Mealey's Class Actions

  • June 04, 2026

    Tobacco Company Waives Service In Class Suit For Unsolicited Marketing Texts

    GREENSBORO, N.C. — R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. (RJR) appeared in North Carolina federal court and filed a waiver of service in a putative class action alleging that it is violating federal law by sending “telephone solicitations” in the form of unwanted marketing text messages to consumers whose phone numbers are allegedly listed on the national Do Not Call registry.

  • June 04, 2026

    Expert For New York Can Opine On Catheter Safety, UTIs In Inmates’ Class Action

    ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A New York federal magistrate judge denied a motion to exclude expert testimony filed by a class of inmates in New York prisons who allege that they were denied proper medical treatment and ruled that a urologist retained by the state can opine about catheter use and urinary tract infections (UTIs) as an expert witness.

  • June 04, 2026

    $23M Deal Proposed To Settle ERISA Class Action Involving Mortality Tables

    NEW YORK — In the wake of recent appellate rulings that revived three separate Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases similar to theirs, retirees who sued Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. and related defendants over the use of allegedly outdated mortality tables in calculating qualified joint and survivor annuity (QJSA) benefits moved in New York federal court for preliminary approval of a class settlement they say has a present value of $23 million.

  • June 04, 2026

    Student Class Certified In Price-Fixing Financial Aid Suit After Counsel Change

    CHICAGO — After new lead class counsel was proposed, a federal judge in Illinois granted certification of a class of undergraduate students who received need-based financial aid from certain colleges and universities accused of “participating in a price-fixing cartel that is designed to reduce or eliminate financial aid as a locus of competition.”

  • June 04, 2026

    Judge Approves $85M Settlement To End Wells Fargo Stock Loss Class Action

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted final approval to an $85 million settlement in a class action brought by investors against Wells Fargo & Company and certain of its executives alleging that news of the company’s practice of using fake interviews to give the impression of complying with internal diversity hiring practices led to a drop in the company’s stock value.

  • June 04, 2026

    13 Class Suits Seeking Tariff Refunds From FedEx Consolidated In Tennessee

    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A federal judge in Tennessee granted an unopposed joint motion to consolidate 13 putative class lawsuits seeking restitution and damages for money paid to FedEx Corp, Federal Express Corp. and FedEx Logistics Inc. (together, FedEx) for shipments subjected to tariffs imposed via presidential executive orders that have since been ruled unlawful.

  • June 03, 2026

    $1.2M Settlement Approved In Video Game Website Data Tracking Dispute

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted final approval of a $1.2 million class action settlement and $5,000 service awards to both named plaintiffs in litigation alleging that a website operator violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) by using third-party trackers on a video game website to collect users’ IP addresses and other identifiers without consent, rendering the trackers unauthorized “‘pen registers’” under the statute.

  • June 03, 2026

    9th Circuit Affirms 1 Of 2 Preliminary Injunctions Over Research Grants

    SAN FRANCISCO — In a corrected per curiam opinion, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed one of two preliminary injunctions issued by a federal court in California in a case brought by university researchers after three federal agencies terminated University of California (UC) research grants pursuant to President Donald J. Trump’s executive orders (EOs).

  • June 03, 2026

    Indiana Appellate Panel: Failure To Provide Class Notice Is Reversible Error

    INDIANAPOLIS — A firefighters’ union properly raised after final judgment a trial court’s failure to provide class notice in a lawsuit alleging insufficient time off as “[t]he Firefighters could not have anticipated that the trial court would proceed to final judgment prior to following the procedure for class actions, taking evidence or swearing in witnesses,” an Indiana Court of Appeals panel ruled in an unpublished opinion.

  • June 03, 2026

    On Remand, Chicken Broiler End User Class Awarded Fees, Objectors Awarded Money

    CHICAGO — More than four years after an attorney fees motion was filed in an antitrust case accusing broiler sellers of fixing the prices for chicken and following two appeals to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a federal judge in Illinois awarded the end user consumer plaintiff (EUCP) class attorney fees of 26.6% of the net common fund resulting from settlements with sellers and awarded money to the two settlement objectors.

  • June 02, 2026

    Class Certification Largely Denied In Athletes’ Title IX Case Against University

    EUGENE, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon denied certification of five classes of female student-athletes in a suit under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 against the University of Oregon (UO), finding that the plaintiffs failed to show “that they are typical representatives of their classes”; however, the judge noted that certification of a limited financial aid injunctive class will be considered in the future if the plaintiffs are successful on the merits of their claim for injunctive relief.

  • June 02, 2026

    ‘Rescoring’ Settlement In NFL Benefits Lawsuit Wins Preliminary Approval

    BALTIMORE — A Maryland federal judge on June 1 gave preliminary approval to a class settlement that would resolve a suit former NFL players filed over the use of “race-based demographic adjustments” in “scoring neuropsychological tests” used to determine whether they receive disability and related benefits; the parties said the deal is designed to ensure that such “adjustments play no role in the Plans’ benefit determinations, whether prospectively or retroactively.”

  • June 01, 2026

    U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Review Federal Circuit Takings Ruling In Pension Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 1 denied certiorari regarding a ruling that affirmed summary judgment for the U.S. government in a suit in which a certified class of retirees tried to get federal compensation for cuts made to their vested pension benefits; in the ruling at issue, an appellate court concluded that the government prevailed because the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA) “was not a physical taking and plaintiffs did not prove it was a regulatory taking.”

