Mealey's Class Actions
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January 27, 2025
J&J Wins Dismissal Of Fiduciary Breach Claims In ERISA Drug Costs Lawsuit
CAMDEN, N.J. — One of the two high-profile Employee Retirement Income Security Act fiduciary duty suits focused on health plans’ pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) and prescription drug benefits has been partly dismissed with leave to amend, with a New Jersey federal judge on Jan. 24 ruling that the plaintiff lacks standing to assert the key claims in her putative class case.
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January 27, 2025
$69M Settlement Gets Initial OK In ERISA Target Date Funds Challenge
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal judge on Jan. 24 preliminarily approved a $69 million proposal that the class representative said would be “the largest settlement in the history of investment performance cases in an [Employee Retirement Income Security Act] context.”
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January 27, 2025
Supreme Court Won’t Consider Service Awards, Attorney Fees In Meta Privacy Suit
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An objector to the $90 million settlement of a multidistrict litigation over Meta Platforms Inc.’s purported online tracking of Facebook users saw his petition for certiorari denied Jan. 27, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to take up his questions over the propriety of plaintiff service awards and attorney fees in the settlement.
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January 27, 2025
Expectant Mothers’ Class Suit Challenges President’s Birthright Citizenship EO
SEATTLE — Three expectant mothers who live in Washington but are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents filed a class complaint on Jan. 24 in a federal court in that state challenging one of President Donald J. Trump’s Jan. 20 Executive Orders (EO) they say will alter birthright citizenship and leave their children “without status in” the United States.
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January 27, 2025
U.S. High Court Grants Labcorp’s Article III Injury, Class Certification Petition
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 24 agreed to decide a question posed by Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings’ (Labcorp) concerning certification of a class where some members lack injury under Article III of the U.S. Constitution.
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January 24, 2025
Hawaii Court Won’t Stay Allocation Proceeding Pending Subrogation Ruling
HONOLULU — Without explanation, a Hawaii Supreme Court justice denied a motion to stay a lower court’s allocation proceeding pending the resolution of reserved questions on how the subrogation rights of property and casualty insurance carriers bear on a proposed global settlement of claims related to the August 2023 Maui wildfires.
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January 24, 2025
Man Sues Firm For Robocalls Attempting To Obtain Camp Lejeune Water Crisis Clients
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A man has filed a putative class action against a law firm and a legal conversion center in North Carolina federal court contending that they violated federal law pertaining to robocalls in an attempt to solicit him as a client in the lawsuit for injuries allegedly caused by contaminated drinking water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.
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January 24, 2025
U.S. High Court Will Consider Limited Question In Class Case Over Veterans’ Pay
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court granted a veterans’ petition for a writ of certiorari in a class case over retired pay and agreed to hear a limited question concerning whether the Barring Act’s “default procedures and limitations” is displaced by a “settlement mechanism” in 10 U.S. Code Section 1413a.
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January 23, 2025
Judge Gives Final OK To $2.2M Settlement Of Data Breach Suit Against Health Care Firm
ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida federal judge granted final approval to a dual-fund settlement of a class complaint over a health care provider’s 2021 data breach, concluding that the $2.2 million total settlement, as well as an accompanying request for more than $424,000 in attorney fees, is reasonable.
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January 23, 2025
LinkedIn Used Private Messages To Train Generative AI, User Claims
SAN FRANCISCO — A user of the professional networking and social media site LinkedIn filed a putative class action lawsuit in California federal court accusing the company that operates the site of violating federal law and California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by accessing Premium users’ private messages to train artificial intelligence models without their consent.
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January 23, 2025
Plaintiffs Seeks Damages From Apple For Selling Smartwatch Bands That Contain PFAS
SAN FRANCISCO — Plaintiffs have filed a putative class action against Apple Inc. in California federal court contending that its smartwatch bands contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which the plaintiffs argue constitutes fraudulent business practices because Apple “intentionally misrepresented and/or concealed material facts with the intent to deceive” customers.
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January 23, 2025
Consumers’ Claims Over Lead In Stanley Tumblers Inadequately Pleaded, Judge Says
SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge dismissed putative class claims against the manufacturer of Stanley-brand drinkware for violating several states’ consumer protection laws, including California’s unfair competition law (UCL), by failing to disclose the presence of lead in its products, writing that the plaintiffs didn’t allege a “plausible risk” from lead’s “mere presence,” but granted the plaintiffs leave to amend.
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January 23, 2025
State Privacy Claim Against LinkedIn Dismissed For Lack Of Jurisdiction
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Two weeks after dismissing a woman’s Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) putative class claim against LinkedIn Corp. for the second time, a California federal judge dismissed her remaining state law claim over the online professional network operator’s purported data sharing for lack of jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).
