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Mealey's Class Actions

  • February 05, 2025

    FBI Workers Involved In Trump Cases File 2 Suits To Keep Identities Private

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two complaints, one of which is a putative class action, and two motions for temporary restraining orders (TROs) were filed Feb. 4 by current and former employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association (FBIAA) in a federal court in the District of Columbia seeking to stop the publication or dissemination of a list allegedly being compiled of FBI employees who were involved in investigating two events involving President Donald J. Trump; the complaints allege that releasing the workers’ identifies will violate their privacy rights and put them at risk of retribution.

  • February 04, 2025

    $5.9M Class Deal To Resolve Suit Against ESOP Trustee Wins Initial Approval

    CHICAGO — An Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action asserting claims against the former trustee of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) would be resolved under a $5.9 million class settlement that an Illinois federal judge has preliminarily approved.

  • February 04, 2025

    4th Circuit Sends Most Of Servicemembers’ Credit Card Rates Claims To Arbitration

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s order that the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) overrode arbitration agreements and permitted former servicemembers to proceed with a class complaint over civilian interest rate charges on credit card balances accrued while servicemembers, opining that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) requires enforcement of the arbitration agreements.

  • February 04, 2025

    Florida Judge Gives Final OK To $6.8 Million Settlement Of Hospital Data Breach Row

    TAMPA, Fla. — A $6.8 million settlement of class claims over a hospital’s 2023 data breach achieved final approval from a Florida judge on Feb. 3, with attorney fees, costs and service awards also getting the thumbs up.

  • February 04, 2025

    Plastic Surgeon Allegedly Failed To Protect Patient Data And Nude Photos From Hackers

    LOS ANGELES — Eight patients on Feb. 3 filed suit in California federal court accusing a plastic surgeon and his medical practice of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by failing to protect their data or prevent a cyberattack by hackers who obtained data including nude photographs of patients, some of which the hackers have allegedly posted online.

  • February 04, 2025

    Judge Orders Jurisdictional Inquiry In ‘Drip Pricing’ Suit Against Flower Company

    CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge on Feb. 3 ordered a jurisdictional inquiry in a putative class action lawsuit filed by a California resident who accuses an Illinois floral arrangement delivery company of engaging in the practice of “drip pricing,” specifically by allegedly adding a undisclosed “surprise fee” of $19.99 to customers’ orders at the last step of a complicated purchase process in violation of California consumer protection laws, including the unfair competition law (UCL).

  • February 04, 2025

    Judge Certifies Classes, Denies Summary Judgment In ERISA Imprudence Row

    GALVESTON, Texas — Briefly adopting memorandum and recommendations issued in 2023, a Texas federal judge on Feb. 3 overruled all objections, denying motions for summary judgment and partial summary judgment and granting certification of two classes in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act dispute over alleged retirement plan mismanagement.

  • February 04, 2025

    Rehearing Motion Extension Request Opposed In Home Appraisal Fee Class Appeal

    RICHMOND, Va. — Lenders accused of requiring borrowers to pay for “worthless” home appraisals as part of refinancing their mortgage loans filed an opposition Feb. 3 in the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to a motion for an extension of time to file a petition for rehearing; the motion was filed by the borrowers one week after the appellate panel considered for a second time class certification and damages for the borrowers and the majority opined that there was no showing of concrete harm.

  • February 04, 2025

    8th Circuit Upholds Remand Of Putative Class Suit Alleging Sharing Of Health Info

    ST. LOUIS — A trial court’s remand of a putative class suit accusing a health care company of violating Missouri law by sharing private health information with third parties was upheld by an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel that opined that federal jurisdiction did not exist under the federal officer removal statute of the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).

  • February 04, 2025

    Federal Government Employees File Privacy Class Suit Over OPM ‘Test’ Emails

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two federal workers referred to only as Jane Does filed a class complaint in a federal court in the District of Columbia accusing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) of failing to conduct and publish a privacy impact assessment (PIA) before allegedly sending out “test” emails that the workers claim are being used to collect information on workers that is being sent to someone working for Elon Musk.

  • February 04, 2025

    9th Circuit Upholds Attorney Fees, Costs In 1 Of Several Related Labeling Cases

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an award of more than $7.9 million in attorney fees and expenses for class counsel in one of several related single-state class lawsuits over the labeling of a glucosamine and chondroitin product, finding that the evidence supported the trial court’s determination that fees were related to the class’s success and the defendant failed to undermine class counsel’s representation that all work performed for the other cases was excluded from its calculations.

  • February 03, 2025

    Judge Addresses Exclusion, Summary Judgment Bids In Long-Running RESPA Suit

    FRESNO, Calif. — Under Jan. 31 orders that a judge sitting by designation in California federal court issued, a combined Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. hearing and bench trial on economic harm will be the next development in a long-running Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) class action involving captive reinsurance agreements.

  • February 03, 2025

    Class Claims Over Trans Fats In Packaged Ramen Dismissed With Prejudice

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied a consumer’s amended motion for class certification in her lawsuit accusing a packaged ramen maker of concealing the presence of trans fats in its products in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and then dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice after finding the plaintiff had failed to resolve previously identified deficiencies in her class claims.

