Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

Greater Birmingham Ministries (“GBM”), an Alabamian non-profit organization dedicated to aiding low-income individuals, and several Alabamian felons (collectively “Appellants”) appealed the district court’s summary judgment denying their Equal Protection Clause challenge to Amendment 579 of the Alabama state constitution, their Ex Post Facto Clause, challenge to Amendment 579’s disenfranchisement provisions, and their National Voting Registration Act of 1993 (“NVRA”), challenge to the format of Alabama’s mail voting registration form.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court held that (1) Amendment 579 successfully dissipated any taint from the racially discriminatory motives behind the 1901 Alabama constitution; (2) Amendment 579 does not impose punishment for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause; and (3) Alabama’s mail voting registration form complies with the NVRA. The court wrote that it rejects Appellants’ invitation to review the extent the Alabama legislature debated the “moral turpitude” language of Amendment 579. Further, the court explained that Section 20508(b)(2)(A) is a notice statute enacted for the convenience of voting registrants. Alabama’s mail-in voting form has provided sufficient notice by informing registrants that persons convicted of disqualifying felonies are not eligible to vote and providing an easily accessible link whereby voters convicted of felonies can determine their voter eligibility. Accordingly, Alabama has complied with the requirements of Section 20508(b)(2)(A). View "Treva Thompson, et al. v. Secretary of State for the State of Alabama, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff sought to represent a class of individuals, known as Amazon Flex drivers, claiming damages and injunctive relief for alleged privacy violations by Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”). Plaintiff contended that Amazon monitored and wiretapped the drivers’ conversations when they communicated during off hours in closed Facebook groups. The district court denied Amazon’s motion to compel arbitration, holding that the dispute did not fall within the scope of the applicable arbitration clause in a 2016 Terms of Service Agreement (“2016 TOS”). Amazon appealed, arguing that the district court should have applied the broader arbitration clause in a 2019 Terms of Service Agreement (“2019 TOS”) and that even if the arbitration clause in the 2016 TOS applied, this dispute fell within its scope.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order denying Amazon’s motion to compel arbitration. Under California law and principles of contract law, the burden is on Amazon, as the party seeking arbitration, to show that it provided notice of a new TOS and that there was mutual assent to the contractual agreement to arbitrate. The panel held that there was no evidence that the email allegedly sent to drivers adequately notified drivers of the update. The district court, therefore, correctly held that the arbitration provision in the 2016 TOS still governed the parties’ relationship. The panel concluded that because Amazon’s alleged misconduct existed independently of the contract and therefore fell outside the scope of the arbitration provision in the 2016 TOS, the district court correctly denied Amazon’s motion to compel arbitration. View "DRICKEY JACKSON V. AMZN" on Justia Law

The Butter! Spray is a butter-flavored vegetable oil dispensed in pump-action squirt bottles with a spray mechanism. The front label on the product states that the Butter! Spray has 0 calories and 0 grams of fat per serving. Plaintiffs are a class of consumers who brought their lawsuit against the then-manufacturer, Unilever United States, Inc., contending that the product’s label makes misrepresentations about fat and calorie content based on artificially low serving sizes. The district court found that Plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege that Butter! Spray was not a “spray type” fat or oil under Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. The district court further held that the FDCA preempted plaintiffs’ serving size claims.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) dismissal. The panel held that, as a matter of legal classification, Butter! Spray was a “spray.” In common parlance, a “spray” refers to liquid dispensed in the form of droplets, emitted from a mechanism that allows the product to be applied in that manner. In addition, the notion that Butter! Spray could be housed under the FDA’s legal classification for “butter” is implausible. The panel also rejected Plaintiffs’ argument that Butter! Spray is a “butter substitute” based on how it is marketed so it should be treated as “butter” for serving size purposes, too. The court explained that because Plaintiffs’ challenge to the Butter! Spray serving sizes would “directly or indirectly establish” a requirement for food labeling that is “not identical” to federal requirements, the FDCA preempts their serving size claims. View "KYM PARDINI, ET AL V. UNILEVER UNITED STATES, INC." on Justia Law

