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

Mealey's Class Actions

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NEW YORK — Saying in an April 3 nonprecedential summary order that the lower court “was permitted to find that the pension projection statements were incorporated by reference, but it erred in relying on the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the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated dismissal of a joint and survivor annuity (JSA) dispute over allegedly outdated mortality tables.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.
April 03, 2025
After Bench Trial In ESOP Deal Row, Illinois Federal Judge Rules For Defendants

CHICAGO — Just over two years after the conclusion of a 14-day bench trial in a class action challenging a $265 million employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) deal, an Illinois federal judge ruled for the defendants on all remaining counts.
April 03, 2025
Final Approval Of Settlement Of Barclays’ Accidental Securities Sales Suit Granted

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval to a $19.5 million settlement of a putative class action complaint filed over how Barclays PLC and Barclays Bank PLC (collectively, Barclays) and certain of their executives responded to the accidental sale of unregistered securities.
April 03, 2025
7th Circuit Rejects Challenges To $8M Class Settlement In Chicken Antitrust Case

CHICAGO — Class members in an antitrust case accusing broiler sellers of fixing the prices for chicken who missed the deadline for excluding themselves and are now part of a more than $8 million settlement with Simmons Foods Inc. and Simmons Prepared Foods Inc. (together, Simmons) failed to show that the settlement can’t cover bid-rigging theories or that the settlement amount is too small, a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, affirming a trial court’s final approval of the agreement.
April 03, 2025
Class To High Court: Question On Certification Should Be Dismissed Or Affirmed

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A question on whether a class containing uninjured members may be certified should be dismissed as improvidently granted or affirmed, a class of visually impaired consumers argue in their respondent brief filed in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal over the accessibility of kiosks; but if it is considered, the justices should find that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) “requires courts to ask whether there is an administratively feasible way to identify uninjured members and bar them from recovery,” the consumers argue.
April 02, 2025
Veterans Groups File 3 Amicus Briefs In U.S. High Court Veterans’ Pay Class Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Legal representation and advocacy groups for veterans filed three amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the position of a class of veterans who are arguing that settlements of combat-related special compensation (CRSC) requests are controlled by the statute that directs secretaries of the various military branches to pay CRSC to eligible veterans and not the Barring Act.
April 02, 2025
Aerospace Parts Maker Granted Extension To Respond To 6 Class Suits Over Explosion

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania issued separate orders in six putative class suits granting an aerospace parts manufacturer an extension in each case to respond to the complaints by individuals and businesses that allege that they were negatively impacted by a Feb. 17 fire and explosion at a suburban Philadelphia plant.
April 02, 2025
Class Says Fracking Companies Conspired To Fix Gas Prices, Violating Antitrust Law

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A man filed a putative class action in New Mexico federal court against multiple parties involved in hydraulic fracturing operations, contending that they have violated the Sherman Act and Missouri antitrust law because they engaged in a conspiracy to “coordinate, and ultimately constrain, domestic shale oil production, which has had the effect of fixing, raising, and maintaining the price of crude oil, and thereby the price paid by end-users of oil-derivative products, including but not limited to gasoline.”
April 02, 2025
Only WARN Act Claims Survive Summary Judgment In Pandemic Hotel Closure Class Suit

NEW YORK — Former employees of a New York City Four Seasons hotel who were furloughed during the coronavirus pandemic may proceed in their class case only with federal and state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act claims against the defendant that was their employer of record, a federal judge in New York ruled, partially granting and partially denying the defendants’ motions for summary judgment.
April 02, 2025
$4M Class Settlement Gets Initial OK In Lawsuit Over ESOP Deal

PEORIA, Ill. — An Illinois federal judge has granted preliminary approval to a settlement that would resolve an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) lawsuit on a class basis for $4 million; the development came as briefing remains suspended in an interlocutory appeal concerning whether the plaintiff can pursue planwide relief in a representative capacity given that class certification was denied due to intraclass conflict.
April 02, 2025
Sugarcane Companies Accused Of Deceiving Consumers With ‘Greenwashing’ Claims

SAN FRANCISCO — A consumer filed a putative class action in California federal court against a sugarcane grower and its parent company alleging that they have deceptively marketed their sugar as environmentally friendly in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) while in fact continuing to use sugarcane harvesting practices the consumer says “poison people and the planet.”
April 01, 2025
Opt-Out Class Certified For 3 Issues In Multiemployer Health Plan ERISA Case

CHICAGO — Saying in part that “common questions predominate over questions of liability but subside over questions of damages,” an Illinois federal judge on March 31 granted certification of an opt-out class “for only the issues of liability and injunctive relief, but not monetary damages” in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case against the trustees of a nationwide multiemployer health plan over expenses and allocations.
April 01, 2025
Consumer Claims Over Watery ‘Buttery Spread’ Dismissed By Judge

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California federal judge dismissed a putative class action lawsuit accusing a butter alternative maker of deceiving consumers by manufacturing the product with higher-than-normal quantities of water and flaxseed oil, which apparently led to thousands of consumer complaints and some sales of “rancid” products, finding that the plaintiff failed to sufficiently allege a violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws.
April 01, 2025
Immigrant Removal Class Seeks Denial Of Government’s Application From High Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An application to vacate a temporary restraining order (TRO) and for administrative stay filed by the United States, President Donald J. Trump and other federal government officials and agencies in a class case over the removal of immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) should be denied by the U.S. Supreme Court as the TRO is not an appealable order and the federal government has not shown harm, the provisionally certified immigrant class argues in its April 1 opposition.
April 01, 2025
Fan Waives Response To NBA’s Certiorari Petition Over Privacy Of Online Viewing

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man who sued the National Basketball Association (NBA) for sharing his nba.com video-viewing history with Facebook and had the dismissal of his putative class claim under the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA) reversed by the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opted against responding to the NBA’s petition for certiorari over the matter, in which it asked the U.S. Supreme Court to answer questions regarding harm and standing under the act (National Basketball Association v. Michael Salazar, No. 24-994, U.S. Sup.).
April 01, 2025
Expert Can Opine On Class Certification Processes In TCPA Case, Judge Says

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge deemed testimony of an expert retained in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) case admissible in opining on how to provide notice to potential class members.
April 01, 2025
6th Circuit Sets Argument In 2 ERISA Pension Appeals Concerning Mortality Tables

CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has scheduled oral argument for May 8 in two appeals that involve use of decades-old mortality tables and whether part of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act requires “reasonable assumptions” in calculating certain pension benefits.
March 31, 2025
$7.5M Beyond Meat Protein Content Class Settlement Approved

CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois granted final approval of a $7.5 million class settlement between Beyond Meat Inc. and consumers who alleged that the plant-based meat substitute company inflated protein content and overstated the quality of the protein in its products.
March 31, 2025
Negligence Claim Dismissed From Class Suit Over Pa. Borough’s Towing Of Cars

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania borough accused in a putative class suit of towing, impounding and disposing of vehicles without providing owners with basic due process protections of a notice and hearing has immunity from the suit’s negligence claim only, a federal judge in that state ruled, declining to dismiss the remaining pending claims.
March 31, 2025
Wash. Noncitizen Resident’s Class Suit Alleges Bond Denials By Immigration Judges

SEATTLE — A Washington resident who is a noncitizen and is being detained at the Northwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center (NWIPC) filed a class complaint in a federal court in that state alleging that “a unique, draconian policy adopted by immigration judges (IJs) at the Tacoma Immigration Court” prolongs the detentions of him an others as all bond requests are denied.