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Mealey's Class Actions

July 16, 2024
In New 5th Circuit Panel Ruling, Big ERISA Multiplan Class Survives As Opt-Out

NEW ORLEANS — Withdrawing its August 2023 opinion upholding certification of a mandatory class of participants in thousands of retirement and health benefit plans, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on July 15 partly reversed and remanded, saying an opt-out class is appropriate but a mandatory class is not.
July 16, 2024
EEOC Supports Rehearing En Banc Request After Race Bias Ruling For Uber

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in considering the appeal of putative class racial bias claims by an Uber Technologies Inc. driver correctly recognized that no one framework “‘is mandatory at the pleading stage’ of a discrimination lawsuit” but then erred when it proceeded to apply “a notably higher standard to” the driver’s allegations, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argues in a July 15 amicus curiae brief supporting the driver’s petition for rehearing en banc.
July 15, 2024
2 Disney Employees File Class Suit Over Scrapped Relocation Plans

LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Corp. told certain California workers that their jobs would be relocated to a new campus in Orlando, Fla., and that they could move or lose their jobs and then later scrapped the plans after some workers moved, two of the impacted workers allege in a putative class complaint seeking damages filed in a California court.
July 15, 2024
NCAA, Conferences Hit With Basketball Players’ NIL Sherman Act Class Suit

NEW YORK — The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), its conferences and a partner have used the names, images and likenesses (NIL) of student-athletes for commercial purposes without the players’ consent and without compensating them in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, more than a dozen basketball players allege in a putative class complaint filed in a federal court in New York.
July 15, 2024
9th Circuit Affirms Remand Of Data-Sharing Class Claims Against Medical Center

PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a judge’s ruling remanding putative class action claims for invasion of privacy and violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) against a health care provider based on its usage of various tracking tools in its website and app, finding that federal directives regarding online patient access do not create “federal officer jurisdiction.”
July 12, 2024
On Remand, Judge Dismisses Kids’ Privacy Claims Against YouTube, Google

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal magistrate judge court granted YouTube LLC, Google LLC and several YouTube kids’ channel-operators’ motion to dismiss minor plaintiffs’ putative class claims for violating their privacy and consumer protection statutes, including California’s unfair competition law (UCL), by collecting the minors’ personally identifiable information (PII).
July 12, 2024
DMCA Claims In GitHub AI License Dispute Dismissed For 3rd, Final Time

OAKLAND, Calif. — John Doe defendants suing GitHub Inc. and others for a purported lack of attribution of their shared materials in artificial intelligence (AI) products saw their claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) dismissed for a third time, this time with prejudice.
July 12, 2024
Amazon’s $7.2M Global Security Screening Pay Settlement Approved

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A federal judge in Kentucky granted final approval of a more than $4.3 million settlement to be paid by Amazon.com Inc. and related parties to end the second of two class complaints accusing the online retailer of failing to pay workers at its Pennsylvania warehouses for time spent undergoing mandatory security screenings; this amount brings the total global settlement to end the two cases to $7,205,837.
July 12, 2024
Bank Customer’s Claims For Unfair Autopay Practices May Proceed, Judge Says

SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge granted in part and denied in part a motion for judgment on the pleadings that Bank of America Corp. filed in response to a customer’s putative class complaint accusing it of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by not notifying him that his automatic payments would be disabled due to account inactivity, allegedly causing his accounts to go overdue and harming his credit score.
July 12, 2024
Chicken Purchasers’ Final Settlement OK’d; Attorney Fees Cut In End Users’ Pact

CHICAGO — In a pair of rulings in an antitrust case accusing broiler sellers of fixing the prices for chicken, a federal judge in Illinois granted final approval to a settlement between direct-purchaser plaintiffs (DPPs) and six prevailing defendants eliminating the DPPs from having to pay litigation costs and approved a reduction of attorney fees for the end-user consumer plaintiffs (EUCPs) after the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated and remanded an earlier award of one-third the settlement or $57.4 million.
July 12, 2024
6th Circuit Upholds Arbitration Determination In Pilots’ Vaccine Mandate Case

CINCINNATI — Religious and disability bias claims by Kalitta Air LLC pilots who filed a putative class complaint challenging their employer’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate required interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement’s terms, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, affirming the trial court’s ruling that the claims must go through arbitration first as minor disputes pursuant to the Railway Labor Act (RLA).
July 12, 2024
Parties In ERISA Suit Over Fund Managers’ ESG Efforts File Posttrial Briefs

FORT WORTH, Texas — Following a four-day bench trial in Texas federal court, parties in a class action over environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations and the purported proxy voting activism of investment management firms filed posttrial briefs on July 11.
July 12, 2024
Judge OKs $2M Class Settlement In ERISA Row But Denies Incentive Award Requests

