Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

Consumers who purchased an advertised product that promised they could "eat all you want and still lose weight" were dissatisfied with the results and filed a class action against the manufacturers for false advertising. The parties entered into mediation, where they drafted and signed a document outlining the terms of a settlement. They then informed the district court that the mediation had been successful and, in subsequent months, exchanged several drafts further documenting the settlement. During the drafting, the parties could no longer agree on terms and defendants informed the district court they no longer intended to settle. The plaintiff class then filed a motion to enforce the settlement achieved at the mediation, and the district court granted that motion because it concluded the parties had entered into an enforceable agreement. On appeal, the plaintiffs contested the Tenth Circuit's interlocutory jurisdiction. The defendants challenged the merits of the district court’s conclusion that the parties had, in fact, reached a binding settlement. The Tenth Circuit concluded that the case was an impermissible interlocutory appeal because the district court's judgment was not a final one. Finding that it lacked jurisdiction, the Tenth Circuit dismissed the appeal. View "Miller, et al v. Basic Research, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a purported class action against Charter in Missouri state court, alleging that Charter violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act (MMPA), Mo. Rev. Stat. 407.10 et seq., and breached its contract with the class members. Plaintiffs alleged that Charter had provided the class members with Internet modems that were incapable of operating at the speed that Charter had promised. Charter removed to federal court. The court concluded that Charter met its burden of showing that the amount in controversy exceeded the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005's (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), $5 million jurisdictional threshold. The court also concluded that, under Missouri law, plaintiffs failed to allege facts to support pecuniary loss. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint.View "Grawitch, et al. v. Charter Communication" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, San Francisco police officers over the age of forty, performed well enough on an examination in 1998 to qualify for consideration for promotion to Assistant Inspector. Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that a new policy of the Police Department abandoning the examination as basis for certain assignments worked a disparate impact based on age. The district court denied certification of a class composed of all San Francisco Police Department officers over forty who had qualified on the 1998 examination. The court reversed the district court's denial of certification for want of commonality, concluding that the district court abused its discretion because it disregarded the existence of common questions of law and fact and impermissibly addressed the merits of the class's claims. View "Stockwell v. City & Ctny. of San Francisco" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action against MERS in state court asserting claims related to MERS's facilitation of the provision of "Esign" mortgages to consumer-borrowers. MERS appealed the district court's grant of a motion to remand to New York state court on the ground that MERS's notice of removal was untimely. The court reversed and held that, in Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) cases, the 30-day removal periods of 28 U.S.C. 1446(b)(1) and (b)(3) are not triggered until the plaintiff serves the defendant with an initial pleading or other paper that explicitly specifies the amount of monetary damages sought or sets forth facts from which an amount in controversy in excess of $5,000,000 can be ascertained. The court also held that where a plaintiff's papers failed to trigger the removal clocks of sections 1446(b)(1) and (b)(3), a defendant may remove a case when, upon its own independent investigation, it determines that the case is removable. Therefore, the 30-day removal periods of sections 1446(b)(1) and (b)(3) are not the exclusive authorizations for removal in CAFA cases. In this instance, plaintiffs never served MERS with a complaint or subsequent document explicitly stating the amount in controversy or providing MERS with sufficient information to conclude the threshold amount in controversy was satisfied. Therefore, the removal clocks of section 1446(b)(1) and (b)(3) did not commence. After MERS determined upon its independent investigation that section 1332(d) conveyed CAFA federal jurisdiction because the amount in controversy, number of plaintiffs, and minimal diversity requirements were satisfied, it properly removed the case by alleging facts adequate to establish the amount in controversy in its notice of removal. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded.View "Cutrone v. Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc." on Justia Law

