Class Actions Brief Blog

As we’ve discussed on the blog before, the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) expands federal subject matter jurisdiction over large-scale class actions. Federal courts have jurisdiction under CAFA if (1) the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million, (2) there are more than 100 putative class members, and (3) any member of the putative class is a citizen of a state different from any defendant. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2).

The third requirement for CAFA jurisdiction—that any class member is a citizen of a different state from any defendant—is known as “minimal diversity.” ...

Class certification can be a key battleground in class actions. Successful certification of a class often gives plaintiffs leverage in a case, while defendants that successfully oppose class certification may significantly limit or eliminate their potential liability.

Parties often rely on experts to support their class certification arguments, particularly where large data sets must be analyzed to identify members of the proposed class or to analyze alleged damages. The expert testimony can assist the fact finder in evaluating the relevant evidence.

To ensure that an ...

In recent years, defendants in data breach class action lawsuits filed in the state courts in North Carolina have succeeded in designating these disputes to the North Carolina Business Court. The Business Court has accepted data breach cases involving ransomware attacks, phishing email incidents and tracking technology cases. This post reviews these cases, as well as a recent decision where the Business Court rejected designation, to provide an overview of the Court’s approach to determining which cases will qualify.

To request designation as a “mandatory complex business ...

Since the Supreme Court’s opinion in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021), litigants and courts alike have struggled to determine whether certain intangible harms are “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent” such that a plaintiff has standing to sue. Indeed, this blog has previously analyzed cases addressing that question here and here.

The Fourth Circuit weighed in recently, holding that a subset of plaintiffs whose drivers’ license numbers were leaked and published online had standing to sue, but the plaintiffs whose numbers were leaked and ...

A recent North Carolina Supreme Court decision, Jackson v. Home Depot U.S.A. Inc., 919 S.E.2d 199 (N.C. 2025), highlights the importance of choice of law issues underlying putative class actions.

Plaintiff bought a home water treatment system from Carolina Water Systems while the company was offering rebates if customers made referrals. Carolina Water Systems was the authorized provider for these treatment systems through Home Depot in North and South Carolina. After plaintiff was sued by his credit card company to collect the amount owed for his system installation, plaintiff ...

This blog often focuses on traditional, opt-out class actions brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, but there is another common form of mass action: collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. More than 5,000 collective action lawsuits are filed each year under the FLSA and ADEA, making those claims among the most popular forms of mass action and worthy of continued attention.

The FLSA and ADEA allow for aggregate litigation by providing that claims can be brought by employees on behalf of themselves and “other ...

In Labcorp v. Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to decide if a federal court can certify a class that includes members who lack any Article III injury.  But as we discussed last month, the oral argument suggested that a procedural snag would stop the Court from deciding that question.

Sure enough, the Court has now decided not to decide the class-action question in Labcorp.  In a one-sentence order issued yesterday, June 5, the Court dismissed its review of the case as improvidently granted.  That order leaves the Ninth Circuit decision in Labcorp intact and the legal issue that has ...

We’ve written previously about courts’ differing approaches to ascertainability — an implicit requirement under Rule 23 that class members must be identifiable. A pending petition for certiorari in Career Counseling Inc. v. Amerifactors Financial Group LLC, No. 24-86 (2024), asks the Supreme Court to resolve some of these differences.

The petition originates with a District of South Carolina order denying class certification in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case. Career Counseling, a staffing services company, filed a putative class action for alleged TCPA ...

A few months ago, we wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant review in Labcorp v. Davis.  As we noted at the time, Labcorp raises a long-debated question of class-action law:  Can a federal court certify a class that includes members who lack any Article III injury?  As we also noted, the Supreme Court was expected to answer this question almost a decade ago in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, but ultimately did not resolve it.

The wait may go on.  The Supreme Court held oral argument in Labcorp on April 29.  After more than two hours of discussion, most of the Justices appeared to ...

A recent Fourth Circuit decision extends the trend of cases refusing to use federal statutes to invalidate arbitration agreements waiving the right to bring class claims in federal court.

The statute at issue in Espin v. Citibank N.A., 126 F.4th 1010 (4th Cir. 2025)—the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (“SCRA”)—provides special legal protections to active-duty members of the military, including a cap on the interest rate they may be charged on credit cards. The plaintiffs were former servicemembers who alleged that Citibank violated SCRA by charging them market-rate ...