This is an appeal from a district court order approving a class-action settlement that purports to provide injunctive relief and up to $8 million in monetary relief to a class of individuals (the “Class”) who purchased one or more “brain performance supplements” manufactured and sold by Defendants Reckitt Benckiser LLC and RB Health (US) LLC (together, “RB”) under the brand name “Neuriva.” Five Plaintiffs (together, the “Named Plaintiffs”) who had previously purchased Neuriva brought a putative class action, alleging that RB used false and misleading statements to give consumers the impression that Neuriva and its “active ingredients” had been clinically tested and proven to improve brain function. The parties promptly agreed to a global settlement (the “Settlement” or “Settlement Agreement”) that sought to resolve the claims of all Plaintiffs and absent Class members. The current appeal involves one unnamed Class member, an attorney and frequent class-action objector, who objected in district court and subsequently appealed the district court’s approval order.   The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court’s order and remanded. The court concluded that the Named Plaintiffs lack standing to pursue their claims for injunctive relief. The court explained that Plaintiffs seeking injunctive relief must establish that they are likely to suffer an injury that is “actual or imminent,” not “conjectural or hypothetical.” But none of the Named Plaintiffs allege that they plan to purchase any of the Neuriva Products again. The district court, therefore, lacked jurisdiction to award injunctive relief to the Named Plaintiffs or absent Class members, and its approval of the Settlement Agreement was an abuse of discretion. View "David Williams, et al v. Reckitt Benckiser LLC, et al" on Justia Law

