Mealey's Class Actions : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Class Actions

August 05, 2024
NFL Granted Judgment After $4.7 Billion Verdict For ‘Sunday Ticket’ Classes

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California granted a motion for judgment as a matter of law filed by the National Football League Inc. (NFL), NFL Enterprises LLC and individual teams following a $4.7 billion jury verdict for classes of residential and commercial subscribers to DirecTV LLC’s “NFL Sunday Ticket” on Sherman Act claims, opining that the testimony of two experts should have been excluded “based on their flawed methodologies” and that without those testimonies “no reasonable jury could have found class-wide injury or damages.”
August 05, 2024
3rd Circuit Appeal Filed Over Summary Judgment, Exclusion Ruling In ERISA Fees Row

PHILADELPHIA — An Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over allegedly excessive record-keeping fees is being taken to the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, with the named plaintiff filing a notice of appeal regarding a denial of summary judgment ruling that involved excluding an expert whose testimony has had mixed fates under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals challenges in other courts.
August 05, 2024
Judge: Investor’s Claim Medical Company Lied About AI To Raise Stock Price Fails

HARTFORD, Conn. — An investor who brought a putative class complaint against a medical company, claiming it misled investors both about its artificial intelligence data platform and its own financial results, failed to illustrate in his amended complaint how some of the alleged misstatements were false and also failed to show that any of them were knowingly made, a Connecticut federal judge held, dismissing the complaint without prejudice.
August 02, 2024
JPMDL Denies Request To Centralize Cases Alleging Benzene In Acne Products

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) on Aug. 1 declined to centralize cases that allege that users of benzoyl peroxide (BPO) products for the treatment of acne vulgaris, including creams, washes, scrubs and bars, were inadequately warned about the presence of benzene after finding that many allegations will be specific to the individual defendants.
August 02, 2024
Nicotine Pouch Consumer Files Putative Class Action Alleging False Youth Marketing

HARTFORD, Conn. — A consumer of Zyn nicotine pouches filed a putative class action in Connecticut federal court accusing Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) and Swedish Match North America LLC of violating Florida consumer protection statutes by targeting youth and deceptively advertising the products as a “safer and healthier alternative to smoking.”
August 02, 2024
Wells Fargo, Execs Sued Under ERISA For Prescription Drug Prices, PBM Fees

MINNEAPOLIS — In a putative class action similar to one pending against Johnson and Johnson, former participants in a Wells Fargo & Co. health plan filed a suit in Minnesota federal court under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act over alleged mismanagement of prescription drug benefits, with a focus on the plan’s pharmacy benefits manager (PBM).
August 02, 2024
Data Breach Class Suits Against Health Care Provider, IT Vendor Consolidated

SCRANTON, Pa. — A federal judge in Pennsylvania has consolidated nine putative class actions against Geisinger Health and its third-party information technology services vendor stemming from the Nov. 29 discovery that a former employee of the vendor had accessed and acquired the personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI) of individuals who received health care from the provider.
August 02, 2024
Plaintiff Amends Complaint, Again, Claiming Coca-Cola’s Fruit Drinks Contain PFAS

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A plaintiff who had his class action complaint against the Coca-Cola Co. dismissed has filed a second amended complaint in New York federal court, alleging that various fruit drinks made by the company contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). In the new pleading, the plaintiff lists more drink products that allegedly contain PFAS.
July 31, 2024
Judge Nixes Claim That Facial Recognition In Samsung App Violates Data Privacy Law

CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois has granted a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit against Samsung Electronics America Inc. brought by individuals who allege that facial recognition technology in Samsung’s Gallery photo application violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), ruling that the allegations are “insufficient” to show that the data constitute a biometric identifier or biometric information.
July 31, 2024
Class Complaint Accuses Mormon Church, Nonprofit Of Misusing Donations

SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a nonprofit entity created to hold and invest donations continue to misuse donations, including hiding assets through the use of shell companies, despite already settling similar charges brough by the Securities and Exchange Commission in February 2023, self-described donors allege in a consolidated class complaint filed in a federal court in Utah.
July 31, 2024
Investor: CrowdStrike Misled Investors About Testing Before Global Tech Outage

AUSTIN, Texas — A retirement system says in a putative class complaint filed on July 30 in a Texas federal court that a cybersecurity company and certain of its executives issued misleading claims to investors about its internal testing systems before a recent software glitch caused a global outage of computers on the Microsoft Windows operating system, leading to a steep drop in value for the company’s stock.
July 31, 2024
9th Circuit Reverses Order That Found Inmate Class Covered By Calif. Labor Code

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a trial court’s order which found that nonconvicted inmates who perform work for a private company without pay are covered by California’s Labor Code; the ruling came approximately three months after the California Supreme Court found in answering a question certified by the appellate panel that the inmates have no claim for minimum wages or overtime pay under current state law.
July 31, 2024
8th Circuit Reverses Attorney Fees Awarded In T-Mobile Data Breach Settlement

