Class Actions Brief Blog

Think about the last class-action notice that you received. You might have thought, “This is sweet. I didn’t know anything was wrong with my dog food, but I can get $50 if I just fill out this form.”

There is a reason that we receive these mailings without having made a claim or knowing that anything is wrong: federal district courts routinely certify classes that include future claimants.

In a recent decision, however, a federal appellate court concluded that, in the notable circumstances of that case, the law barred certification of a class of future claimants.

What ...

Limiting exposure to future claims is a crucial aspect of settling class action litigation. A recent opinion out of the Northern District of Georgia serves as a reminder that the definitions of settlement classes and released claims in class action settlement agreements warrant close attention.

First, the background. In 2015, a customer filed a putative class action against LGE Community Credit Union, alleging that LGE improperly assessed overdraft fees based on accounts’ available balances instead of customers’ ledger balances, in violation of LGE’s standard member ...

Since March of this year, at least four purported class action lawsuits have been filed against universities, their affiliated athletic organizations, and the alleged operators of their athletic team websites, Sidearm Sports LLC and Learfield Communications LLC.

These cases allege that websites using Meta (Facebook) Pixel and other technology to monitor website traffic or activity violate the federal Video Privacy Protection Act and state and federal wiretapping statutes. An uptick of class action litigation under the VPPA began in 2022 with cases brought against a wide range ...

Last month, the D.C. Circuit deepened a circuit split on the issue of fail-safe classes. The decision, In re White, 64 F.4th 302 (D.C. Cir. 2023), rejected a categorical rule against all fail-safe classes in favor of a case-by-case approach rooted in the text of the federal rules. With this ruling, the D.C. Circuit called for a return to the fundamentals of Rule 23 in the analysis of fail-safe classes.

A fail-safe class is one in which membership can’t be determined until the case is resolved on the merits. Whether someone qualifies as a member of a fail-safe class depends on whether they ...

Statutes defining minimum damages per violation, such as many consumer protection laws, often inspire class actions. Plaintiffs argue that certification of such classes is easier because they avoid issues of individualized damages. But in the aggregate, these damages can become immense. As a recent case from the Ninth Circuit shows, however, the Constitution places outer limits on the damages available in these class actions.

Due Process Limits on Aggregate Statutory Damages

Wakefield v. ViSalus Inc., 51 F.4th 1109 (9th Cir. 2022) involved a class action under the Telephone ...

It is no secret that many businesses minimize risk by requiring arbitration of disputes on an individual basis. The exposure created by a single claim pales next to that presented by a class claim, asserted under Rule 23, on behalf of numerous individuals. To implement this mitigation strategy, businesses typically include in their agreements an arbitration provision, coupled with a waiver of the right to bring a class or collective action.

The United States Supreme Court has generally validated this approach. Even when the cost of asserting an individual statutory claim far ...

The Sixth Circuit appears poised to become the fourth federal court of appeals to reject the use of the “juridical link” doctrine as a means to establish Article III standing in a class action. The doctrine, a seldom-used class action legal concept, recognizes an exception to the ordinary Article III standing requirements in instances in which “all defendants are juridically related in a manner that suggests a single resolution of the dispute would be expeditious.” Thompson v. Bd. of Educ. of Romeo Cmty, Sch., 709 F.2d 1200, 1204-05 (6th Cir. 1983).

A “juridical ...

Rule 23 does not explicitly require that a court be able to determine who the members are before certifying a class. But judges have found implicit in the Rule a requirement that membership in a defined class be “ascertainable” or “definite.” For example, a court cannot address the numerosity requirement or provide effective relief to the class without first determining who the members of a class are.

In recent years, the federal appellate courts have adopted two approaches to addressing ascertainability. The first approach, adopted by the First, Third, Fourth, and Sixth ...

Class actions have long been difficult to certify in fraud cases.  But a recent district court decision in California takes a new approach that would make class certification in fraud cases the norm.  That decision is now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, where Robinson Bradshaw filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America.  Our brief highlights the flaws in the district court’s decision and the damage that its approach to class certification would inflict on American businesses and the national economy.  This post summarizes our brief.

In DZ ...

In Snyder-Hill v. Ohio State Univ., the Sixth Circuit, in a 2-to-1 decision, resurrected Title IX claims by more than 100 alleged victims who asserted that they were abused decades ago by a former Ohio State athletic department physician. The issue before the court was whether the district court correctly applied the statute of limitations to dismiss victims’ Title IX claims against Ohio State. The court sided with plaintiffs, holding that, although the abuse that formed the basis of their complaint occurred between 1978 and 1998, the claims did not accrue until 2018, when Ohio ...