Life has its disappointments. Sometimes, you think you’ve won a free car, but it turns out that you’ve won only a couple of dollars. And sometimes, you think that an appellate court will clarify a thorny issue of class-action...more
One of the key issues at class certification is whether plaintiffs have met their burden to establish commonality and predominance: that “questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions...more
On January 18, a court in the Eastern District of Wisconsin denied class certification in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) case concluding that the factual issue of whether the proposed class members had suffered an...more
On January 3, 2024, the defendant in Heppard v. Dunham’s Athleisure Corporation filed an interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, arguing that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District...more
Fourth Circuit Holds That Class Action Waiver Issue Must Be Decided Before Certification and Questions Narrow Issue Classes - In In re Marriott International, Inc., 78 F.4th 677 (4th Cir. 2023), a panel of the U.S. Court...more
Joining every other circuit to address the same issue, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently ruled that a consumer does not have to prove actual damages to recover statutory damages for willful...more
Court also holds that arbitrability questions must be resolved by the arbitrator - The 10th Circuit has decided two significant issues in an otherwise garden-variety off-the-clock case, one relating to arbitration and the...more
A recent case from the Eastern District of California emphasizes the importance of employers having facially neutral and lawful wage-and-hour policies – as such policies can help in defeating class certification. In Tavares,...more
Takeaway: When evaluating the fairness of a proposed class settlement, Federal Rule 23(e)(2) requires a district court to take into account, among other considerations, the terms of any proposed award of attorneys’ fees and...more
Several appellate decisions addressed the “implicit” class action requirement of ascertainability during the second quarter of 2023, with the Third, Tenth and D.C. Circuits weighing in. Meanwhile, the Fifth Circuit maintained...more
Nearly three years after its decision in Johnson v. NPAS Solutions LLC, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals remains the only circuit in the nation to categorically bar class representatives from receiving incentive awards....more
Limiting exposure to future claims is a crucial aspect of settling class action litigation. A recent opinion out of the Northern District of Georgia serves as a reminder that the definitions of settlement classes and released...more
Takeaway: Federal Rule 23 authorizes representative litigation in the form of class actions that satisfy its various requirements. The policy underlying the rule is efficiency. For example, the numerosity element (Rule...more
In conjunction with the G7 Summit in Japan, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) introduced additional economic sanctions on May 19, 2023, with the aim of further limiting the...more
Fail-Safe Class Definition. The District of Columbia Circuit reversed a district court’s denial of a class action on the grounds the plaintiffs had proposed an impermissible “fail safe” class—i.e., a class definition for...more
Last month, the D.C. Circuit deepened a circuit split on the issue of fail-safe classes. The decision, In re White, 64 F.4th 302 (D.C. Cir. 2023), rejected a categorical rule against all fail-safe classes in favor of a...more
Most class-action lawyers know about Johnson v. NPAS Solutions., LLC—an Eleventh Circuit panel decision that outlawed service awards to lead plaintiffs in class actions, which “compensate[] a class representative for his time...more
This week, the Court addresses when individualized issues may preclude class certification, and considers the public’s right of access to court proceedings seeking third-party assistance with criminal investigations. The...more
Data incident lawsuits, especially class actions, have the potential to create significant business disruption, loss of marketplace credibility, civil liability or regulatory exposure. Consequently, companies that experience...more
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark opinion in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), a question arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective actions is...more
When you finally reach an agreement to settle a hotly contested class action, you want more than anything for the court to approve your settlement agreement and for the case to be over. But, to get to the end of the case,...more
Rule 23 does not explicitly require that a court be able to determine who the members are before certifying a class. But judges have found implicit in the Rule a requirement that membership in a defined class be...more
When negotiating a class action settlement, lawyers on both sides may need to consider whether subgroups within the class need to be separately represented by different counsel. The First Circuit recently reached that...more
Class actions have long been difficult to certify in fraud cases. But a recent district court decision in California takes a new approach that would make class certification in fraud cases the norm. That decision is now on...more
Two years ago, in Johnson v. NPAS Solutions, LLC, the Eleventh Circuit upended decades’ worth of precedent by categorically forbidding incentive payments to class representatives in class action settlements...more