  • June 01, 2026

    Panel Sends Case Challenging $7.25B Nationwide Roundup Settlement To MDL

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) has transferred to the MDL court for Roundup product liability litigation a putative class action that would establish a preliminarily approved nationwide Roundup settlement of up to $7.25 billion after a group of objectors who refer to themselves as the “objector defendants” removed the lawsuit to Missouri federal court and sought its transfer, arguing that the proposed settlement “extinguishes” the claims of current and future plaintiffs.

  • June 01, 2026

    Law Firm Faces Proposed Class Action Over Personal Data Breach

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — An individual whose personal data was allegedly accessed in a cyberattack filed a proposed class complaint in a District of Columbia federal court against a law firm, asserting that the firm failed to adequately safeguard sensitive information allegedly obtained from third parties and delayed notice for months after discovering unauthorized access to its systems.

  • June 01, 2026

    Final Approval Of $250M Settlement Granted In Electric Vehicle Securities Case

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California granted final approval to a $250 million settlement in a class action brought by investors alleging that an electric car manufacturer and certain of its executives hid the fact that they knew that the company would be selling its vehicles at a significant loss ahead of its initial public offering.

  • May 29, 2026

    Judge Orders THC Vape Companies To Correct Labels, Awards $732K In Attorney Fees

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge on May 28 entered final judgment in favor of a certified class of consumers of Cake-brand vape products containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) against two nonappearing companies for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by mislabeling the THC content of their vapes.  The judge ordered the companies to correct their labels and awarded class counsel approximately $850,000 in attorney fees and costs.

  • May 29, 2026

    Monsanto, Consumers Seek Remand Of Roundup Suit With Pending $7.25B Settlement

    ST. LOUIS — Removal to federal court of a Missouri state court putative class action where a $7.25 billion nationwide Roundup settlement has been preliminarily approved can’t be done by objectors to the settlement, consumers who filed the lawsuit and Monsanto Co. argue in separate motions to remand filed in the federal court; Monsanto is seeking expedited consideration of its motion.

  • May 29, 2026

    Judge Dismisses Bulk Of Claims In Deceptive OnlyFans Chat Scheme Class Suit

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge largely granted motions to dismiss putative class claims brought by OnlyFans subscribers who say that they were deceived into paying extra fees to “chat” and share personal information with individual creators in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws, when they in fact were talking with professional third-party “chatters,” dismissing most claims against the companies that operate the site but allowing a claim against the agencies that manage creators and chatters for sharing personal information.

  • May 29, 2026

    NCAA, Turner Sports’ Stay Motion Denied In CIPA Website-Tracking Class Action

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Turner Sports Interactive Inc.’s motion to stay a proposed class action alleging that third-party trackers on NCAA.com violated the pen register provision of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) pending an appeal in an analogous website-tracking case, finding that the appeal did not justify delaying the litigation because its potential effect on the plaintiffs’ Article III standing theory was uncertain, resolution could take years and a stay could postpone relief for absent putative class members.

  • May 28, 2026

    High Court Dismisses Cert Petition Seeking Review Of Data Breach Standing Decision

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court granted a joint motion to dismiss a petition for a writ of certiorari in putative class action litigation arising from an insurer’s data breach in which hackers gained access to nearly 3 million driver’s license numbers after the parties reached a settlement resolving the underlying dispute, leaving in place a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that two named plaintiffs had Article III standing to seek damages based on the dark web posting of their driver’s license numbers.

  • May 28, 2026

    Service Members’ Predatory Lending Class Lawsuit Settles For $5.2 Million

    LOS ANGELES — A payday lender will pay $5.2 million and for two years refrain from assessing transfer fees on direct transfers of advances to active-duty service members and eligible dependents to end class claims that it engaged in predatory lending practices in violation of the Military Lending Act (MLA), the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and the Georgia Payday Loan Act (GPLA), pursuant to a settlement agreement granted final approval by a federal judge in California.

  • May 27, 2026

    Objectors: $7.25B Roundup Deal ‘Extinguishes’ Claims; Case Should Be Sent To MDL

    ST. LOUIS — Individuals who object to the proposed $7.25 billion nationwide Roundup settlement between a putative class and Bayer Corp., Monsanto Co.’s parent company, removed the putative class action to Missouri federal court, arguing that the proposed agreement “extinguishes” the claims of current and future plaintiffs “in exchange for pennies on the dollar.” The objectors also moved to stay all proceedings pending a ruling on their motion to transfer the case to the multidistrict litigation for Roundup litigation.

  • May 27, 2026

    Another Circuit Rules That ERISA Requires Reasonable Conversion Assumptions

    ATLANTA — Reviving a putative class action and agreeing with a recent ruling that made a sister circuit “the only other federal court of appeals to have decided the issue,” an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 26 concluded that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act requires pension plans to “convert married participants’ single-life annuities to joint-and-survivor annuities using reasonable mortality and interest-rate assumptions.”

  • May 27, 2026

    Yet Again, High Court Skips Review Of An ERISA Effective Vindication Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — As it has several times in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a certiorari petition that asked it to strike down application of the “effective vindication” doctrine in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case; the dispute concerned use of a half-century-old mortality table to calculate joint and survivor annuities (JSAs), and the decision at issue came from the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.