Plaintiffs, a group of CareFirst customers, filed a putative class action after CareFirst suffered a cyber attack in which its customers' personal information was allegedly stolen. The D.C. Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of the complaint based on lack of standing. In this case, because the district court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction without expressly inviting plaintiffs to amend their complaint or giving some other equally clear signal that it intended the action to continue, the order under review ended the district court action, and was thus final and appealable. On the merits, the court held that plaintiffs have standing where the fact that plaintiffs have reasonably spent money to protect themselves against a substantial risk created the potential for them to be made whole by monetary damages. View "Attias v. CareFirst, Inc." on Justia Law

Jeannie Vanette Hill Thomas appealed the district court's denial of her motion to intervene in Connie Jean Smith's class action against appellees, based on her interest in adequacy of representation by the class representative and class counsel. The Eighth Circuit held that the district court's determination on this question was final, and the district court's rationale for denying the motion was inadequate. Accordingly, the court remanded for further consideration. The court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction the portion of Thomas's appeal that was based on her interest in the adequacy of notice and opt-out procedures for the class. View "Smith v. SEECO, Inc." on Justia Law

After Cricket removed this class action from state court by invoking Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), jurisdiction, the district court granted plaintiff's motion to remand. The court vacated and remanded, holding that the district court applied the wrong legal standard to Cricket's evidence. The court explained that, because the district court committed legal error in disregarding Cricket's evidence as overinclusive, the court was unable to engage in appellate review to determine whether Cricket met its burden to prove jurisdiction. View "Scott v. Cricket Communications, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs-appellants Valerie Kizer and Sharal Williams filed this putative class action against their former employer, defendant and respondent Tristar Risk Management (Tristar), alleging Tristar failed to pay Plaintiffs and its other claims examiners overtime compensation because it misclassified them as exempt from California’s overtime laws. The court found Tristar’s alleged misclassification of the proposed class members suitable for class treatment, but it denied the motion because misclassification does not give rise to liability on an overtime claim unless the employees first show they worked hours or days that required overtime compensation. Plaintiffs contended the trial court erred because the amount of overtime worked by the individual class members was a damages issue, and the need for individual proof of damages was not a proper basis for denying class certification. To satisfy the commonality requirement for class certification, Plaintiffs were required to show their liability theory could be established on a classwide basis through common proof. Plaintiffs presented no evidence of any such policy or practice. Without commonality, plaintiffs’ unfair competition law claim also failed. View "Kizer v. Tristar Risk Management" on Justia Law

CE, an Illinois corporation that litigates claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. 227, filed a class action in Illinois state court accusing Homegrown, a Canadian marketing firm, of sending CE junk faxes. The parties settled in 2007 for $5 million plus interest and costs. Homegrown failed to notify its insurer, SMI, about the litigation and used its own counsel; the settlement was structured to be enforceable only against Homegrown’s SMI liability policy. CE, as assignee of Homegrown's rights under the policy, filed a citation to discover assets in an effort to recover on the judgment. Rath, SMI’s Canadian attorney, wrote a letter to the Illinois court advising that SMI was denying coverage. SMI took no other steps to fight the citation. The court entered judgment for CE. CE unsuccessfully attempted to enforce that judgment in Saskatchewan, where SMI is based. The Saskatchewan court awarded SMI costs. Seven years later, SMI moved to enforce the Saskatchewan judgment in federal district court. The Seventh Circuit agreed with the district court that there was no basis for federal jurisdiction, “an outcome that is especially appropriate given the comity concerns that pervade this litigation.” The Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), is inapplicable because the defendant is the class and diversity jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. 1332(a)(2), is inapplicable because no individual class member could satisfy the $75,000 amount‐in‐controversy requirement. No exception to the general prohibition on aggregating claims applies. View "Saskatchewan Mutual Insurance Co. v. CE Design, Ltd." on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit found no violation of Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 or abuse of the judicial process in this consolidated appeal involving parties in a putative action. The court held that counsel did not violate Rule 41 in stipulating to the dismissal of the action and counsel had at least a colorable legal argument that the district court’s approval was not needed under Rule 23(e) to voluntarily dismiss the claims of the putative class. Therefore, the district court abused its discretion in finding that counsel acted with an improper purpose under Rule 11 and abused the judicial process by stipulating to the dismissal of the federal action for the purpose of seeking a more favorable forum and avoiding an adverse decision. Consequently, the district court also abused its discretion in imposing sanctions upon plaintiffs' counsel for the purported violation. The court reversed the district court's orders and remanded for further proceedings. View "Castleberry v. USAA" on Justia Law

In this class action, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment of the superior court declining to grant declaratory and injunctive relief from alleged violations of constitutional rights arising from the York County Probate Court schedule ordered by former York Court Probate Judge Robert Nadeau. While Plaintiff’s appeal was pending, Judge Nadeau filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the case became moot when he lost the election for the probate judgeship. The Supreme Judicial Court held (1) this appeal was is moot; and (2) the superior court did not err in determining that Judge Nadeau’s altered court schedule did not result in delays in these routine cases that rose to the level of constitutional deprivations, and Judge Nadeau did not violate the class members’ substantive due process rights as litigants in the York County Probate Court. View "Legrand v. York County Judge of Probate" on Justia Law

The district court denied certification for a class consisting of African-American deputy U.S. Marshals alleging racial discrimination by the United States Marshals Service (USMS). The lead plaintiff, Herman Brewer, petitioned for interlocutory review, but while his petition was pending, he settled his individual claims with the Government. The parties then stipulated to dismissal of the action under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), which allowed the parties voluntarily to dismiss a suit without a court order by filing a jointly signed stipulation with the court. Four current and former deputy U.S. Marshals moved to intervene upon notice of the stipulation. The DC Circuit granted the motion to intervene but declined the petition for review as presenting no question that falls within the court's discretion to hear an interlocutory appeal under the framework announced in Lorazepam & Clorazepate Antitrust Litigation, 289 F.3d 98 (D.C. Cir. 2002). The court remanded for the district court to consider motions to substitute absent class members as plaintiffs and for further proceedings. View "In re: Herman Brewer" on Justia Law

This appeal arose out of the district court's approval of a zero-dollar class action settlement and award of attorneys' fees in a consolidated lawsuit stemming from a merger between Midstream and Equity. The Fifth Circuit dismissed a class member's objection to the settlement based on lack of appellate jurisdiction. In this case, the class member was a nonparty, non-intervenor, who waived his right to appeal by filing an untimely, procedurally deficient objection. Furthermore, he failed to qualify for an exception pursuant to Devlin v. Scardelletti, 536 U.S. 1, 3–4, 6–7 (2002). View "Aron v. Crestwood Midstream Partners" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted reviewing this PAGA action to consider the scope of discovery available in PAGA actions. The court held that, in non-PAGA class actions, the contact information of those a plaintiff purports to represent is routinely discoverable without any requirement that the plaintiff first show good cause, and nothing in the characteristics of a PAGA suit affords a basis for restricting discovery more narrowly. The court thus reversed the trial court’s discovery order denying Plaintiff’s motion seeking contact information for fellow California employees in other state Marshalls of CA, LLC stores in this representative action seeking civil penalties on behalf of the State and aggrieved employees statewide for alleged wage and hour violations. The court held that Marshalls did not meet its burden of establishing cause to refuse Plaintiff an answer to his interrogatory seeking the identity and contact information of his fellow Marshalls employees. View "Williams v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County" on Justia Law