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Mealey's Class Actions

  • January 28, 2026

    Interlocutory Review Denied Following Ruling On Website Tracker As Pen Register

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California denied a website owner’s motion to certify for interlocutory appeal an October order declining dismissal of a putative class case alleging that the website’s third-party trackers that collect users’ data violate the California Invasion of Privacy Act’s (CIPA) pen register/trap-and-trace law, finding that “every federal court to tackle the CIPA applicability question has rejected” the website owner’s position that the pen register prohibition doesn’t apply and rejecting the defendant’s argument that the case presents a novel issue.

  • January 28, 2026

    Data-Sharing Class Claims Against Shopify Partly Dismissed By Federal Judge

    OAKLAND, Calif. — After a previous dismissal ruling was reversed and remanded by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Shopify Inc. partly succeeded in its second motion to dismiss privacy claims against it, with a California federal judge finding that some of a plaintiff’s putative class claims over the online retailer’s purported collection and sharing of customer data for the creation of individualized profiles failed for not adequately alleging an injury.

  • January 27, 2026

    9th Circuit Won’t Allow Interlocutory Appeal On Class Certification

    SAN FRANCISCO — A grant of class certification in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over alleged underpayment for out-of-network behavioral health treatment will stand after the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 26 denied a petition for leave to file an interlocutory appeal that involves the question of whether underpayment of benefits for an ERISA plan is an injury sufficient for standing purposes.

  • January 27, 2026

    6th Circuit Vacates Injunction In Social Media Sex Offender Disclosure Dispute

    CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 26 vacated a preliminary injunction and remanded a putative class action filed against a county attorney by a Kentucky registered sex offender seeking to prevent enforcement of a Kentucky law requiring certain registered sex offenders to display their full legal name on their social media accounts, finding in part that the law at issue may cover conduct to which the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not apply.

  • January 27, 2026

    Judge Grants Dismissal Of Agency Heads In Putative Class Suit Over HHS RIF

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia dismissed as redundant agency heads named as defendants in a putative class complaint over an April 2025 reduction-in-force (RIF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that affected approximately 10,000 employees and was allegedly based on inaccurate records in violation of the Privacy Act; this case is one of several currently challenging various 2025 RIFs impacting numerous federal agencies.

  • January 27, 2026

    6 More ERISA Forfeiture Cases Have Been Dismissed By Federal Judges

    Aligning with the majority of rulings in the wave of putative Employee Retirement Income Security Act class suits challenging a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions, federal judges have granted defendants’ dismissal motions in cases filed against RTX Corp., Amazon.com Services LLC, WakeMed Health & Hospitals, Meijer Inc., Alliance Coal LLC and Northrop Grumman Corp.

  • January 27, 2026

    Apple And Its CEO Waive Response To High Court Ad Market Antitrust Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C.  — Apple Inc. and its CEO waived their right to respond to 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.

  • January 26, 2026

    Florida Panel Affirms Data Breach Class Claims Barred By Sovereign Immunity

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Finding that a public, nonprofit hospital system did not waive its sovereign immunity, a Florida appellate panel affirmed the dismissal with prejudice of consolidated class breach of contract and negligence claims filed by former patients in the wake of a 2021 data breach.

  • January 23, 2026

    Dismissal Order Trims Claims In Class Case Over Apple’s Shared Analytics Setting

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Apple Inc. mobile device users who allege in an amended consolidated putative class complaint that a setting on their devices meant to stop the sharing of their data doesn’t actually do that may proceed with breach of contract and breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claims and claims brought under New York, New Jersey and Illinois law, a federal judge in California ruled, granting Apple’s motion to partially dismiss other privacy-related, unfair competition law (UCL) and unjust enrichment claims.

  • January 23, 2026

    AI Discrimination Attorneys Describe Efforts At Discovery, Finding Co-Counsel

    SAN FRANCISCO — Rebutting a judge’s suggestions that they were “asleep at the wheel,” attorneys in a case alleging that an artificial intelligence hiring platform discriminated against applicants told a federal judge in California that they diligently processed discovery and sought association with counsel who can provide the needed resources.

  • January 23, 2026

    Defendants Score Summary Judgment Win In Pension Actuarial Equivalence Case

    MINNEAPOLIS — Concluding “that actuarial equivalence does not require reasonable underlying assumptions” and distinguishing five cases in which she said Ian Altman’s expert testimony concerning actuarial equivalence wasn’t excluded, a Minnesota federal judge excluded Altman’s testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702(c) and then repeatedly credited the opposing expert’s testimony in granting summary judgment for the defendants in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit concerning early retirement benefits.

  • January 23, 2026

    D.C. Circuit Affirms Denial Of Postjudgment Discovery In Pension Class Action

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Weighing in again on a pension calculation class action that has repeatedly come before it after a permanent injunction issued in 2011, the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an unpublished per curiam judgment affirming denial of a motion for postjudgment discovery and accounting.