COLUMBUS, Ga. — Approving a $2 million class settlement in a case involving the investment decisions and administrative costs of a terminated retirement plan, a Georgia federal judge granted attorney fees and expenses as requested but cited Johnson v. NPAS Sols., LLC in denying requests for $5,000 and $10,000 incentive awards.
July 11, 2024
Judge Dismisses Former Twitter Employees’ ERISA Suit For Severance Benefits

SAN FRANCISCO — Ruling that the plaintiffs didn’t prove that a severance plan is governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a California federal judge granted dismissal of a putative class complaint in which former Twitter employees sought more than $500 million in benefits.
July 11, 2024
Judge Dismisses Suit Accusing Plant Butter Seller Of Deceptive Avocado Oil Claims

LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge dismissed two consumers’ putative class action claims against a company that sells plant butter for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by allegedly misrepresenting its products as made primarily with avocado oil after finding that the products’ labels would not deceive a reasonable consumer.
July 11, 2024
Fracking Companies Violated Antitrust Laws By Controlling Oil Production, Man Says

PORTLAND, Maine — A man has filed a putative class action in Maine federal court against a small group of hydraulic fracturing operators, arguing that they violated federal and state antitrust laws when they conspired to “coordinate, and ultimately constrain, domestic shale oil production” as a means to controlling the price of gasoline and setting it at an “artificially high level.”
July 11, 2024
Split 9th Circuit: Equal Rights Protections Include U.S. Citizenship Bias

HONOLULU — Equal rights protections in 42 U.S. Code Section 1981 prohibit citizenship or alienage discrimination of U.S. citizens in hiring, a divided Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, reversing a trial court’s dismissal of putative class discrimination claims by a naturalized U.S. citizen and creating a split with the Fifth Circuit’s 1986 decision in Chaiffetz v. Robertson Research Holding, Ltd.
July 11, 2024
Putative Class Says Fracking Operator Contaminated Their Drinking Water

PITTSBURGH — A group of residents have filed a putative class action against a hydraulic fracturing operator arguing that their water supply has been contaminated by fracking waste fluid that was released into the environment when an incident at a well caused a geyser to erupt and the leaked fluid got into a local aquifer.
July 11, 2024
Rehearing Sought After 9th Circuit Issues Class Scope Ambiguity Tolling Opinion

SAN FRANCISCO — Union Pacific Railroad Co. filed a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc after a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled while answering a question that it stated was one of first impression that where a class definition is narrowed, any dispute or ambiguity regarding the applicability to certain plaintiffs “should be resolved in favor of tolling so that bystander members of the class need not rush to file separate actions to protect their rights.”
July 10, 2024
2nd Circuit Won’t Rehear ERISA Effective Vindication Case After 2-1 Ruling

NEW YORK — Denying without explanation a petition for panel or en banc rehearing in a case involving a high-profile Employee Retirement Income Security Act issue, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 9 declined to revisit a 2-1 ruling that applied the effective vindication exception and upheld denial of a motion for individual arbitration concerning an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) deal.
July 10, 2024
Judge: No Preliminary Injunction In Case Alleging Securities Fraud, Elder Abuse

OAKLAND, Calif. — A woman who claims that she and her late husband were fraudulently persuaded by a man and his financial institutions to invest in two real estate entities, allegedly violating federal securities laws in the process, failed to show that she would suffer irreparable harm without preliminary injunctive relief, a California federal judge held, denying her motion.
July 10, 2024
October Argument Set On Dismissal Motion In ERISA Pension Risk Transfer Case

GREENBELT, Md. — A Maryland federal judge on July 9 scheduled Oct. 10 oral argument on the only fully briefed dismissal motion in the handful of similar recent putative class actions challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs) under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
July 10, 2024
Excluding Expert, Judge Grants Summary Judgment Against Class In ERISA Fees Suit

PITTSBURGH — Excluding an expert whose testimony has had mixed fates under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals challenges in other courts, a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled against a large class in granting summary judgment for PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and related defendants in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over allegedly excessive record-keeping fees.
July 10, 2024
Class Counsel Get 25% Of $1M Settlement In ERISA Record-Keeping Fees Case

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Granting final approval to a $1 million class settlement with Yale-New Haven Hospital Inc. and related entities to resolve allegations of imprudent record-keeping and administrative (RK&A) retirement plan fees, a Connecticut federal judge awarded class counsel $250,000 of that amount for attorney fees and expenses.
July 10, 2024
$5M Class Settlement Wraps ERISA Suit Over Health System Retirement Plans

DETROIT — Granting final approval to a $5 million class settlement in a suit challenging numerous aspects of the management of two Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) retirement plans, a Michigan federal judge awarded a third of that amount as attorney fees and $7,500 to each of the four named plaintiffs as an incentive.