  • February 03, 2025

    User Dismisses Class Suit Claiming LinkedIn Trained AI On Users’ Private Messages

    SAN FRANCISCO — Less than two weeks after filing a putative class action in California federal court accusing LinkedIn of violating federal law and California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by accessing its premium users’ private messages to train artificial intelligence models without their consent, the plaintiff, a premium user of LinkedIn’s professional networking and social media site, filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice.

  • February 03, 2025

    Panel Affirms Denial Of Condo Owner’s Motion To Intervene In Class Action Suit

    GRETNA, La. — A Louisiana appeals court affirmed a lower court’s denial of a condominium unit owner’s motion to intervene in a class action lawsuit arising from Hurricane Ida property damage, concluding that the movant failed to satisfy the required elements to intervene pursuant to Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Article 1091.

  • February 03, 2025

    Consumers: No Review Of Class Certification Needed In Pet Supplement Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Consumers tell the U.S. Supreme Court that no review of class certification in a case over the label claims on a pet supplement is necessary as courts of appeal agree regarding “the real issue on appeal” and have determined that plaintiffs in a class case may rely on an expert’s not-yet-executed damages model so long as the model is deemed reliable and may be used to calculate classwide damages.

  • January 31, 2025

    $450,000 Newspaper Subscription TCPA Class Settlement Preliminarily Approved

    PHILADELPHIA — A $450,000 class settlement to be paid by a telecommunications company to end a Philadelphia woman’s complaint that she and a certified class received more than one newspaper subscription phone call in the last four years despite being on the National Do-Not-Call Registry (DNC) and not having established business relationships with the defendant was preliminarily approved by a federal judge in Pennsylvania.

  • January 31, 2025

    Amid ERISA Bench Trial, Defendants Seek Partial Decertification Of Class

    BOSTON — More than a week into a bench trial in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit primarily challenging the selection and retention of proprietary funds, the defendants on Jan. 30 moved in Massachusetts federal court to decertify the mandatory class as to one claim, saying in part that the named plaintiffs’ expert agreed that that claim “is unique to” a fund that is no longer proprietary “and different from the other claims he opines on.”

  • January 31, 2025

    Petition For Rehearing Expected After Wash. Wage Law Found To Apply To Detainees

    SEATTLE — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted an extension for filing a petition for rehearing after a split panel ruled that the application of the Washington Minimum Wage Act (WMWA) to voluntary work programs for federal immigration detainees housed in the Northwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center (NWIPC) run by a for-profit company does not violate the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity, the state law is not preempted by federal law and the for-profit company does not have derivative sovereign immunity.

  • January 31, 2025

    Judge Grants Final Approval Of $22M Settlement In Block.one EOS Securities Case

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval of a $22 million settlement in a class action accusing a company that promised that it would develop a software program enabling the creation of novel EOS cryptocurrency blockchain technologies of making “a host of materially false and misleading statements to induce investors to purchase EOS Securities” and failing to register its initial coin offering (ICO).

  • January 31, 2025

    Amici To 2nd Circuit: Reverse ERISA Determination On Deferred Compensation Plans

    NEW YORK —  A handful of amici curiae organizations are urging the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to vacate or reverse a determination that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act governs the compensation incentive and equity incentive plans at issue in a suit over a Morgan Stanley deferred compensation program, with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) arguing that the lower court’s “conclusions run counter to significant contrary case law and regulatory guidance and upend employers’ longstanding understanding of the rules applicable to incentive plans.”

  • January 30, 2025

    Putative Class Suit Over Fish Oil Health Claims Dismissed With Prejudice

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge granted a supplement maker’s motion to dismiss a consumer’s putative class action accusing it of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by labeling a fish oil product as beneficial to heart health, finding the claims preempted and concluding that the label statements at issue “are not capable of deceiving a reasonable consumer.”

  • January 30, 2025

    Federal Judge Approves Catholic University’s $2M Pandemic Closure Settlement

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia issued two orders, one granting final approval of a $2 million class settlement to be paid by The Catholic University of America to end a student’s claims over the school’s closure during the start of the coronavirus pandemic and the second awarding class counsel $666,666.66 in attorney fees and $132,048.14 in costs and the class representative $7,500 for a service award.

  • January 30, 2025

    Allstate Prevails In Suit Over 401(k)’s Use Of Certain TDFs, Advisory Services

    CHICAGO — Saying in part that without “relevant analysis and opinions,” an expert’s “report and testimony cannot create a genuine factual dispute,” an Illinois federal judge granted summary judgment against plaintiffs who challenged a retirement plan’s use of Northern Trust target date funds (TDFs) and advisory services under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

  • January 30, 2025

    $47.5M Settlement Between Battery Maker, Shareholders Granted Final Approval

    SAN FRANCISCO — A $47.5 million settlement was granted final approval by a federal judge in California, concluding a case brought by shareholders against the developer of a “solid-state” electronic vehicle battery alleging that the developer violated federal securities laws by misrepresenting the progress and effectiveness of their batteries.