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Mealey's Class Actions

  • March 27, 2026

    Split 9th Circuit Stays Preliminary Injunction In Ore. ICE Facility Protest Case

    PORTLAND, Ore. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority granted a temporary administrative stay of a preliminary injunction in a provisionally certified class case by journalists and protesters who allege that they were shot at and tear-gassed while attending and covering immigration policy protests outside a building in Portland that they refer to as the “Portland ICE building.”

  • March 27, 2026

    2nd Circuit Partly Reverses In ERISA Mortgage-Backed Securities Case

    NEW YORK — Leaving for the trial court the question of whether a mortgage servicer acted in a fiduciary capacity in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act dispute centered on residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on March 26 partly reversed and remanded a ruling against pension fund trustees, concluding that the mortgages underlying three of the six such securities at issue “are plan assets under” the applicable regulation.

  • March 27, 2026

    Judge: Copyright Act Preempts Certain Arguments In Ancestry Photo-Use Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge held that plaintiffs in a putative class complaint plausibly allege misappropriation-based injuries because of Ancestry.com Operations Inc. and related entities using their yearbook photos without their permission, but the judge held that certain theories of misappropriation are preempted by federal copyright law.

  • March 27, 2026

    No Preliminary Injunction Reconsideration In Parole Termination Case Prompts Appeal

    BOSTON — Newly appointed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and other federal government parties filed a notice of appeal immediately after a federal judge in Massachusetts denied their motion to reconsider or stay a January preliminary injunction in a class case by noncitizens challenging the government’s termination of family reunification parole (FRP).

  • March 27, 2026

    Kimberly-Clark Settles Consumers’ ‘Flushable’ Wipes Claims For Up To $20M

    BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Kimberly-Clark Corp. will pay more than $3.2 million in attorney fees and costs as part of a settlement valued at up to $20 million but paying out less than $1 million to a consumer class who alleged that the wipes they purchased were falsely advertised as “flushable,” according to a class settlement agreement granted final approval by a federal judge in New York following remand by the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which vacated an earlier settlement approval granted in January 2024.

  • March 27, 2026

    Reservist Differential Pay Class Certified Nearly 1 Year After Feliciano Decided

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge certified a class of military reserve and National Guard members seeking differential pay and interest for time spent in active duty and away from their federal civilian jobs, opining in part that a potentially overbroad class “definition is preferable to an overly narrow one” and that modifications may still be made as the case proceeds.

  • March 27, 2026

    Class Suit Over Theater Beer Size Dismissed For Speculative Amount In Controversy

    SHERMAN, Texas — A putative class complaint accusing a movie theater of using 22-ounce cups for beers being sold as 24-ounce may rely only on the value of the alleged two missing ounces when determining the amount in controversy, a federal judge in Texas ruled, dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction.

  • March 26, 2026

    J&J Insists Circuits Are Split On Daubert Requirements For Class Certification

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A representative of a class action who argues that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals properly found that a lower court relied on “an unexecuted damages model developed by an experienced economist” in granting certification of a class action mischaracterizes the case in her opposition to a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., and the high court must address the split the decision created, J&J says in a reply brief.

  • March 26, 2026

    $2.9M Data Breach Class Action Settlement Receives Final Approval

    WARWICK, R.I. — A Rhode Island state judge granted final approval of a $2.9 million class action settlement that resolves claims alleging that a health care provider failed to protect patient data from a 2024 ransomware attack; the class action settlement also provides service awards of $4,000 for each class representative and attorney fees of nearly $1 million.

  • March 26, 2026

    Judge Extends Submission Date In Hurricane Coverage Dispute Over Settlement Funds

    NEW ORLEANS — In an insured’s dispute with his lender over its alleged failure to endorse settlement checks as an additional payee in a hurricane coverage dispute involving a now-insolvent insurer, a Louisiana federal judge granted the parties’ joint motion to extend a submission date for filing briefs in response to the lender’s motion to dismiss an amended complaint.

  • March 25, 2026

    Retirees Will Ask D.C. Circuit To Revive PRT Case Against Alcoa USA Corp.

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — On March 24, Alcoa USA Corp. retirees filed a notice that they will attempt to revive their putative class challenge to pension risk transfers (PRTs) in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals; the appeal will be the second in a string of similar cases filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

  • March 25, 2026

    U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Asylum Rights Class Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Only someone who “arrives in the United States” may seek asylum, and that phrase, as used in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), only refers to someone in the United States and not someone at the border standing in Mexico, Assistant to the Solicitor General Vivek Suri argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 24 in a case in which the federal government is challenging a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that partially upheld a permanent injunction in a class case over a now-rescinded border metering policy.

  • March 25, 2026

    Bid To Restrict Videos Of DOGE Depositions Is Denied In N.Y. Federal Court

    NEW YORK — Denying a motion for a protective order to restrict public dissemination of video recordings of depositions of U.S. DOGE Service employees and others in a suit over termination of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, a New York federal judge ruled that the materials are not judicial documents and the government failed to show the “good cause” necessary for such restriction.