ST. LOUIS — A trial court abused its discretion in striking one of two objections to the $78.75 million attorney fees portion of a $350 million data breach class settlement between customers and T-Mobile US Inc., an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, opining that the fees awarded were “unreasonable.”
July 31, 2024
$284 Million Price-Fixing Financial Aid Settlements Granted Final Approval

CHICAGO — Settlements by 10 private universities totaling $284 million in a class case accusing more than a dozen schools of “participating in a price-fixing cartel that is designed to reduce or eliminate financial aid as a locus of competition” were granted final approval by a federal judge in Illinois.
July 31, 2024
Staffing Agency Seeks U.S. High Court Clarity On Class Certification, TCPA Scope

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A staffing agency awarded summary judgment on only its individual claim under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) for an unwanted faxed advertisement filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a ruling on whether “administrative feasibility” is a prerequisite or only a factor to be weighed when deciding class certification and seeking a decision on the scope of a “telephone facsimile machine” under the TCPA.
July 30, 2024
Judge Won’t Dismiss Stock Loss Claims Over ‘Sham’ Wells Fargo Interviews

OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal judge on July 29 denied a motion by Wells Fargo & Co. and certain of its executives to dismiss a putative class complaint brought by a group of shareholders, holding that the shareholders adequately established that the company was aware of a widespread practice of using fake interviews to give the impression of complying with internal diversity hiring practices before news about the interviews led to a drop in stock value.
July 30, 2024
Judge: No Misleading Claims About Stock Conversion In Premerger Statements

NEW YORK — A New York federal judge dismissed a putative class complaint brought by former employees of a satellite manufacturer who claimed that the company and certain of its executives issued misleading statements in violation of federal securities laws about the company’s merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), with the judge holding that the employees failed to show that the company made misleading statements about the redemption rate of shares after the merger.
July 30, 2024
Judge Rejects ‘Unconscionable’ Arbitration Of Class Suit Against Gaming Company

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge denied a gaming company and its co-founders’ motion to compel arbitration of putative class claims against them for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by falsely advertising their mobile games as offering live competition, finding that the arbitration agreement contained provisions that would likely cause “years” of delay.
July 30, 2024
Federal Magistrate: Some Investor Claims Over 2023 Derailment Should Be Tossed

NEW YORK — Investors failed to show that railroad company Norfolk Southern Corp. and certain of its executives had an obligation to disclose previous federal compliance failures in the company’s strategic plan, which meant that the investors failed to show that the plan was false or misleading, a federal magistrate judge said in a report recommending that some claims related to the strategic plan be dismissed from a putative class complaint alleging that the company misled investors leading up to a February 2023 train derailment in Ohio.
July 30, 2024
Cosmetics Company Denies Claims Its Product Has Toxins That Caused Injuries

CHICAGO — A cosmetics company has filed an answer in Illinois federal court denying all allegations of wrongful conduct and contending that the plaintiffs who say they have been injured by toxic chemicals in hair relaxer products fail to state a claim because the plaintiffs cannot identify with reasonable specificity the products they purchased or used.
July 29, 2024
Student-Athletes Seek Preliminary Approval Of $2.5B NIL Settlement

OAKLAND, Calif. — College athletes who have accused the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and five conferences of violating the Sherman Act by restricting compensation for the commercial use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL) filed a motion July 26 in a federal court in California for preliminary approval of a $2,576,000,000 settlement, which the players say will “reshape the economic landscape of college sports.”
July 29, 2024
Navy SEALs Settle COVID-19 Vaccine Case For Record Corrections, Policy Changes

FORT WORTH, Texas — A federal judge in Texas granted final approval of a class settlement in a case by Navy SEALs and members of the Navy challenging a COVID-19 vaccine mandate; the agreement will provide corrections to their personnel records, policy changes, public postings and attorney fees.
July 29, 2024
Health Care Providers Sue, Allege Health Care Industry ‘Immobilized’ By Data Breach

MINNEAPOLIS — Health care providers in 21 states filed a class complaint in a federal court in Minnesota against a health insurer subsidiary that they say touches “one-in-three U.S. patient records” after a data breach allegedly carried out by hackers known as “ALPHV/Blackcat” accessed an unprotected network using an employee’s credentials and “wreaked havoc on the healthcare industry.”
July 29, 2024
Pilots Seek Rehearing After 6th Circuit Finds Vaccine Claims Must Go To Arbitration

CINCINNATI — Kalitta Air LLC pilots filed a petition for rehearing en banc or panel rehearing after a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a trial court ruling that their putative class claims over the airline’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate must go through arbitration first as minor disputes pursuant to the Railway Labor Act (RLA) because the dispute requires interpretation of the terms of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
July 26, 2024
2nd Circuit Says Plaintiffs Must Show Intent To Trigger CAFA, Affirms Remand

NEW YORK — Citing the “consistent desire” of plaintiffs asserting personal injury claims stemming from their use of Zantac “to avoid federal jurisdiction,” the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed that a motion to consolidate did not trigger federal jurisdiction and affirmed a district court decision to remand nine cases to state court.