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Mealey's Class Actions

  • November 07, 2025

    Federal Judge Grants Final Approval Of $1.35M Settlement Of Data Breach Suit

    BALTIMORE — A Maryland federal judge granted final approval of a $1.35 million settlement of negligence, contractual and other claims in a consolidated lawsuit brought against a health care provider following a 2023 data breach, holding that the “settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate” and satisfies the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.

  • November 07, 2025

    U.S. High Court Justice Stays Ruling On Marcos Funds Challenged By Class

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Supreme Court justice stayed pending further order a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that cleared the way for the Republic of the Philippines to receive the millions of dollars in a U.S. bank account opened by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos; that decision is being challenged by a class of individuals who were subject to Marcos’ human rights abuses.

  • November 07, 2025

    High Court Signals Interest In Petition For Review Of ERISA Releases Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 6 requested a response to a certiorari petition in which an employer and related entities seek review of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in a long-running class action concerning severance benefits, with the petitioners arguing that the decision “creates a roadmap for plaintiffs to evade” releases of Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims.

  • November 07, 2025

    Split U.S. Supreme Court Stays Injunction In Passport Gender Policy Class Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Supreme Court divided by party lines on Nov. 6 stayed a trial court’s preliminary injunction that had halted the enforcement of a January executive order (EO) that removed the option to designate “X” on passports for those individuals who do not identify as female or male or who wish to keep a specified gender off their passports.

  • November 06, 2025

    6th Circuit Denies Objectors’ Appeal Of $600M Ohio Train Derailment Settlement

    CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 5 dismissed the appeal of a group of individuals who objected to the $600 million class action settlement in the Ohio train derailment lawsuit, ruling that the objectors failed to pay the $850,000 appeal bond in a timely manner and holding that they offered no valid justification for failing to pay the appeal bond.

  • November 06, 2025

    Ransomware Data Breach Class Suit Resolved With $1.9M Settlement

    MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal judge entered judgment after granting final approval to a $1.9 million settlement resolving class claims including for violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) against a data hosting vendor on behalf of individuals whose personal data was hacked during a ransomware attack on the vendor’s accounting and health care customers, with the plaintiffs’ counsel awarded more than $633,000 in attorney fees.

  • November 06, 2025

    11th Circuit Remains Outlier On Class Service Awards 5 Years After Johnson v. NPAS

    In September 2020, a divided 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals cited century-old U.S. Supreme Court precedent when the majority ruled that a $6,000 incentive award for a class representative’s “‘role in prosecuting’” a Telephone Consumer Protection Act “‘case on behalf of the [c]lass [m]embers’” was improper as it was “part salary and part bounty.”

  • November 06, 2025

    Stable Value Funds Are Focus Of ERISA Suits Over Alleged Imprudence

    Often echoing arguments seen in recent pension risk transfer litigation concerning reinsurance arrangements and the risk of insolvency, a firm representing at least six different plaintiffs in various federal jurisdictions filed putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases challenging retirement plan use of certain guaranteed income funds (GIFs) and stable value funds (SVFs) that the plaintiffs claim no prudent fiduciary would have selected and retained.

  • November 06, 2025

    Judge Finds Company’s Offering Documents, Disclosures Not Inherently Misleading

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted a biopharmaceutical company’s motion to dismiss investors’ securities class action against it for allegedly failing to disclose the findings from clinical trials of its lead product candidate that, once revealed, caused the company’s stock to drop, holding that the risk disclosures were not inherently misleading even though they didn’t discuss the risks presented by the clinical trial findings.

  • November 05, 2025

    Full Dismissal Of Tobacco Surcharge Suit Granted In Rhode Island Federal Court

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Following a string of at least seven rulings in which similar putative class challenges to health plan tobacco surcharges survived wholly or in part, a Rhode Island federal judge on Nov. 4 granted full dismissal of a case that is part of a recent wave of Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuits.

  • November 05, 2025

    Judge OKs $167.5M Settlement In Fracking Securities Saga

    PITTSBURGH — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Nov. 4 granted final approval to a $167.5 million class action settlement in a long-running securities fraud case brought by investors who contended that a hydraulic fracturing operator had made false statements about its potential capacity for oil and gas production.

  • November 05, 2025

    Board Game, Display Items And Champagne Businesses File Class Suit Over Tariffs

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Three companies with wildly diverse products came together to file a class complaint Nov. 4 in a federal court in the District of Columbia alleging that the series of executive orders (EOs) on tariffs that President Donald J. Trump began issuing Feb. 1 are “ultra vires and unconstitutional.”

  • November 05, 2025

    ERISA ‘Excessive Fee’ Settlements, Proposals Under $5M

    Class settlements below $5 million were proposed, granted preliminary approval or finalized in 25 “excessive fee” Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases between early August and late October.

  • November 05, 2025

    Treadmill Horsepower Class Settlement Providing Product, Membership Options OK’d

    MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge in Minnesota granted final approval of a class settlement in a case over the advertised horsepower of treadmills for use in homes, opining that the results that provided consumers with options for products or memberships were fair and reasonable and that a nationwide class was appropriate despite differences in state law.

  • November 05, 2025

    Health Care Data Breach Settlement Giving Up To $5,000 Per Claimant Wins Approval

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal judge in Tennessee has determined that a settlement of class claims over a health care provider’s 2023 data security incident is “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” making official the judge’s prior ruling that granted preliminary approval to an agreement that provides payments of up to $5,000 for each claimant in the settlement class. The judge also approved attorney fees and expenses totaling $3.1 million.

  • November 04, 2025

    Parents’ Unlawful Gambling Class Claims Against Roblox Dismissed By Judge

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted Roblox Corp.’s motion to partly dismiss a putative class lawsuit brought against it by the parents of minor Roblox players who allegedly lost money gambling with the in-game currency “Robux,” writing that the parents’ claims for violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) under the unlawful prong and for negligence per se did not sufficiently allege that Roblox violated state gambling laws.

  • November 04, 2025

    Divided 5th Circuit Affirms Federal Class Does Not Toll State Limitations

    NEW ORLEANS — A divided Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of nearly 800 individual plaintiffs’ state law claims related to the release of allegedly toxic chemicals caused by a series of explosions at an industrial plant as time-barred, finding that the filing of a federal class action related to the incident does not toll the statute of limitations for the state law claims.

  • November 04, 2025

    Appeal Dismissed After Injunction Denied In Inmates’ Hormones Law Class Case

    CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed to dismiss an inmate’s appeal of a trial court’s denial of a preliminary injunction in a putative class case over a Kentucky law prohibiting the spending of public funds on “cross-sex hormones” for inmates with gender dysphoria; the stipulated dismissal was filed one week after the Sixth Circuit denied the inmate’s motion for an injunction pending appeal.

  • November 04, 2025

    Ithaca College Pays $1.5M To Settle Students’ Pandemic Closure Class Suit

    BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — Ithaca College (IC) will pay $1.5 million to end a student’s class complaint accusing the school of retaining tuition paid for campus-based in-person education and services that were not provided in spring 2020 when the school transitioned to remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a settlement agreement approved by a federal judge in New York.

  • November 03, 2025

    New York Federal Judge Grants Dismissal Of ERISA Forfeiture Lawsuit

    NEW YORK — Siding with the majority of courts that have considered dismissal motions in a much-watched wave of Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases, a New York federal judge dismissed a putative class action challenging a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions, but the judge said the plaintiffs could amend some claims.

  • November 03, 2025

    Takeda Given More Time To File Certiorari Petition In TPP Class Certification Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court granted the manufacturer of the diabetes drug Actos more time to file its petition for a writ of certiorari to challenge a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that found no error in the certification of a class of national third-party payers (TPPs).

  • November 03, 2025

    Parties In Workers’ Duty-Free Shops Data Breach Case Stipulate To Dismissal

    CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York on Oct. 31 dismissed a putative class action by two former employees against the operators of airport duty-free shops after the parties stipulated to dismissal of the individual and class claims without prejudice; the stipulation of dismissal was filed two months after the case was stayed pending mediation.

  • October 31, 2025

    Shareholders Seek Rehearing, Argue 3rd Circuit Improperly Excluded Information

    PHILADELPHIA — Shareholders filed a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc in the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after a panel affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of their class action alleging that a real estate investment trust’s (REIT) failure to stop a tenant’s fraud against it made certain statements false or misleading; the shareholders argued that the panel improperly excluded critical information supporting the falsity of the defendants’ due diligence statements.

  • October 31, 2025

    Some Claims Survive Dismissal In Suit Over Disability Policy ‘Age 65’ Language

    PHOENIX — Bad faith, breach of contract and reformation claims survived a dismissal bid in a putative class case over whether certain individual long-term disability (LTD) benefits must be paid through eligible insureds’ 65th birthdays, and an Arizona federal judge allowed limited leave to amend as to claims he dismissed in the Oct. 30 order.

  • October 31, 2025

    Trio Of Dismissal Rulings Issued In Data Breach Snowflake MDL

    BUTTE, Mont. — Less than a week after granting final approval of two class settlements totaling $13.5 million, a federal judge in Montana issued a trio of orders addressing motions to dismiss filed in a multidistrict litigation over data breaches experienced by Snowflake Inc., a data storage firm, that impacted a number of its clients.