’ allegations” as they relate to claims that Expand participated in a conspiracy with Wall Street investors, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and others to restrict the production of crude oil.
March 10, 2025
2nd Circuit Sets Argument In Appeal Over Timeliness Of ERISA Pension Case

NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has set March 20 oral argument in an appeal seeking revival of a putative class action where all claims in a joint and survivor annuity (JSA) dispute over allegedly outdated mortality tables were ruled time-barred; the appeal has drawn input from amici curiae the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the American Benefits Council, the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) and the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America.
March 07, 2025
Privacy, Biometric Claims Over CapCot Video-Editing App Survive Dismissal

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge largely granted a motion by ByteDance Inc. to dismiss putative class claims over the purported collection of personal data from users of its CapCot video-editing app, finding that a group of the app’s users did not establish claims for unfair competition, unjust enrichment and violation of several federal and California state privacy laws.
March 07, 2025
Final Judgment Entered For $27.5 Million Thomson Reuters Data-Selling Settlement

SAN FRANCISCO — One week after a California federal judge granted final approval to a $27.5 million settlement of a class action over Thomson Reuters Corp.’s online gathering and sale of personally identifying information (PII) of Californians, he issued final judgment in the four-year-old suit, dismissing unjust enrichment and unfair competition claims against the company.
March 07, 2025
Financial Advisers’ Stay, Intervention Bids Fail In Compensation Row

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. financial advisers who said they are unwilling members of a putative class in a compensation dispute were denied permission to intervene after both sides opposed their motion, with the docket showing that a North Carolina federal judge issued an oral order.
March 07, 2025
Final Approval Of $9.8M Settlement Granted In Apparel Company Stock Drop Suit

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval to a settlement of a class action brought by investors against executives of apparel company Sequential Brands Group Inc. and the company’s auditing company, with the company executives agreeing to pay $6.25 million and the auditing company agreeing to pay $3.5 million. The investors alleged the defendants made false and misleading statements regarding the company’s financial well-being, which the investors alleged caused the company’s stock price to drop.