  • March 25, 2026

    Insurer Urges High Court To Resolve Circuit Split Over Data Breach Standing

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Writing that the lower courts “have yet to settle on a consistent standard” for Article III standing in data breach cases, an insurance group and its subsidiaries petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, arguing that the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals improperly expanded standing in a data breach class action by allowing a pair of plaintiffs to proceed based on the alleged disclosure of nonsensitive personal information by a third-party hacker, creating circuit splits and warranting review.

  • March 24, 2026

    TRO Denied In Putative Class Suit Over Government’s Biometric Data Collection

    PORTLAND, Maine — A federal judge in Maine on March 23 opined that a putative class complaint that accuses the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its various agencies of violating the constitutional rights of Maine residents by collecting their biometric and personal data while they are observing and recording public immigrant enforcement operations “raises serious constitutional issues” but declined to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) as the plaintiffs failed to sufficiently show a likelihood that they will succeed on the merits of their claims.

  • March 24, 2026

    $68M Settlement For Google Assistant Eavesdropping Claims Gets Preliminary OK

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge granted a motion for preliminary approval of a $68 million settlement of a group of plaintiffs’ putative class claims against Google LLC and Alphabet Inc. (collectively Google) for allegedly eavesdropping on Google Assistant (GA) users in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and privacy laws.

  • March 23, 2026

    Health Plan Administrator Wins Transfer Of ERISA Case Under First-To-File Rule

    DETROIT — Saying “there appears not to be directly on-point precedent about the first-to-file rule’s application to a class action that was filed after an individual action,” a Michigan federal judge applied the rule in a suit over a shared savings program (SSP) and so-called “flip logic” and granted a transfer motion filed by the third-party administrator (TPA) of companies’ self-funded health plans.

  • March 23, 2026

    3rd Circuit Vacates Injunction Order, Says Jurisdiction Lacking In Fracking Case

    PHILADELPHIA — A panel of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has issued a nonprecedential per curiam opinion vacating an order of a district court, which had denied a motion for a preliminary injunction sought by residents in a dispute with hydraulic fracturing companies related to alleged contamination of their drinking water. The Third Circuit panel ruled that without a facial showing of jurisdiction pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), it was not error for the district court to deny the injunction motion.

  • March 23, 2026

    U.S. Supreme Court Declines To Review Order That Certified National TPP Class

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court announced on March 23 that it will not consider a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by two drug companies that argued the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred in certifying a national third-party payer (TPP) class of entities that paid for the diabetes drug Actos.

  • March 23, 2026

    Judge Dismisses Potbelly’s Suit Against Employment Practices Liability Insurer

    SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington granted an employment practices liability insurer’s motion to dismiss with prejudice a breach of contract lawsuit brought by the owner and operator of several Potbelly Sandwich Shops in Washington state seeking a declaratory judgment that the insurer has a duty to defend and indemnify it against an underlying putative class alleging that it violated the Washington Equal Pay and Opportunities Act by not providing wage and salary information to job applicants in Washington, concluding that the underlying action does not assert that Potbelly engaged in discrimination to trigger coverage under the policy.

  • March 23, 2026

    Cert Denied In Class Ad Market Antitrust Violations Dispute Against Apple, Google

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 23 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a professional certification school seeking review of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ affirmance of a lower court’s ruling compelling arbitration and dismissing a class action antitrust suit alleging that Google and Apple violated state and federal antitrust laws by unlawfully agreeing to divide online search and search advertising markets.

  • March 23, 2026

    Citing Trauernicht Ruling, Judge Vacates Class Certification In ERISA Case

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Vacating his recent grant of class certification in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case over the administrative costs of a multiple employer plan (MEP) 401(k), a Virginia federal judge cited a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling issued days earlier but offered no substantive explanation.

  • March 20, 2026

    Class Certification Bid Fails In ERISA Suit Over PrEP Treatment Costs

    MINNEAPOLIS — Saying the plaintiffs “have not demonstrated that class membership can be determined through objective and administrable criteria,” a Minnesota federal judge denied class certification in a case over cost-sharing for medical services associated with preventive treatment that reduces the risk of HIV infection.

  • March 20, 2026

    $7.75 Million Class Action Settlement Approved In Data Breach Dispute

    GREENVILLE, S.C. — A South Carolina federal judge granted final approval to a $7.75 million class action settlement resolving claims that a financial services company and its affiliated lending subsidiaries failed to safeguard consumers’ names and Social Security numbers in a February 2023 data breach.

  • March 19, 2026

    $5M Class Deal In Geisinger Data Breach Case Wins Final Approval

    WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — A Pennsylvania federal judge granted final approval of a $5 million settlement agreement between a Pennsylvania health care provider and its tech services vendor who were sued over a 2023 data breach, while separately approving $2,000 service awards for each of the named plaintiffs.