Following a 29% drop in Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) stock prices in 2007, OPERS, a state pension fund, filed a securities fraud case against Freddie Mac. The district court dismissed, concluding that OPERS failed to adequately plead loss causation because the theory OPERS pursued (materialization of the risk) had not been adopted in the circuit. The Sixth Circuit reversed, “join[ing] our fellow circuits in recognizing the viability of alternative theories of loss causation and apply[ing] materialization of the risk.” On remand, the district court denied OPERS’ motion for class certification, granted Freddie Mac’s motion to exclude OPERS’ expert, and denied OPERS’ motion to exclude Freddie Mac’s experts.The Sixth Circuit denied OPERS’s petition for leave to appeal. OPERS asked the district court to enter “sua sponte” summary judgment for Freddie Mac, arguing that the class certification decision prevented OPERS’ case from proceeding, as it doomed OPERS’ ability to prove loss causation. The district court summarily agreed and entered summary judgment for Freddie Mac. The Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded, citing its lack of jurisdiction. The summary judgment decision was manufactured by OPERS in an apparent attempt to circumvent the requirements of Federal Rule 23(f). The decision was not final. View "Ohio Public Employees Retirement System v. Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sought class certification to pursue various claims against the Hilton Hotels Retirement Plan (“Hilton Plan”) for what they say are unlawfully denied vested retirement benefits. The district court ultimately denied certification on the ground that Plaintiffs had proposed an “impermissibly ‘fail-safe’” class—that is, a class definition for which membership can only be ascertained through “a determination of the merits of the case.”   The DC Circuit reversed and remanded the district court’s decision, finding that the district court, in this case, bypassed Rule 23’s requirements and based its denial of class certification entirely on the class’s “fail-safe” character. The court explained that the textual requirements of Rule 23 are fully capable of guarding against unwise uses of the class action mechanism. So the court rejected a rule against “fail-safe” classes as a freestanding bar to class certification ungrounded in Rule 23’s prescribed criteria. Instead, district courts should rely on the carefully calibrated requirements in Rule 23 to guide their class certification decisions and the authority the Rule gives them to deal with curable misarticulations of a proposed class definition. View "In re: Valerie White" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a former driver for Defendant Lyft, Inc., filed suit against Lyft under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA). He alleged that Lyft misclassified him and other drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, thereby violating multiple provisions of the Labor Code. Lyft moved to compel arbitration based on the arbitration provision in the “Terms of Service” (TOS) that it required its drivers to accept. The trial court denied the motion, finding the PAGA waiver in the arbitration provision unenforceable under then-controlling California law. Lyft appealed, and the Second Appellate District affirmed the denial of Lyft’s motion to compel arbitration. Lyft petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. The Court granted Lyft’s petition and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022).   The Second Appellate District reversed in part and affirmed in part the trial court’s order. The court remanded the matter to the trial court with directions to (1) enter an order compelling Plaintiff to arbitrate his individual PAGA claim and (2) conduct further proceedings regarding Plaintiff’s non-individual claims. The court explained that it is not bound by the analysis of PAGA standing set forth in Viking River. PAGA standing is a matter of state law that must be decided by California courts. The court explained that until it has guidance from the California Supreme Court, its review of PAGA and relevant state decisional authority leads the court to conclude that a plaintiff is not stripped of standing to pursue non-individual PAGA claims simply because their individual PAGA claim is compelled to arbitration. View "Seifu v. Lyft, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff opposed a new collective-bargaining agreement that passed by a 119-vote margin. Plaintiff sued the union for breach of its duty of fair representation and a violation of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. At their core, these claims are about whether the union hoodwinked members into ratifying the new collective-bargaining agreement by concealing what would happen to the 30-and-out benefit. The district court dismissed the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act claim, denied Plaintiff’s motion for class certification, and granted summary judgment to the union on the fair-representation claim. On appeal, Plaintiff alleged that the union concealed key information, but only nine members said it would have made a difference.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that Plaintiff failed to provide other evidence that the outcome of the vote would have changed. The court reasoned that the ratification vote was overwhelmingly in favor: 228 to 109, a 119-vote margin. Plaintiff offers only nine members who would have voted “no” if they had known about the elimination of the 30-and-out benefit. Even assuming each would have voted the way he thinks, the agreement still would have passed by a wide margin. The court wrote that no reasonable jury could conclude that the union’s alleged bad-faith conduct was the but-for cause of the union’s ratification of the collective-bargaining agreement. View "Matthew Nagel v. United Food and Com. Workers" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s decision dismissing her claims against New York University (NYU) and declining to allow her to amend her complaint to add another plaintiff. Plaintiff s a parent of an adult student who attended New York University (NYU) (Defendant-Appellee) during the Spring 2020 semester—a semester during which NYU suspended its in-person operations and transitioned to remote instruction. Alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and other claims, Plaintiff brought a putative class action suit against NYU to partially recover the tuition and fees she paid for her daughter’s Spring 2020 semester. The district court granted NYU’s motion to dismiss on the basis that Plaintiff lacked standing and denied Plaintiff’s motion to amend her complaint to add a current NYU student as an additional plaintiff because it concluded that amendment would be futile.   The Second Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. The court concluded that the district court correctly determined that Plaintiff lacks standing to bring her breach of contract and unjust enrichment claims because she has not alleged an injury-in-fact to herself, rather than to her daughter. The court held that Plaintiff fails to plausibly allege a claim for conversion. The court wrote that for these reasons, the district court properly dismissed her claims. However, the court concluded that amending the complaint to add a current student as plaintiff would not be futile. The student plaintiff plausibly alleged claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and money had and received that would survive a motion to dismiss. View "Christina Rynasko v. New York University" on Justia Law

Following the Flint Water Crisis, thousands of cases were brought for the various harms minors, adults, property owners, and business owners endured as a result of lead-contaminated water. Putative class action lawsuits and individual lawsuits were consolidated in the Eastern District of Michigan, where Co-Lead Class Counsel and Co-Liaison Counsel were appointed to represent the putative class and individual plaintiffs. After years of negotiation, Co-Lead Class Counsel and Co-Liaison Counsel, together with the Settling Defendants, reached a record-breaking settlement. The court approved the settlement and awarded attorneys’ fees and reimbursement for expenses. Three Objector groups appealed that award.The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Objectors are not entitled to detailed discovery of billing and cost records; assertions that those records would have shown excessive billing or revealed the inclusion of time not performed for the common benefit are entirely speculative. The Objectors lack standing to appeal the structure of the fee award; they would fare no better with or without the Common Benefit Assessments applicable to their claims. Were they to have standing, they did not demonstrate that the court abused its discretion in awarding Common Benefit Assessments, particularly when those assessments achieve parity among settlement beneficiaries and are reasonable under the circumstance. The court upheld an award of $500 for bone scans. View "Waid v. Snyder" on Justia Law