We are pleased to present our second quarter 2024 update to the New England and First Circuit Class Action Tracker, which focuses on class action filings in state and federal courts within the boundaries of the First Circuit...more
Three recent Supreme Court Decisions—Coinbase v. Suski, Smith v. Spizzirri, and Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries—based on consumer and employment disputes have resolved significant circuit splits over arbitration. These cases...more
In 2023, we discussed the uptick in data privacy and cybersecurity class action lawsuits; as expected, this trend has persisted throughout 2024 as plaintiffs continue to test new theories of liability and the boundaries of...more
7/19/2024
/ Appeals ,
Article III ,
Class Action ,
Consumer Privacy Rights ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Privacy Laws ,
Video Privacy Protection Act ,
Wiretapping
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (AGO) recently issued an advisory clarifying that existing Massachusetts law applies to artificial intelligence (AI) to the same extent as any other product in the stream of...more
6/27/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Breach of Warranty ,
Consumer Protection Laws ,
Enforcement ,
False Advertising ,
Machine Learning ,
Misrepresentation ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Proposed Rules ,
State Attorneys General ,
State Privacy Laws ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices
On April 29, 2024, the Supreme Court issued an Order List indicating that certiorari had been denied in Brinker International, Inc. v. Steinmetz, Docket No. 23-648.
The Eleventh Circuit Brinker Decision -
Brinker was...more
We recently highlighted two Boston-based COVID-19 tuition refund class action suits, against Brandeis University and Boston College, and the impact of a provision in the Commonwealth’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget that grants...more
In Part 2 of our series on our Massachusetts and Boston-based COVID-19 tuition refund class action suits, we reviewed the legal backdrop of this wave of class action litigation and explored some common pitfalls in...more
At the close of 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of petitioner Acheson in Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer as moot and vacated the underlying decision by the First Circuit that Laufer had constitutional standing to...more
1/11/2024
/ Acheson Hotels LLC v Laufer ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Class Action ,
Dismissals ,
Jurisdiction ,
Mootness ,
Oral Argument ,
SCOTUS ,
Settlement Negotiations ,
Standing ,
Vacated ,
Website Accessibility
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer, a case that we have summarized in prior blog posts. Just months ago, there was doubt whether the Supreme Court would hear the case at...more
10/6/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Article III ,
Class Action ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Mootness ,
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) ,
Oral Argument ,
Public Accommodation ,
SCOTUS ,
Standing ,
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ,
Website Accessibility
As noted in previous installments in our ongoing series on U.S. privacy laws, the sector-specific and activity-specific model for U.S. privacy regulation is rapidly changing, with individual states recently enacting...more
Earlier in 2023, we launched our New England and First Circuit Class Action Tracker, as a tool to analyze class action litigation trends in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. In July, we updated our...more
In this latest installment of our ongoing consumer privacy series, we focus on potential digital and offline accessibility requirements in the context of the wave of new U.S. state consumer privacy laws.
In the continued...more
8/25/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Arbitration ,
California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) ,
Compliance ,
Consumer Privacy Rights ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Privacy ,
Human Rights ,
Personal Information ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Risk Mitigation ,
State Privacy Laws ,
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
In Webb v. Injured Workers Pharmacy, LLC, the First Circuit recently reversed a lower court’s dismissal of class action claims brought by former pharmacy patients alleging that their sensitive personal information had been...more
Courts and class action counsel have been considering what kinds of injuries can confer standing to pursue federal claims following the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, which held that the...more
7/27/2023
/ Antitrust Litigation ,
Appeals ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Data Breach ,
Data Security ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Privacy Laws ,
SCOTUS ,
Standing ,
TransUnion LLC v Ramirez
We are pleased to present our updates to the New England and First Circuit Class Action Tracker, which focuses on the filings and decisions in state and federal courts within the boundaries of the First Circuit in New...more
In this third installment on the enforcement of U.S. consumer data privacy laws, we focus on the role of private litigants. Following our discussions of state and federal government enforcement, this post focuses on the third...more
7/12/2023
/ Arbitration ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Breach of Contract ,
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Privacy ,
DPPA ,
Enforcement ,
Privacy Laws ,
Securities Fraud ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices ,
Video Privacy Protection Act ,
Wiretapping
On June 23, 2023, in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, the Supreme Court resolved a deeply divided circuit court split and ruled that a district court must stay its proceedings while an interlocutory appeal on the question of...more
Part 2: The Legal Backdrop -
In Part 1 of this series, we provided a brief overview and introduction of the Boston-based COVID-19 tuition refund class action cases, noting generally that most similar suits haven’t made it...more
On March 27, 2023, the Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari by Acheson Hotels in Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Deborah Laufer, Case No. 21-1410. In its petition to appeal from an earlier First Circuit decision...more
5/19/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Credit Reporting Agencies ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Privacy ,
Labeling ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Marketing ,
Public Accommodation ,
SCOTUS ,
Websites
In this second installment, we focus on the role of state attorneys general in enforcing U.S. consumer data privacy laws. For our most recent previous article, click here. Most federal privacy laws do not preempt applicable...more
Part 1: Introduction and Overview -
Earlier this month, Boston University prevailed in one of the few surviving Boston-based COVID-19 tuition refund class action suits. The U.S. District Court in Boston granted BU’s...more
In early 2023, the District of Maine was the first district court to apply and interpret a recent and notable First Circuit ruling that should be top-of-mind for class action attorneys and litigants seeking approval of...more
A threshold consideration for businesses trying to understand the actors that enforce U.S. consumer privacy laws is an analysis of which laws apply to that business. This is because U.S. consumer privacy laws exist as a...more
4/26/2023
/ Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Department of Education ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FERPA ,
Health Information Technologies ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
State Privacy Laws
The first question most businesses ask, understandably, is whether they are subject to the new wave of U.S. state privacy laws. For our largest clients, the answer is often a straightforward yes; but for midsize and small...more
On October 18, 2022, in Webb v. Injured Workers Pharmacy, LLC, the District of Massachusetts dismissed a class action complaint brought by former pharmacy patients alleging that their sensitive personal information had been...more