Parties in today’s complex litigation world, and their counsel, need no reminder of the ubiquity of electronic discovery and the tremendous expense it occasions. Even before 2006, when “electronically stored information” (ESI) was expressly added to the federal rules, parties have had discovery obligations regarding electronic documents and data. E-discovery, and the costs associated with it, are not going away. (By some estimates, the volume of data existing in the world doubles every two years.)…

One unwanted text message does not confer standing in federal court in the Eleventh Circuit — so holds the court in Salcedo v. Hanna. The case confirms that one text message is qualitatively, and jurisprudentially, different from the kind of intrusions that give rise to an Article III injury-in-fact. The plaintiff in Salcedo claimed that he received a single unsolicited text message for a discount on legal services from his former lawyer. He brought…

In the digital age, the internet not infrequently stretches the bounds of traditional jurisprudence and raises tricky new questions. An example from earlier this year is Vangheluwe v. GotNews, LLC, where a federal court in Michigan grappled with this question: How significant to personal jurisdiction is “doxing” a resident of the forum state? The Eastern District of Michigan’s shorthand answer is: It all depends on the dox. What is Doxing? Doxing (sometimes spelled “doxxing”)…

Consent is the most powerful weapon companies have against TCPA liability, and a recent Eleventh Circuit opinion illustrates how. In Gorss Motels, Inc. v. Safemark Systems, L.P., the Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment where the plaintiffs consented to receive solicitations in their franchise agreements. The background: Gorss and another company, E&G, operate hotels as franchisees of the Wyndham Hotel Group. In the franchise agreement, they agreed that Wyndham and its affiliates could offer assistance…

While a war rages on the issue of standing in data breach cases, the need to prove damages is presenting an even greater hurdle for plaintiffs, as we have noted previously. One clear illustration of this trend is Attias v. CareFirst, Inc., a case that involves both standing and damages issues. Attias arises from a data breach at a health insurer that allegedly compromised policyholder information. The defense began by moving to dismiss for…

Bucking a recent trend and departing from both the Second Circuit’s Katz decision and the Third Circuit’s Kamal decision, the Eleventh Circuit found that a plaintiff had standing to settle a FACTA claim on behalf of a class. This decision—Muransky v. Godiva Chocolatier, Inc.—signals the continuing debate about what Spokeo means for federal statutory damages class actions. As is now familiar, FACTA (the federal “Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act”) prohibits merchants from printing…

We have written before about the utility of class waivers in arbitration agreements as a defense to classwide arbitration. As we previously discussed, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Stolt-Nielson S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int’l Corp. that arbitration agreements that were silent on the question of class arbitration could not support the arbitration of class claims. Now, as we predicted, the court has taken the rule of Stolt-Nielson a step further, holding in Lamps Plus, …