A class action complaint, filed in state court, alleged that Pushpin acted as an unlicensed debt collector in violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act and filed 1100 Illinois small‐claims suits, all fraudulent, but that the class (defendants in those suits) sought “no more than $1,100,000.00 in compensatory damages and $2,000,000.00 in punitive damages,” and would ‘incur attorneys’ fees of no more than $400,000.00,” below the $5 million threshold for removal of a state‐court class action to a federal district court under the Class Action Fairness Act. Pushpin removed the case to federal court under the Act, 28 U.S.C. 1453(b), but the district court remanded to state court. The Seventh Circuit reversed, reasoning that the plaintiff did not irrevocably commit to obtaining less than $5 million for the class, and Pushpin’s estimate that the damages recoverable by the class could equal or exceed that amount may be reliable enough to preclude remanding the case to the state court. The lower court’s reasoning that most of the claims were barred by the Rooker‐Feldman rule was a mistake as was a statement that “there is a strong presumption in favor of remand” when a case has been removed under the Class Action Fairness Act. View "Pushpin Holdings, LLC v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Cedar Lodge filed a proposed class action suit against Fairway Defendants in Louisiana state court and Fairway Defendants removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d). Cedar Lodge subsequently amended the complaint to add STS, a Louisiana citizen, as defendant and moved to remand to state court under the local controversy exception to CAFA jurisdiction. The district court remanded. This court then granted the Fairway Defendants permission to appeal the remand order and now hold that the application of the local controversy exception depends on the pleadings at the time the class action is removed, not on an amended complaint filed after removal. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cedar Lodge Plantation, L.L.C., et al. v. CSHV Fairway View I, L.L.C., et al." on Justia Law

This antitrust class action stemmed from an allegation that Dow Chemical Company conspired with its competitors to fix prices for polyurethane chemical products. Over Dow’s objection, the district court certified a plaintiff class including all industrial purchasers of polyurethane products during the alleged conspiracy period. The action went to trial, and the jury returned a verdict against Dow. The district court entered judgment for the plaintiffs, denying Dow’s motions for decertification of the class and judgment as a matter of law. Dow raised four issues on appeal, all of which the Tenth Circuit rejected. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court. View "In re: Urethane AntiTrust Litigation" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, consumers, filed suit in Minnesota state court against ConAgra, claiming that some Hebrew National beef products were not, as the label reads, "100% kosher." ConAgra removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. 1453. The district court decided that the First Amendment prohibited the courts from adjudicating plaintiffs' legal claims and dismissed the appeal. The court concluded that plaintiffs alleged economic harm - even if only a few pennies each - was a concrete, non-speculative injury. The court concluded, however, that plaintiffs' allegations failed to show that any of the particular packages of Hebrew National beef they personally purchased contained non-kosher beef. Without any particularized reason to think that plaintiffs' own packages of Hebrew National beef actually exhibited the alleged non-kosher defect, plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to sue ConAgra and CAFA did not extend federal jurisdiction to this case. The court vacated the district court's judgment, reversed the district court's dismissal with prejudice, and remanded with instructions to return this case to the state court for lack of federal jurisdiction.View "Wallace, et al. v. ConAgra Foods, Inc." on Justia Law

In this class action case, a jury found that the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) violated the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing in its contracts with individual providers who live with the DSHS clients for whom they provide care. The jury found that the providers incurred over $57 million in damages, and the judge awarded an additional $38 million in interest. The DSHS clients who lived with their providers also filed a class action suit, but the judge did not allow them to recover any damages. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court upheld the jury's verdict for the providers, the judge's decision to disallow the clients from recovering damages, and the dismissal of the providers' wage claims, because all complied with Washington law. However, the Court reversed the judge's award of prejudgment interest because the damages could not be determined with certainty. View "Rekhter v. Dep't of Soc. & Health Servs." on Justia Law

Theresa Holbrook requested her medical records from Millard Henry Clinic. Healthport, Inc., a private company that had a contract with Millard Henry Clinic to fulfill such requests, obtained copies of Holbrook’s requested medical records. Healthport subsequently sent Holbrook invoices for the records, including sales tax. Holbrook, individually and on behalf of all other Arkansans similarly situated, filed a class-action complaint seeking damages and requesting that the court find, inter alia, that Healthport illegally collected sales taxes for retrieving and copying her medical records. Holbrook later filed an amended complaint containing allegations against the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. The circuit court granted Defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment and denied Holbrook’s motion for partial summary judgment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the circuit court did not err in determining that the gross-receipts-tax statute imposes a sales tax on a patient’s ability to obtain a copy of the patient’s own medical records; and (2) the Arkansas Access to Medical Records Act does not exempt a patient’s request for copies of the patient’s medical information from any otherwise applicable tax or charge.View "Holbrook v. Healthport, Inc." on Justia Law