Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

Former and current employees filed a class action lawsuit in state court against Gilster and other defendants, alleging lung impairment (or potential lung impairment) from exposure to butter-flavoring products, including diacetyl, used in Gilster’s microwave popcorn packaging plant in Jasper, Missouri. Defendants removed the action to federal court. Six weeks later, the employees dismissed all defendants except Gilster. The district court ordered a remand to state court based on the Class Action Fairness Act’s local-controversy exception, 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(4), under which, a court is required to decline jurisdiction when “greater than two-thirds of the members of all proposed plaintiff classes in the aggregate are citizens of the State in which the action was originally filed,” determined as of the date of the filing. The district court permitted discovery on state citizenship. For all of the potential class members, except the current employees, plaintiffs provided only last-known addresses, some 27 years old, and did not identify state citizenship. The court ultimately found that 41 percent of potential class members were Missouri citizens. The Eighth Circuit reversed. Because the employees did not meet their burden of proof that a CAFA exception applies, the court erred by resolving doubt in favor of the party seeking remand. View "Hood v. Gilster-Mary Lee Corp." on Justia Law

In 1998, a driver hit pedestrian-plaintiff Roberta Folks with the side mirror of his vehicle and injured her. State Farm, the driver’s insurer, informed Folks she could receive basic personal injury protection (“PIP”) benefits under the driver’s policy. She received $104,000 in medical expenses and essential services. In 2002, State Farm told her she had exhausted the benefits available to her under the policy. Folks subsequently joined a lawsuit seeking additional PIP benefits in 2004. Over the course of the litigation, Folks unsuccessfully sought to certify a class on three attempts. In response to her last attempt in 2011, the district court determined she failed to satisfy the requirements of Rule 23(a) and Rule 23(b)(2) and denied class certification. A jury heard Folks’s individual claims and found in her favor in 2012. The district court amended the judgment in 2013 to correct errors in the calculation of damages. On appeal, Folks alleged the district court erred in denying class certification. She also argued the district court miscalculated the treble damages and statutory prejudgment interest to which she is entitled. Finding no error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Folks v. State Farm Mutual" on Justia Law

Senne parked his car on the street in front of his Palatine, Illinois house in violation of an ordinance. A police officer stuck a parking ticket face down under the windshield wiper; it included Senne’s name, birthdate, sex, height, weight, driver’s license number, and address (outdated), plus the vehicle’s description and vehicle identification number. Senne filed a purported class action under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. 2721, which forbids knowing disclosure of personal information obtained in connection with a motor vehicle record, “except as provided in subsection (b).” Subsection (b) permits “disclosure” “in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral proceeding”” and “use by any government agency, including any court or law enforcement agency, in carrying out its functions.” After a remand, the court rejected his claims. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that there was no evidence that anyone has ever taken a parking ticket from a windshield in Palatine and used personal information on the ticket. There has never been a crime or tort, resulting from personal information placed on traffic tickets. Had the Village made parking ticket information publicly available over the Internet, or included highly sensitive information such as a social security number, the risk of a nontrivial invasion of privacy would be much greater and might outweigh the benefits to law enforcement. View "Senne v. Village of Palatine" on Justia Law

In 2013, Plaintiffs filed an action against the Boeing Company and Landau Associates (Landau) in a Washington state court alleging that from the 1960s to the present years Boeing released toxins into the groundwater around its facility in Auburn, Washington and that for over a decade Landau, Boeing’s environmental-remediation contractor, had been negligent in its investigation and remediation of the pollution. Based on these allegations, Plaintiffs asserted state law claims of negligence, nuisance, and trespass. Boeing removed the action to a federal district court based on diversity jurisdiction and the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). The district court remanded the case to state court, concluding (1) contrary to Boeing’s allegations, Landau was not fraudulently joined, and thus there was not complete diversity; and (2) Plaintiffs’ action came within the local single event exception to CAFA federal jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded, holding (1) the district court correctly determined that Boeing failed to show that Landau was fraudulently joined; but (2) Plaintiffs’ action does not come within the local single event exception to CAFA, and therefore, the district court has federal jurisdiction under CAFA. Remanded. View "Allen v. Boeing Co." on Justia Law

Appellants, Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, filed a motion to intervene in a class-action suit filed by Appellees, purchasers of surplus-lines insurance. Named as defendants were Arkansas surplus-lines-insurance brokers. According to Appellees, the defendants improperly placed contracts of insurance with persons who were not insurers approved by the Arkansas Insurance Commissioner. Appellants asserted that they had subscribed to multiple insurance policies issues to Appellees during the relevant time period and that they had significant interests in the suit because Appellees sought to void multiple insurance contracts to which Appellants subscribed as real parties in interest. Appellants also generally denied the allegation of the class-action complaint, including the allegation that the insurance contracts were voidable. The circuit court denied Appellants’ motion to intervene. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the circuit court erred in ruling that Appellants were too amorphous to allow intervention; and (2) Appellants met the requirements of Ark. R. Civ. P. 24(a)(2), which must be demonstrated when a party seeks to intervene as a matter of right. View "Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, London" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are individuals and entities that purchased shares in the Kingate funds and continued to hold their shares until the 2008 exposure of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, resulting in loss most of the funds’ assets. A purported class action was filed against persons and entities affiliated with the funds. The district court dismissed, citing the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA), 112 Stat. 3227, which bars certain state‐law‐based class actions alleging falsity in connection with transactions in six categories of “covered securities.” The Second Circuit vacated, noting the Supreme Court’s intervening ruling in Chadbourne & Parke LLP v. Troice, (2014). The alleged fraud in this case is “in connection with the purchase or sale of a covered security” and brings the case within SLUSA’s prohibition (assuming SLUSA’s 12 other elements are met). The state law claims that do not depend on false conduct are not within the scope of SLUSA, even if the complaint includes peripheral, inessential mentions of false conduct. Claims accusing the defendant of complicity in the false conduct that gives rise to liability are subject to SLUSA’s prohibition, while claims of false conduct in which the defendant is not alleged to have had any complicity are not. View "In re: Kingate Mgmt. Ltd. Litig." on Justia Law

Thirteen inmates in custody throughout the Arizona prison system brought a class action suit against senior officials in the Arizona Department of Corrections alleging that they were subjected to systemic Eighth Amendment violations. The district court certified a class consisting of 33,000 prisoners incarcerated in the Arizona prison system, concluding that the putative class and subclass of inmates satisfied the requirements of class certification set forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 23. A panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Plaintiffs satisfied Rule 23(a)(2). The panel subsequently voted to deny the petition for rehearing en banc. Judge Ikuta filed a dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc concurrently with this order, arguing that all members of this diverse class of prisoners did not have an Eighth Amendment claim, alone a common claim, and therefore the certification ran afoul of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, Lewis v. Casey, and the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. View "Parsons v. Ryan" on Justia Law

A 1999 suit alleged that plaintiffs had been arrested on misdemeanor charges and were strip searched, without individualized suspicion, in violation of their federal and state constitutional rights. Nassau County conceded liability. The Second Circuit instructed the court to certify a class as to liability and to consider whether to certify a class as to damages. The district court certified both classes, granted summary judgment on liability, and held a bench trial on damages. In 2012, before the district court entered judgment, Nassau County moved to vacate the summary judgment and to dismiss the action based on the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision Florence v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders, that “every detainee who will be admitted to the general population [of a jail] may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed. The court granted the motion as to the federal claim, but determined that Florence did not warrant vacatur of the concession of liability with respect to the state claim, and awarded $11.5 million. While appeal was pending, Nassau County moved to stay enforcement pending appeal. The district court ruled that the obligation to deposit the funds with the court would be stayed for 180 days, or indefinitely, if Nassau County posted a bond. The Second Circuit stayed the requirement of deposit or bond. View "In re: Nassau Cnty Strip Search Cases" on Justia Law

Aaron’s stores sell and lease residential and office furniture, consumer electronics, and appliances. Byrd leased a laptop computer from Aspen, an Aaron’s franchisee. Although Byrd asserts that she made full payments, an Aspen agent came to repossess the laptop, claiming that the payments had not been made. The agent allegedly presented a screenshot of a poker website Byrd had visited as well as a picture of Byrd taken by the laptop’s camera. Aspen obtained the picture and screenshot through spyware named “PC Rental Agent” that can collect screenshots, keystrokes, and webcam images from the computer and its users. Between November 16, 2010 and December 20, 2010, the Byrds alleged that this spyware secretly accessed their laptop 347 times on 11 different days. According their putative class action, alleging violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2511, 895 customers had surveillance conducted through PC Rental Agent. Concluding that the proposed classes were not ascertainable, the district court denied class certification. The Third Circuit reversed. The court erred by: misstating the rule governing ascertainability; engrafting an “underinclusive” requirement; finding that an “overly broad” class was not ascertainable; and improperly applying precedent to the issue of whether “household members” could be ascertainable. View "Byrd v. Aaron's Inc" on Justia Law

In a putative securities class action, investors who purchased or acquired American Depository Shares (ADSs) of The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), alleged that RBS and several of its top executives made false and misleading statements that inflated the ADSsʹ prices, in violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78j(b), 78t(a), and Rule 10b‐5, 17 C.F.R. 240.10b‐5. RBS had experienced rapid growth by repackaging residential subprime mortgages and leveraged loans into residential mortgage backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and collateralized loan obligations. The housing market bubble burst in 2006, mortgage delinquencies soared, and subprime assets lost much of their value. The district court dismissed and denied plaintiffsʹ motions for reconsideration, to alter or amend the judgment, and for leave to amend. The Second Circuit affirmed, finding that many of the statements at issue were “inactionable puffery.” In light of the total mix of information available to the reasonable investor, RBSʹs statements were not a basis for a securities fraud claim. View "IBEW Local Union v. Royal Bank of Scotland" on Justia Law