  • January 23, 2026

    Only Employees’ Negligence Claim Over Cyberattack Remains After Dismissal

    ATLANTA — Three workers who filed a putative consolidated class complaint against their employer after a 2023 data breach have standing to sue by sufficiently alleging a concrete injury and may proceed with their negligence claim, a federal judge in Georgia ruled, partially granting the employer’s motion to dismiss as to three other claims and granting the workers 14 days to file an amended complaint.

  • January 22, 2026

    2 More Judges Decline To Dismiss ERISA Tobacco Surcharge Lawsuits

    Two more federal judges have ruled that some or all claims survive dismissal in putative class actions challenging surcharges that health plan administrators require tobacco or nicotine users to pay, and a motion to compel arbitration has been granted in another similar case.

  • January 22, 2026

    Job Seekers Accuse AI Application Screener Of Unfair Evaluations

    MARTINEZ, Calif. — Two unsuccessful job applicants filed a putative class action in California state court accusing an AI employee-screening company of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by evaluating the plaintiffs’ applications to companies that use the AI software at issue to score their applications based on “sensitive and often inaccurate information.”

  • January 22, 2026

    $5.48 Million Settlement Of Suit Over Analytics Firm’s Data Breach Approved

    NEWARK, N.J. — Seven months after preliminarily approving a settlement of $5,482,500 to resolve a consolidated class action over claims stemming from a 2023 data breach experienced by a health-oriented data management firm, a New Jersey federal magistrate judge granted final approval to the agreement as being “fair, reasonable, and adequate.”

  • January 22, 2026

    Class, Education Department Oppose Petition Challenging Student Loan Settlement

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court should not grant a for-profit college’s petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of its failed attempt to intervene and challenge an approved student loan class settlement as the college, which was included in a settlement exhibit, lacked standing and raised no important question, the class and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and Education secretary separately argue in opposition briefs filed Jan. 21.

  • January 22, 2026

    Manhattan College Settles Undergrads’ Pandemic Closure Suit For More Than $740,000

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval of a $742,940 settlement to be paid by Manhattan College to end class action litigation by students who alleged that they were not properly reimbursed for tuition, fees and other costs after the campus closed and all classes switched to remote learning in the spring of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

  • January 22, 2026

    9th Circuit Upholds Approval Of Up To $145M Kia, Hyundai Theft Settlement

    PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel issued two memorandums affirming a trial court’s approval of a class settlement between $80 million and $145 million in a multidistrict litigation based on the theft of Kia and Hyundai vehicles that was challenged separately by two objectors; a third appeal filed by a pro se objector remains pending.

  • January 22, 2026

    Putative Class Claims Over America PAC Payments Again Largely Survive Dismissal

    PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania largely denied a motion to strike and motions to dismiss two related cases accusing America PAC, Group America LLC and Elon Musk of failing to pay individuals the full amount promised for signing and referring others to sign a petition leading up to the 2024 presidential election that pledged support for the First and Second Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

  • January 21, 2026

    Trump To High Court: Birthright Citizenship EO Complies With 14th Amendment

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A January 2025 executive order (EO) that declared that children born in the United States are not citizens when their mother is “unlawfully present in the United States” or their mother’s presence is “temporary” and their father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident complies with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), President Donald J. Trump and other federal government officials and agencies argue in a petitioner brief filed Jan. 20 in the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • January 21, 2026

    Church Autonomy Questions Posed In U.S. Conference Of Catholic Bishops’ Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) asks the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for a writ of certiorari to decide in a putative class case accusing the conference of fraud whether the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s church autonomy doctrine “protects churches from the burdens of litigating unconstitutional claims,” whether it can immediately appeal a ruling where it raised such a defense and whether “the ‘neutral principles’ approach developed for church property disputes” applies to a case concerning the use of annual offerings.

  • January 20, 2026

    ICE Appeals Preliminary Injunction In Minn. Class Suit By Protesters, Observers

    MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal government parties accused in a putative class complaint of violating the constitutional rights of protesters and observers in Minnesota filed a notice of appeal on Jan. 19, three days after a federal judge in that state ruled that federal agents conducting immigration enforcement activities as part of “Operation Metro Surge” and responding to protests opposing the operation may not arrest or detain peaceful protesters, use pepper spray or other nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools against peaceful protesters and may not stop or detain “drivers and passengers in vehicles where there is no reasonable articulable suspicion that they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with” those federal agents.

  • January 20, 2026

    Radiology Provider Settles Data Breach Class Claims For $1.5M Plus Monitoring, Fees

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A radiology service provider will pay $1.5 million to those patients whose data were accessed during a cyberattack who can demonstrate loss, will provide medical data monitoring valued at more than $186 million to all class members and will pay class counsel $2.85 million, according to a settlement agreement granted final approval by a Florida judge.

  • January 20, 2026

    Nestle Given More Time To Seek Rehearing After Classes Upheld In Labeling Case

    PASADENA, Calif. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals gave Nestle USA Inc. until Feb. 23 to petition for rehearing after a divided panel affirmed a trial court’s certification of two California classes of consumers in a case accusing the company of labeling that falsely implies that its chocolate products are produced without child labor and deforestation in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA).