Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

The case involves a consumer, Yoram Kahn, who alleges that Walmart Inc., the nation's largest retailer, engages in deceptive and unfair pricing practices. Kahn claims that there are small discrepancies between the prices advertised on Walmart's shelves and the prices actually charged at the cash register. These discrepancies, he alleges, add up to hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Kahn argues that these practices violate the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, the Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and other states' consumer protection statutes. He also brings a claim for unjust enrichment and seeks to sue on behalf of a class of similarly situated consumers.The district court dismissed the case on the pleadings and denied leave to amend the complaint. The court reasoned that providing a customer with a receipt after payment stating the actual price charged is sufficient to dispel any potential deception or unfairness caused by an inaccurate shelf price. The court also held that Kahn failed to allege that Walmart intended for him to rely on the inaccurate shelf pricing.The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the district court's decision. The appellate court held that the complaint states some viable claims. The court rejected the theory that providing a receipt after payment is sufficient to dispel any potential deception or unfairness caused by an inaccurate shelf price. The court also found that Kahn had adequately alleged a deceptive or unfair practice and the required intent. The court remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Kahn v. Walmart Inc." on Justia Law

The case involves a class action lawsuit brought by homeowners in the Falcon Ridge subdivision in Billings, Montana, against Buscher Construction and Development, Inc., and other related entities and individuals (collectively referred to as the "Buschers"). The homeowners alleged that the Buschers negligently designed and developed the subdivisions, failed to construct homes to mitigate against the possibility of differential settlement on hydro-collapsible soils, and failed to disclose material adverse facts known to them as the original owners of all the lots within the subdivision.The District Court of the Thirteenth Judicial District, Yellowstone County, certified the class action. The Buschers appealed this decision, arguing that the proposed class did not satisfy the prerequisites for class certification under Montana Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and that the court abused its discretion by certifying the class under Rule 23(b)(3).The Supreme Court of the State of Montana affirmed the lower court's decision. The court found that the proposed class satisfied the commonality and typicality requirements of Rule 23(a). The court also found that the class action was superior to other methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy, as required by Rule 23(b)(3). The court concluded that the homeowners' claims were not dependent upon individual conduct but on the Buschers' alleged uniform negligence. The court also noted that the lower court has the discretion to revisit certification if class claims no longer predominate as the case proceeds. View "Busher v. Cook" on Justia Law

The case revolves around Frequency Therapeutics, a biotech startup that was developing a treatment for severe sensorineural hearing loss called "FX-322". Initial trials were positive, but subsequent testing yielded disappointing results, causing a sharp drop in Frequency's stock price. Three stockholders filed a class action lawsuit alleging violations of sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, and Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5. They claimed that Frequency's CEO, David Lucchino, and its Chief Development Officer, Carl LeBel, knew of problems with the study before the results were announced, yet gave investors assurances to the contrary.The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissed the complaint, finding that the plaintiffs failed to allege sufficient facts to support a finding of scienter under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. The plaintiffs appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal. The court found that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the defendants had made the false statements with the degree of scienter required to state a Securities and Exchange Act claim. The court noted that the complaint did not provide specific facts about when the defendants learned of the adverse events, which was a glaring omission. The court also found that the increase in stock sales by the CEO was not sufficient to establish an inference of scienter on its own. The court concluded that the plaintiffs' allegations, taken collectively, did not give rise to a strong inference of scienter. View "Quinones v. Frequency Therapeutics, Inc." on Justia Law

The case involves Gillian and Samuel Davidson, who filed a class action lawsuit against Sprout Foods, Inc., alleging that the labels on Sprout's baby food pouches violated California's Sherman Law, which incorporates all federal food labeling standards. The Davidsons claimed that Sprout's labels, which stated the amount of nutrients the pouches contained, were misleading and harmful to consumers.The district court dismissed the Davidsons' claims. It ruled that the Sherman Law claim was preempted by federal law, which only allows the federal government to enforce food labeling standards. The court also dismissed the Davidsons' fraud-based claims, stating that they failed to specifically allege why Sprout's products were harmful.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court held that federal law did not preempt private enforcement of the Sherman Law's labeling requirements. The court reasoned that the federal food labeling statute permits states to enact labeling standards identical to the federal standards, which California has done through the Sherman Law. Therefore, the district court should not have dismissed the Sherman Law claims. However, the court affirmed the dismissal of the Davidsons' fraud-based claims, agreeing with the lower court that the Davidsons failed to meet the heightened pleading requirements for fraud. The court also reversed the dismissal of an unjust enrichment claim, which survived due to the reversal on the Sherman Law claim. View "Davidson v. Sprout Foods, Inc." on Justia Law