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January 22, 2025
High Court Hears Argument On Stating ERISA Prohibited Transaction Claims
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22 heard oral argument concerning what is necessary to state an Employee Retirement Income Security Act prohibited transaction claim involving a service provider, with respondents seeking affirmation of a ruling that makes exemptions claim elements that must be negated and petitioners and amicus curiae the U.S. government urging reversal on grounds including that the exemptions are affirmative defenses for which defendants bear the burden.
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January 22, 2025
Mylan Agrees To Pay $73M To Settle Antitrust Claims Involving EpiPen
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Mylan NV, Mylan Specialty LP and Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. (collectively, Mylan) have agreed to contribute $73 million to a settlement fund to end claims that they conspired with others in an attempt to delay entry of generic competitors for the EpiPen epinephrine autoinjector (EAI) into the market, according to a motion for preliminary approval of a class action settlement agreement filed by a pharmacy and other plaintiffs.
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January 22, 2025
Class Certified In Breach Of Contract Case Over Life Insurance Policies
BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland certified a class of life insurance policy owners who allege breaches of contract in connection with certain charges deducted from the policies’ accumulated value and in the same opinion denied the life insurance company’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint.
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January 22, 2025
U.S. Says Settlement In Student-Athletes NIL Case May Not ‘Cure’ Problems
OAKLAND, Calif. — The United States filed a statement of interest in the lawsuit in a federal court in California by college athletes who have accused the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and five conferences of violating the Sherman Act by restricting compensation for the commercial use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL), saying that the preliminary approved settlement that the athletes have said will result in “$20 billion more flowing to student-athletes over the next ten years” will actually allow the NCAA “to continue fixing the amount its member schools can pay students for the use of their” NIL.
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January 22, 2025
Partial Stay Granted In Software Data Breach MDL To Finalize Agreement
MIAMI — The Florida federal judge overseeing a four-track multidistrict litigation over a 2023 data breach attributed to vulnerabilities in a file-transfer software application granted a motion by some of the parties to stay any deadlines related to two insurance company defendants to allow the corresponding parties to hammer out details of a written settlement agreement.
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January 22, 2025
Class Suit Accuses Pa. Borough Of Towing, Disposing Of Cars Without Due Process
PHILADELPHIA — A borough in southeastern Pennsylvania tows, impounds and disposes of vehicles without providing owners with basic due process protections of a notice and hearing, a Pennsylvania man alleges in a putative class complaint filed in a federal court in his state.
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January 22, 2025
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Settlement Providing Discharge Changes Preliminarily OK’d
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal magistrate judge in California granted preliminary approval of a class settlement between veterans and the federal government that will remove references to sexual orientation from the discharge paperwork of servicemembers discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) and other similar policies.
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January 22, 2025
7th Circuit Orders Remand Of FACTA Class Suit Against Military Retail Service
CHICAGO — A customer’s Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) putative class complaint against the Army and Air Force Exchange Service originally filed in state court was incorrectly dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled, instructing the trial court to send the action back to state court as 28 U.S. Code Section 1447(c) stipulates that the lack of jurisdiction determination requires remand.
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January 21, 2025
U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Appeal On Jurisdiction For FCC Orders
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Orders by the Federal Communications Commission and other agencies that interpret federal statutes do not under the Hobbs Act need to be treated by trial courts as binding precedent, and instead direct review should be conducted in the courts of appeals, the attorney representing a chiropractic practice argued Jan. 21 before the U.S. Supreme Court in the appeal of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class case while citing Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, Inc. v. PDR Network, LLC.
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January 21, 2025
9th Circuit Dismisses Inmate’s Appeal Of $725M Facebook Profile-Sharing Suit
SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a mandate, stating that a judgment in which it dismissed as untimely an inmate’s appeal of the $725 million settlement of the consolidated class action over Facebook Inc. (now known as Meta Platforms Inc.) sharing users’ profile data with Cambridge Analytica, was now in effect.
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January 21, 2025
Settlement Of Just Over $1.4M Gets Initial OK In Suit Over Insurer’s Denials
UTICA, N.Y. — A New York federal judge on Jan. 17 granted preliminary approval to a $1,415,000 settlement in a class action over allegations that United Behavioral Health violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by issuing blanket denials for residential treatments for mental health and chemical dependency claims when it considered even a single aspect of the facility’s treatment experimental.
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January 21, 2025
MOVEit Data Breach MDL Plaintiffs Oppose Review Of Dismissal Denial
BOSTON — A December ruling that denied dismissal of three lawsuits against one of the defendants in a multidistrict litigation over a 2023 data security incident related to MOVEit software does not merit reconsideration, the consolidated plaintiffs argue in an opposition brief, telling a Massachusetts federal court that a health tech firm did not offer any new arguments or evidence to support its quest for dismissal under the home-state exception of the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).