On Wednesday, July 29, 2020, the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee held a widely publicized hearing in which representatives questioned CEOs from Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google about allegedly anticompetitive business practices. This hearing had its genesis in a 2017
Declassified
The Latest from the Class Action Battlefront
Latest from Declassified - Page 2
D.C. Circuit Avoids Decisive Ruling on Personal Jurisdiction in Class Actions
We have repeatedly mentioned the long-awaited decision in Molock v. Whole Foods Market Group, Inc. from the District of Columbia Circuit. While we hoped this opinion would finally provide some circuit-level clarity about how the Supreme Court’s Bristol-Myers Squibb decision…
State and Federal Regulators Open Probe into 403(b) Plans for Teachers
In what appears to be a growing trend, state and federal regulators are launching investigations into the sales practices and administration of 403(b) retirement plans for school districts.
Two weeks ago, on January 10, 2020, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings…
“I told you never to call me here”: Eleventh Circuit Decertifies TCPA Class Containing Absent Class Members Without Article III Standing
The Eleventh Circuit last month issued a significant class action opinion in Cordoba v. DirectTV, LLC, vacating a class certified in a TCPA class action and remanding the case. The issue underlying the court’s decision was whether large parts…
It’s None of Your Business: Sixth Circuit Says Arizona Lacks Article III Standing to Intervene to Challenge a Class Settlement
Does a state, whose citizens are among the absent class members in a class action settlement, have Article III standing to challenge the supposed unfairness of the settlement? In Chapman v. Tristar Products, Inc., the Sixth Circuit said no.…
Spam or Class Action Refund? Consumers Can’t Tell
Two recent studies by the FTC show that some methods for notifying potential class members of class action settlements are not as effective as courts and counsel might believe. In September, the FTC published a report on two studies it…
“Who’s Gonna Pay for All This?” Can Prevailing Litigants Have Their E-discovery Charges Taxed as Costs Against Their Losing Opponents?
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…
One Spam Text Does Not Confer Standing in the Eleventh Circuit
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…
A Quick Study in Doxing and Personal Jurisdiction: Vangheluwe v. GotNews
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…
Ask and You Shall Be Deemed to Have Consented to Receive: The Eleventh Circuit Affirms TCPA Fax Summary Judgment
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…