The case involves the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, and its laws restricting public camping. The city's laws prohibit activities such as camping on public property or parking overnight in the city’s parks. Violations can result in fines and, in the case of multiple violations, imprisonment. A group of homeless individuals filed a class action lawsuit against the city, arguing that these ordinances violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The district court agreed with the plaintiffs, citing a previous Ninth Circuit decision, Martin v. Boise, which held that cities cannot enforce public camping ordinances against homeless individuals when the number of homeless individuals exceeds the number of available shelter beds.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision, leading to the city's appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's decision, holding that the enforcement of laws regulating camping on public property does not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The Court reasoned that the Eighth Amendment focuses on the punishment a government may impose after a criminal conviction, not on whether a government may criminalize particular behavior in the first place. The Court also noted that the punishments imposed by the city of Grants Pass, such as fines and temporary bans from public parks, did not qualify as cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment. The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court's opinion. View "City of Grants Pass v. Johnson" on Justia Law

This case is a class action involving commercial truck drivers who claimed they were not paid properly by Werner Enterprises, Inc., and Drivers Management, LLC. The drivers alleged that they were not adequately compensated for off-duty time spent on short rest breaks and time spent resting in their trucks’ sleeper-berths. The case has been appealed multiple times, with the court previously vacating a jury verdict in favor of the drivers because the district court improperly allowed the drivers to submit an expert report after the deadline. On remand, the district court entered judgment in favor of the defendants. The drivers appealed again, and the court vacated the judgment and remanded the case back to the district court to conduct an analysis regarding whether the expert report should be excluded as a discovery sanction and whether the district court should appoint an independent expert.On remand, the district court concluded that exclusion of the drivers’ expert report was the appropriate sanction for its late disclosure and that appointment of an independent expert was not appropriate. It then entered judgment in favor of the defendants. The drivers appealed this decision, asserting that the district court erred in its analysis. The defendants cross-appealed, asserting that the drivers’ notice of appeal was untimely, requiring dismissal of the appeal.The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected the defendants’ contention on cross-appeal and affirmed the judgment of the district court. The court found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the expert report and denying the drivers’ motion for a new trial. The court also found that the district court did not err in declining to appoint an expert and in entering judgment in favor of the defendants. View "Petrone v. Werner Enterprises, Inc." on Justia Law

The case involves a putative class action of approximately 2,000 payees who received structured settlement annuities to resolve personal injury claims. The plaintiffs, Renaldo White and Randolph Nadeau, alleged that defendants Symetra Life Insurance Company and Symetra Assigned Benefits Service Company wrongfully induced them to cash out their annuities in individualized “factoring” arrangements, whereby they gave up their rights to periodic payments in return for discounted lump sums.The district court certified two nationwide classes under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The first class consisted of all persons who were annuitants of a structured settlement annuity (SSA) issued by Symetra and who subsequently sold to a Symetra affiliate the right to receive payments from that SSA in a factoring transaction. The second class was a subclass of the first, consisting of all members of the class whose contract defining the annuity at issue included language explicitly stating that the annuitants lack the power to transfer their future SSA payments.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s certification of the two nationwide classes. The court held that individual issues of causation will predominate over common ones when evaluating whether defendants’ acts and omissions caused the plaintiffs to enter factoring transactions and incur their alleged injuries. The court also held that the district court erred in certifying the nationwide subclass of plaintiffs whose original settlement agreements with their personal injury tortfeasors contained structured settlement annuity (SSA) anti-assignment provisions. The record indicates that the annuitants hail from a wide array of different states, and some of the settlement agreements have choice of law provisions denoting the law of a state other than the location where the contract was executed. The apparent variations in state law on the enforceability of anti-assignment provisions in SSAs and the need to apply multiple state laws to the subclass raised a substantial question of whether individual issues predominate and how the matter can be fairly managed as a class action. View "WHITE V. SYMETRA ASSIGNED BENEFITS SERVICE COMPANY" on Justia Law

