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July 21, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied a motion by the U.S. Department of Education to modify a loan discharge settlement agreement that was granted final approval in 2022 and did not err when it allowed a postclass applicant group to receive relief under the agreement, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled.
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July 21, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Two consumers filed a nationwide putative class complaint in California federal court accusing an agriculture and produce company worth $8 billion of liability for the “entirely avoidable” contamination of shredded lettuce and leafy greens distributed nationwide with cyclospora, accusing it of negligence, violation of California and New York consumer protection laws and other claims.
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July 21, 2026
OAKLAND, Calif. — Saying they would receive more than $9,531,455 and class counsel would separately get $3.5 million, a 220-member class of former Atmel Corp. employees asked a California federal court for preliminary approval of a settlement that would resolve their nearly decade-old Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over severance benefits.
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July 21, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri gun owner lacks standing to sue over a pistol’s alleged defective features that can cause it to be inadvertently discharged because he admitted he has never experienced that or any other issues, an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, vacating a trial court’s class certification order and remanding with instructions to dismiss the case.
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July 21, 2026
CHICAGO — A Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated and remanded a settlement of claims brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) against the creator and curator of a massive digital photo database after agreeing with two objectors that the nationwide class members lacked a separate representative and counsel to protect their interests when settlement funds were allocated in greater shares to four state subclasses.
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July 21, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Despite objections, a California federal judge granted final approval in consolidated litigation to a $47.5 million class action settlement between eight named plaintiffs and a health plan that resolves claims brought after the health plan was accused of installing third-party trackers on its website and mobile apps to capture user information.
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July 20, 2026
CHICAGO — Affirming judgment against a class of employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) participants who challenged a $265 million deal, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 17 explained that it found no clear error in the ruling that followed a 14-day bench trial.
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July 20, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge on July 17 granted a motion for preliminary approval of a $250 million settlement, including an estimated $70 million in attorney fees, to resolve class claims that Apple Inc. violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by misrepresenting the artificial intelligence capabilities that new iPhone models with “Apple Intelligence” and Siri software would provide and overruled an argument by objectors who argued that some class members are entitled to more damages.
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July 20, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge denied in part a defense motion to dismiss claims that Meta unfairly “bricked” its Portal-brand display devices and rendered them “obsolete” by removing major apps from the products in violation of the unfair prong of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and thereby also breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing but granted the motion with leave to amend as to the plaintiffs’ other claims.
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July 17, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge granted in part and denied in part a supplement maker’s motion to dismiss a putative class action lawsuit accusing it of signing the plaintiff up for a sleep aid subscription based on a free trial promise and denying his request for a refund, finding that the plaintiff’s claims for violation of California unfair competition law (UCL) and other consumer laws were not sufficiently pleaded but denying the motion as to the plaintiff’s claim for violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA).
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July 17, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A consumer says in a putative class action filed in California federal court accusing Apple Inc. of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws that he purchased an iPhone in reliance on Apple’s marketing claims regarding privacy and its offer of a “Hide My Email” feature but later learned that the feature does not fully hide users’ emails.
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July 17, 2026
NEW YORK — Racial discrimination claims against three teams and the National Football League (NFL) brought in a putative class complaint by three current and former NFL coaches must proceed in court, a federal judge in New York ruled, denying reconsideration of a February ruling that denied in full arbitration based on “[t]he NFL’s unilateral control over the dispute resolution process.”
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July 17, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — Residents filed a putative class action complaint in Pennsylvania state court alleging that an energy company and its affiliate contaminated local groundwater with toxins when a storage tank they operate leaked gasoline and petroleum products into the environment and that the defendants concealed information about the leak from regulators and the public.
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July 16, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Premium subscribers of YouTube LLC’s video-streaming website filed a putative class action in California federal court against YouTube and its parent company Google LLC for allegedly violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by falsely advertising premium subscriptions as “ad-free,” when in fact even premium subscribers still have to watch advertisements placed in certain videos by content creators.
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July 16, 2026
PIERRE, S.D. — Owners of homes built on top of an inactive gypsum mine that was at one time owned by a subdivision of South Dakota failed in a putative class complaint to bring a viable claim for inverse condemnation against the state following the formation of a large sinkhole because the property was not private at the time of the mining and homeowners failed to show “that the State’s retention of the mining rights to the property is a ‘public use’ under the damaging clause of the South Dakota Constitution,” the state’s highest court ruled.
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July 16, 2026
DENVER — A June 2026 infiltration of Frontier Airlines Inc.’s information network that resulted in the theft of employees’ personally identifiable information (PII) was the result of the airline’s failure “to take available steps to prevent an unauthorized disclosure of data,” according to several class complaints filed between July 13 and July 15 in a federal court in Colorado.
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July 16, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge denied a motion to modify a September 2025 order that certified several customer-specific and statutory subclasses for nominal damages but declined to certify claims for other damages, ruling that the plaintiffs’ new expert report did not justify modification and that the plaintiffs could not add damages for identity protection services for members whose Social Security numbers were exposed.
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July 15, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals lacks jurisdiction over an appeal of a preemption ruling in a case challenging the location of a helipad at a New Orleans hospital that was filed originally as a class action because an injunction was effectively refused and interlocutory jurisdiction only exists where the appealing party satisfies the factors in Carson v. Am. Brands, Inc., the appellate panel ruled.
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July 15, 2026
DENVER — A dozen college athletes filed a class complaint against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in a federal court in Colorado alleging that the new June 2026 eligibility rule was improperly implemented and they were denied a fifth year of play, causing them to lose scholarships and name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation.
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July 15, 2026
SALT LAKE CITY — Concluding that underperformance allegations concerning a synthetic guaranteed investment contract (GIC) are “insufficient to raise any relevant plausible inference” and that a prohibited transaction claim fails to meet the “minimal pleading standard” outlined in Cunningham v. Cornell Univ., a Utah federal judge issued a memorandum decision and order dismissing a putative class suit that retirement plan participants filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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July 15, 2026
HOUSTON — Ruling against a class of retirement plan participants that had prevailed following a bench trial, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an unpublished July 14 opinion vacating the judgment and remanding for fact-finding “to evaluate Article III standing” in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over a retirement plan’s switch from a final average pay formula to a cash balance plan; in a separate concurrence, one member of the panel opined “that the type of consequences alleged constitutes an Article III injury.”
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July 15, 2026
SAN DIEGO — An IT staffing company accused of failing to protect the personally identifiable information (PII) of current and former employees will pay $610,000 to end the class claims, according to an order in a federal court in California granting final settlement approval.
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July 15, 2026
ALBANY, N.Y. — Concluding that Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A. “precludes a finding of Article III standing absent a concrete injury regardless of the type of remedy sought,” a New York federal judge declined to alter or amend a September ruling in which he dismissed a putative class action challenging a pension risk transfer (PRT) under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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July 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Filing amicus curiae briefs in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other entities urge the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm that a putative class suit challenging purportedly underperforming retirement plan investments in hedge funds and private equity was correctly dismissed for failure to allege a “meaningful benchmark.”
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July 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Meta Platforms Inc. and other organizations filed 11 amicus curiae briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that a California man who subscribed only to a free 247Sports newsletter is not a “‘consumer’” under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), with the amici collectively arguing that his reading would broaden the statute beyond video rental and audiovisual subscription transactions and expose internet, advertising and nonvideo businesses to broader VPPA liability.