In a decision that narrows the path to class certification in federal court, the Fifth Circuit has held that a plaintiff must clear the Daubert hurdle when expert evidence is relevant to the decision of a federal court to...more
Can a plaintiff represent a class without showing that there’s a feasible way to identify the absent class members? In its recent decision in Cherry v. Dometic Corp., the Eleventh Circuit has become the latest circuit to...more
The 11th Circuit recently addressed the issue of competing or overlapping class actions, which often create problems for both the plaintiffs’ counsel and the defense. In Medical and Chiropractic Clinic, Inc. v. Oppenheim, the...more
The Eleventh Circuit last month issued a significant class action opinion in Cordoba v. DirectTV, LLC, vacating a class certified in a TCPA class action and remanding the case. The issue underlying the court’s decision was...more
Consent is the most powerful weapon companies have against TCPA liability, and a recent Eleventh Circuit opinion illustrates how. In Gorss Motels, Inc. v. Safemark Systems, L.P., the Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment...more
8/30/2019
/ Appeals ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Faxes ,
FCC ,
Franchise Agreements ,
FRCP 23(f) ,
Hobbs Act ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Summary Judgment ,
TCPA ,
Unsolicited Faxes
While a war rages on the issue of standing in data breach cases, the need to prove damages is presenting an even greater hurdle for plaintiffs, as we have noted previously. One clear illustration of this trend is Attias v....more
8/27/2019
/ Actual Damages ,
Appeals ,
Article III ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Breach ,
Dismissals ,
Economic Loss Doctrine ,
Jurisdiction ,
Remand ,
Standing
The December 2018 revisions to Rule 23 are relatively minor, and early cases applying the amended rule confirm that no major changes have occurred. The Southern District of Iowa summed up the theme in Swinton v. SquareTrade,...more
Courts are still going both ways on applying Bristol-Myers Squibb to class actions. Two recent decisions highlight this split.
The first—and we’ll always start with the good news—comes out of the District of Massachusetts...more
The Ninth Circuit’s decision not to grant en banc rehearing in Sali v. Corona Regional Medical Center should all but guarantee that the issue of expert testimony at the class certification stage is heading to the Supreme...more
Consumer data breach class actions, for all of their popularity on dockets and especially in headlines, can make difficult cases for plaintiffs. Issues like standing and damages often keep these cases from getting off the...more
8/23/2018
/ Article III ,
Causation ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Hackers ,
Identity Theft ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular ,
Predominance Requirement ,
Standing
The Supreme Court’s decision in China Agritech Inc. v. Resh means that class action plaintiffs can no longer rely on serial class actions to toll their statute of limitations indefinitely. Instead, the Supreme Court held that...more
6/13/2018
/ Appeals ,
China Agritech Inc v Resh ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
Equitable Tolling ,
FRCP 23 ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities Fraud ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Subsequent Litigation
We’ve already written about Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016), in which the Supreme Court reaffirmed that all federal plaintiffs, even those alleging a statutory violation, must have suffered a real, concrete...more
3/28/2018
/ Article III ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Data Breach ,
Debit and Credit Card Transactions ,
Dismissals ,
FACTA ,
FDCPA ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Motion to Vacate ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Remand ,
Removal ,
Spokeo v Robins ,
Standing ,
Statutory Damages ,
Statutory Violations ,
Subject Matter Jurisdiction
Class actions have dual natures. They start out as only individual cases, but they can become massive, collective cases where the rights of absent parties are adjudicated all at once. In most respects, class certification...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has sent the Target data breach consumer class action settlement back to the trial court for a second look at class certification, holding that the district judge did not...more