The plaintiff, Mary Rodgers-Rouzier, worked as a bartender on steamboats operated by American Queen. She alleged that she and her coworkers were wrongly denied overtime wages. Rodgers-Rouzier filed a suit as a collective action, and over one hundred of her coworkers joined her proposed collective action. Meanwhile, American Queen moved to dismiss the case, arguing that Rodgers-Rouzier had agreed to arbitration. The district court denied the motion, but American Queen moved again to dismiss based on the arbitration agreement, this time invoking Indiana state law. The district court granted this motion, over Rodgers-Rouzier’s objections.The district court had previously denied American Queen's motion to dismiss the case for improper venue because Rodgers-Rouzier had agreed to arbitration. However, American Queen then moved again to dismiss based on the arbitration agreement, this time invoking Indiana state law. The district court granted this motion, over Rodgers-Rouzier’s objections that American Queen had waived its argument and the court lacked authority to apply Indiana law in this context. The court further determined that all the workers who had filed consent forms were not parties to the action.The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the district court's decision. The court concluded that although American Queen’s arguments were not waived and the court had authority to enforce the arbitration agreement under Indiana law, Indiana law would hold American Queen to its bargain that its arbitration agreement was governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). Therefore, Rodgers-Rouzier’s case may continue in federal court. The court did not decide whether it may do so as a collective action and left that question for further litigation. View "Rodgers-Rouzier v. American Queen Steamboat Operating Company, LLC" on Justia Law

The case involves Nicholas DeFries, a former conductor for Union Pacific Railroad Company, who was removed from his duties after failing color-vision testing. Prior to DeFries' removal, a class action lawsuit had been filed against Union Pacific by a group of employees, alleging that the company's fitness-for-duty program violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). DeFries qualified as a member of this class, but the class was later narrowed and then decertified by the Eighth Circuit. DeFries subsequently filed an individual lawsuit in the District of Oregon, raising claims similar to those in the class action.The District of Oregon concluded that the commencement of the class action had tolled the statute of limitations under American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, but that the tolling ended when the class definition was voluntarily narrowed, making DeFries's claim untimely. DeFries appealed this decision.The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's decision. The appellate court found ambiguity in whether the definition of the certified class included color-vision plaintiffs like DeFries. The court concluded that this ambiguity should be resolved in favor of allowing DeFries to rely on American Pipe tolling. Therefore, DeFries was entitled to tolling as a member of the class until the Eighth Circuit issued the mandate for its decision reversing class certification, making his claim timely. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "DeFries v. Union Pacific Railroad Co." on Justia Law

The case involves a dispute over a protective order issued by the district court, barring Visser and Associates, PLLC (“Visser”) from communicating with potential class members in a putative class action. The case originated from a claim by Wayside Church that Van Buren County had violated the federal Constitution’s Takings Clause by foreclosing on its property to satisfy a tax debt and then selling the property for a higher amount without refunding the difference. The case was revived in federal court following the Supreme Court's overruling of a previous decision that required such claims to be pursued in state court.The district court preliminarily approved a proposed class action settlement between the plaintiffs and defendant counties. Around the same time, Visser began sending solicitation letters to property owners who it thought might have takings claims against counties in the Western District of Michigan. The district court issued a show-cause order, finding that Visser’s solicitation letters did not cross the line from permissible solicitation to misleading, improper communication with potential class members. However, the court was not satisfied with Visser’s explanation for why it had sent solicitation letters to named plaintiffs who were already represented by class counsel.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court's protective order. The court found that Visser had violated ethical rules by soliciting named plaintiffs and misleading the court. The court also found that Visser had continued to solicit potential class members after the district court had preliminarily approved the class settlement. The court concluded that Visser's conduct posed a serious threat to the fairness of the litigation process and the administration of justice generally. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing the protective order. View "Wayside Church v. Van Buren County" on Justia Law