Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

This case arose when plaintiffs voluntarily filed applications for adjustment of status in reliance on the Ninth Circuit's opinion in Perez-Gonzalez v. Ashcroft, wherein the court purportedly held that individuals like plaintiffs were eligible for relief. The court held that plaintiffs' request for relief from the retroactive application of Duran Gonzales II to their applications for adjustment of status must be denied because (1) Duran Gonzales II itself applied its rulings to plaintiffs, thus giving the opinion retroactive application; and (2) another three-judge panel had reaffirmed that Duran Gonzales II applied retroactively and that, accordingly, plaintiffs were ineligible to receive I-212 waivers. Therefore, the district court's orders denying plaintiffs' motions to amend class certification and to file an amended complaint, and dismissing the action, were affirmed.

This appeal involved a fundamental misunderstanding about the enforcement of an injunction. The district court approved a settlement between defendant and a national class represented by plaintiffs, as part of its judgment, enjoined permanently "anyone claiming... for the benefit of" members of the class for prosecuting released claims. Movants opted out of the settlement of that class action, but continued to prosecute a putative class action against defendant in a California court. Instead of moving the district court to enforce its extant injunction, defendant then moved the district court to enter another injunction to bar movants from prosecuting their putative class action in the California court, under the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. 2283. The district court granted that motion and entered a second injunction, which movants now challenge on appeal. The court held that because the district court failed to comply with "equity's time-honored procedures" to enforce an injunction, the second injunction against movants was vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs appealed from a decision granting defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiffs' complaints for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Plaintiffs, participants in two retirement plans offered by defendants, brought suit alleging breach of fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq. Plaintiff alleged that defendants acted imprudently by including employer stock as an investment option in the retirement plans and that defendants failed to provide adequate and truthful information to participants regarding the status of employer stock. The court held that the facts alleged by plaintiffs were, even if proven, insufficient to establish that defendants abused their discretion by continuing to offer plan participants the opportunity to invest in McGraw-Hill stock. The court also held that plaintiffs have not alleged facts sufficient to prove that defendants made any statements, while acting in a fiduciary capacity, that they knew to be false. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Plaintiffs, participants in retirement plans offered by defendants and covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., appealed from a judgment dismissing their ERISA class action complaint. Plan documents required that a stock fund consisting primarily of Citigroup common stock be offered among the plan's investment options. Plaintiffs argued that because Citigroup stock became an imprudent investment, defendants should have limited plan participants' ability to invest in it. The court held that plan fiduciaries' decision to continue offering participants the opportunity to invest in Citigroup stock should be reviewed for an abuse of discretion and the court found that they did not abuse their discretion here. The court also held that defendants did not have an affirmative duty to disclose to plan participants nonpublic information regarding the expected performance of Citigroup stock and that the complaint did not sufficiently allege that defendants, in their fiduciary capacities, made any knowing misstatements regarding Citigroup stock. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiff appealed from a judgment dismissing as time-barred a putative class action alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. 227, arising from the transmission of an unsolicited advertisement to plaintiff by means of a telephone facsimile machine. At issue was whether a state statute of limitations was among the "laws" referenced in the TCPA's "otherwise permitted" provision, or whether the statute of limitations for TCPA actions was the federal catch-all four-year limitations period provided in 28 U.S.C. 1658(a). The court held that, in the circumstances of this case, where the relevant state law, Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-570c, specifically recognized a cause of action for statutory damages for the transmission of unsolicited commercial facsimile communications, but permitted such an action to be filed only within two years of the complained-of transmission, a TCPA action could be maintained only as permitted by that state statute of limitations. Accordingly, in this instance, plaintiff's complaint was untimely even if tolling were to be calculated.

This action arose out of the proposed open merger of OPENLANE with Riley, wholly-owned subsidiary of ADESA which in turn, was a wholly-owned subsidiary of KAR (KAR and, together with Riley and ADESA, collectively, the "Purchasing Entities" or "KAR"). Plaintiff brought a class action on behalf of himself and all other public shareholders of OPENLANE and sought to enjoin preliminarily the merger. The court held that a balancing of the equities did not tilt toward enjoining the transaction. Accordingly, the motion for a preliminary injunction was denied.

Plaintiff, a former shareholder of infoGroup, Inc., brought its Second Amended Class Action complaint asserting, on behalf of themselves and their fellow former shareholders, that the merger of infoGroup into a subsidiary of CCMP Capital Advisors, pursuant to an agreement entered on March 8, 2010, was the product of breaches by the then-directors of infoGroup of the fiduciary duty of loyalty. The court held that the claim which plaintiff sought to assert was individual in nature and that plaintiff had alleged sufficiently that the merger was not approved by a disinterested and independent majority of the directors. The court also held that, although plaintiff acknowledged that it was not asserting certain claims the dismissal of which had been sought by defendants, for purposes of avoiding confusion, those claims were dismissed. Accordingly, with that limited exception, the court denied defendants' motions to dismiss.

Plaintiff brought a class action against the Bank, alleging that the Bank breached its contract by charging interest in excess of the rate specified in the promissory note. The court affirmed the district court's grant of the Bank's motion to dismiss where the district court correctly concluded that the relevant provisions were clear, did not conflict with one another, and adequately disclosed the interest to be charged.

Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated, filed a complaint alleging that defendants violated the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201-19, by requiring waiters to share tips with tip-ineligible employees. Plaintiffs also alleged that Park Avenue also violated various provisions of the New York Labor Law by requiring servers to share tips with tip-ineligible employees and by failing to pay waiters for an extra hour's work when their workdays lasted more than ten hours. Defendants appealed from the district court's order granting plaintiffs' motion for class certification. The court held that plaintiffs provided ample and sufficient evidence as to the elements of Rule 23(a)(1)-(4) and Rule 23(b)(3) for it to uphold the district court's findings and conclusions with respect to each of the Rule 23 requirements. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's order.

Appellants appealed the dismissal of their class action complaint against Nextel, the law firm of Leeds, Morelli & Brown, P.C. (LMB), and seven of LMB's lawyers (also LMB). Appellants were former clients of LMB who retained the firm to bring discrimination claims against Nextel. The complaint asserted that, inter alia, LMB breached its fiduciary duty of loyalty to appellants and the class by entering into an agreement with Nextel in which Nextel agreed to pay: (i) $2 million to LMB to persuade en masse its approximately 587 clients to, inter alia, abandon ongoing legal and administrative proceedings against Nextel, waive their rights to a jury trial and punitive damages, and accept an expedited mediation/arbitration procedure; (ii) another $3.5 million to LMB on a sliding scale as the clients' claims were resolved through that procedure; and (iii) another $2 million to LMB to work directly for Nextel as a consultant for two years beginning when the clients' claims had been resolved. The court held that appellants have alleged facts sufficient to state a claim against LMB for, inter alia, breach of fiduciary duty and against Nextel for aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings.