Eleventh Circuit Affirms $380.5M Class Action Settlement in Equifax Data Breach Litigation

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Eleventh Circuit Affirms $380.5M Class Action Settlement in Equifax Data Breach Litigation

By Gregory C. Cook, Conrad Anderson & Tyler P. Bishop

June 8, 2021

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the $380.5M settlement in the Equifax data breach class actions – a settlement which the district court called “the largest and most comprehensive recovery in a data breach case in U.S. history by several orders of magnitude.” The appeal was brought by 6 objectors out of the 147 million class members whose data was involved in the breach. The Eleventh Circuit’s 64-page…

Eleventh Circuit’s “Narrow” Holding May Open Wide Disputes About Duties Under The FCRA

By Jonathan Hoffmann, Jason Tompkins & Park Wynn

June 1, 2021

The Eleventh Circuit recently weighed in on a common practice—reporting debts subject to bankruptcy. In the process of so doing, the opinion in Losch v. Nationstar Mortgage LLC provided litigants some key insights in Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) compliance and litigation strategies, as well as adding another wrinkle in the growing complexity of standing for procedural statutory violations, particularly here in the Eleventh Circuit. Turning to the facts, in 2012, Henry Losch took out…

President Biden Issues Executive Order on Cybersecurity

By Nick Theodore

May 20, 2021

On May 12, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity defenses. The order comes in the wake of the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline and numerous other cybersecurity attacks against the U.S. government and private companies over the past few years. The order proposes a wide array of changes to bolster the federal government’s ability to respond to and prevent cybersecurity attacks. The major sections of the order are highlighted below:…

Eleventh Circuit holds commonplace use of letter vendors may violate FDCPA and further expands consumer standing in Huntstein v. Preferred Collection

By Jason Tompkins, Jonathan Hoffmann & Gabe Quistorff

April 28, 2021

To start with the headline, on April 21, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that a debt collector sending personal identifying information to dunning letter vendors states a claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). To boot, an allegation that such activity occurred is sufficient to show a concrete injury conferring standing. Obviously, the decision will have far-reaching implications for the ARM industry and anyone in the debt collection space. A…

Bank Entitled to Pursue Claim for Longer Statute of Limitations on Loan

By Park Wynn & Gregory C. Cook

April 19, 2021

Under Alabama law, the statute of limitations for an “open account” is shorter (3 years) than for an “account stated” or breach of contract claim (6 years). In Cadence Bank, N.A. v. Robertson, No. 1190997, 2021 WL 1230165 (Ala. Apr. 2, 2021), the Alabama Supreme Court reversed a trial court for granting summary judgment in a collection action by a bank against a homeowner because the longer statute of limitations may apply even if the…

Court Limits Scope of Midland Funding and Imports State Law Penalties for Bankruptcy Filings

By Jason Tompkins & Park Wynn

April 19, 2021

In Midland Funding, LLC v. Johnson, 137 S.Ct. 1407 (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that filing a proof of claim for a debt subject to a limitations defense does not violate the FDCPA, at least in the vast majority of states where the statute of limitation does not extinguish the right to payment. One of the arguments in our brief to the Court was that the Bankruptcy Code already includes remedies for out-of-statute…

Plain-text reading of TCPA prevails in Facebook, SCOTUS says autodialers must store or produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator

By Jonathan Hoffmann & Jason Tompkins

April 1, 2021

Few decisions in the world of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) have been more awaited than Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. — (2021). There, the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) wrestled with the ultimate TCPA question: “whether [an automatic telephone dialing system] encompasses equipment that can ‘store’ and dial telephone numbers, even if the device does not ‘us[e] a random or sequential number generator.’” Slip Op. at 1. In the…

California Announces Board Appointments to New California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)

By Brandon Robinson

March 18, 2021

On March 17, 2021, Governor Gavin Newsome, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Senate President pro tem Toni Atkins, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon announced the members of the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) the new administrative agency created by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) charged with protecting consumer privacy rights overs personal information. “Californians deserve to have their data protected and the individuals appointed today will bring their expertise in technology, privacy and consumer rights…

California Attorney General Issues Additional CCPA Regulations Advancing Consumer Protections

By Brandon Robinson

March 16, 2021

California Attorney General Issues Additional CCPA Regulations Advancing Consumer Protections On March 15, 2021, the California Attorney General (“AG”) approved additional CCPA regulations to enhance consumer protections for opting out of the sale of information. These regulations come after the third set of modifications was approved last October, and after the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CPRA” or “CCPA 2.0”) passed the state referendum, and will become effective in January 2023. Specifically, the AG’s…