Recent Trends in Class-Action Consumer Finance Litigation - The Consumer Finance Podcast
On May 26, 2021, the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) putative class action arising from the transmission of a single text message to the plaintiff. The...more
On May 14, 2021, the Seventh Circuit United States Court of Appeals issued a decision reaffirming the rule from “a slew of cases” that, without injury, a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) claim alleging a bare...more
In order to bring an action in any United States tribunal, a party must have “standing.” “The doctrine [of standing] limits the category of litigants empowered to maintain a lawsuit in federal court to seek redress for a...more
On October 28, 2020, the en banc Eleventh Circuit reversed the Northern District of Georgia’s approval of a class settlement, holding that the settlement was invalid because the named plaintiff did not have standing to sue...more
Earlier this month, in Buchholz v. Meyer Njus Tanick, P.A., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court’s decision that a plaintiff who alleged that the defendant had violated the Fair Debt...more
On October 4, the Eleventh Circuit agreed to review en banc a panel decision holding that a consumer’s heightened risk of identity theft is enough to establish Article III standing. Named plaintiff David Muransky filed a...more
Whether there is a connection to the near end of another exciting National Basketball Association season is unknown, but in a recent ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the court began its...more
Bucking a recent trend and departing from both the Second Circuit’s Katz decision and the Third Circuit’s Kamal decision, the Eleventh Circuit found that a plaintiff had standing to settle a FACTA claim on behalf of a class....more
In Frank v. Gaos, the Supreme Court appeared poised to decide a divisive class action issue: whether settlement awards to third-party charities (known as cy pres awards) are valid. On March 20, however, an 8-1 majority...more
On March 25, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dealt another setback to plaintiffs trying to establish Article III standing to assert a claim under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681,...more
The Third Circuit recently held that procedural violations of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (“FACTA”), absent any showing of concrete harm, do not meet Article III standing requirements. Kamal v. J. Crew...more
In a precedential opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit concluded that because the named plaintiff in a class action complaint failed to allege a concrete injury...more
In Frank v. Gaos, plaintiff Paloma Goas brought a class action alleging that Google’s transmission of users’ search terms violated the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701, et seq. (“SCA”). The SCA creates a private...more
In recent years, the use of biometrics in business has been growing. In the employment context, for example, some employers use biometric time clocks, which allow employees to “clock in” with a fingerprint or iris scan....more
By now, most everyone has heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from another about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins. It is the case being cited across the country in...more
On August 15, 2017, the Ninth Circuit delivered the latest episode in the Robins v. Spokeo saga, reaffirming on remand from the Supreme Court that plaintiff Robins had alleged an injury in fact sufficient for Article III...more
On remand from the Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held for the second time that the plaintiff in Robins v. Spokeo, Inc. has standing to proceed in federal court with claims under the Fair...more
In a decision surely welcomed by the plaintiffs’ bar, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held, on August 15, 2017, that a putative class action plaintiff has Article III standing as long as the plaintiff alleges...more
On August 15, 2017, the 9th Circuit, in Thomas Robins v. Spokeo, Inc., reversed the district court’s dismissal of an action alleging willful violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. The 9th...more
On August 15th, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Robins v. Spokeo, finding that plaintiff Thomas Robins has standing to continue his Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) suit against Spokeo, Inc. In its opinion, a...more
Since Spokeo v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016), as revised (May 24, 2016), the consumer finance industry has continued to refine what it means to allege a concrete injury in fact and to meet Article III case and controversy...more
A Smooth Patch in a Rough Road? Governmental Transition and Intellectual Property - Whenever a new Congress convenes, some IP issues come to the fore while others take a back seat. Transition to a new administration in the...more
On November 23, 2016, the Second Circuit issued its opinion in Strubel v. Comenity Bank, a putative Truth in Lending Act (TILA) class action with both standing and substantive TILA implications. In Strubel, the plaintiff...more
On October 12, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied a petition for an en banc rehearing of its September 12 decision in Galaria, et al. v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company (Nos. 15-3386/3387). In...more
On October 6, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued its opinion in Nicklaw v. CitiMortgage, Inc., dismissing, for lack of Article III standing, a class action complaint that alleged...more