Mealey's Class Actions

  • May 08, 2026

    Judge: Most Of Semiconductor Device Manufacturer’s Alleged Misstatements Actionable

    SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington granted in part and denied in part a specialized semiconductor device manufacturer’s motion to dismiss an investor’s putative class action alleging the manufacturer’s executives made false and misleading statements that artificially inflated the company’s stock price, finding that most of the allegedly misleading statements were not protected opinions or puffery.

  • May 08, 2026

    Split 7th Circuit Upholds Consent Decree Extension In 2018 Noncitizen Detainee Case

    CHICAGO — A split Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel upheld a trial court’s decision to extend a 2021 consent decree in a class action by noncitizens challenging warrantless arrests by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and partially upheld an order to release class members arrested without warrants, reversing only the portion of the order that required the release of “potential class members” and any other individual arrested pursuant to I-200 warrants, warrants that were issued in the field.

  • May 08, 2026

    ERISA Class Action Tied To Reinsurance Risks Dismissed For Failure To State Claim

    DALLAS — A Texas federal judge dismissed without prejudice an amended putative class action complaint filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) challenging a retirement plan’s use of a Prudential Guaranteed Income Fund in its 401(k) plan, holding that the plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege fiduciary imprudence because they failed to connect the retirement plan’s offshore reinsurance arrangements, low surplus-to-liabilities ratios and allegedly underperforming crediting rates to deficiencies in the fiduciary decision-making process.

  • May 08, 2026

    Parties Dispute 6th Circuit Rehearing Bid In ERISA ‘Reasonable Assumptions’ Case

    CINCINNATI — Retirees have responded to petitions for panel and en banc rehearing at the request of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals following a 2-1 ruling that revived two putative class suits contesting the use of decades-old mortality tables by holding that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “prohibits employers from using unreasonable, inappropriate actuarial assumptions” when making certain pension annuity calculations.

  • May 08, 2026

    Oral Argument Is Set In 3 More Appeals Of Dismissed ERISA Forfeiture Cases

    Appellate courts still have yet to rule on the wave of putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act challenges to a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions, but oral argument has been conducted in one of the 15 pending appeals of rulings dismissing such cases and is scheduled in three more, with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to participate in those arguments as amicus curiae.

  • May 08, 2026

    Judge Approves Settlement In Stock Drop Suit Against Biopharmaceutical Company

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted final approval to a $7.25 million settlement in a case brought by investors against a biopharmaceutical company, certain of its executives and board members for alleged misstatements the defendants made regarding the risks associated with the Phase 3 clinical trial of the company’s lead drug candidate, which led to the company’s stock being artificially inflated.

  • May 07, 2026

    Final Approval Of $1.57M Settlement Granted In VPPA Data Sharing Class Action

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted final approval to a $1.57 million class settlement resolving claims that a pair of online retailers violated the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) and California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by disclosing consumers’ video purchase information to third parties through website tracking technologies.

  • May 07, 2026

    1 Class, 1 Subclass Decertified In Case Over Indiana’s Ban On Gender Transitions

    INDIANAPOLIS — A federal judge in Indiana granted a motion by minors, parents, a doctor and a doctor’s practice to decertify a provider class and a Medicaid provider subclass that were certified in January 2024 in a case alleging that Indiana’s ban on providing gender transition procedures to minors, which was enacted in 2023 and took effect in February 2024, violates the U.S. Constitution and federal laws.

  • May 07, 2026

    Government To High Court: Skip Federal Circuit Takings Ruling In Pension Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Urging the U.S. Supreme Court to deny certiorari regarding a ruling that retirees’ attempt to get federal compensation for cuts made to their vested pension benefits failed because the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA) “was not a physical taking and plaintiffs did not prove it was a regulatory taking,” the government argued in part that the petitioners “fail to identify any conflict in the lower courts on the question presented” and rely “on a series of inapposite circuit and state-court cases, none of which arose in the” context of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “or addressed an analogous claim.”

  • May 06, 2026

    Plaintiffs Seek Approval Of $250M Settlement Over Apple’s Misleading AI Claims

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — The plaintiffs representing a putative class of consumers who say they were misled into overpaying for Apple Inc.’s latest iPhone models based on Apple’s misrepresentations about the artificial intelligence capabilities that the iPhone 16’s “Apple Intelligence” and Siri software would offer moved May 5 for preliminary approval of a $250 million settlement, with an estimated $70 million in attorney fees, to resolve their claims that Apple violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws.

  • May 06, 2026

    $21.5M Deal In Partly Revived ERISA Pension Benefits Class Action Gets Final OK

    RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Overruling the lone objection he said failed to “raise substantive or persuasive concerns about the adequacy, reasonableness, or fairness of the settlement,” a California federal judge granted final approval to a $21.5 million class deal that resolved a long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act pension benefits class action the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals partly revived in November 2024 after a bench trial.

  • May 06, 2026

    Split 9th Circuit Stays Injunction Pending Appeal In ICE Facility Protest Case

    PORTLAND, Ore. — A divided Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel stayed pending appeal a preliminary injunction in a provisionally certified class case brought 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.”

  • May 06, 2026

    Smart TV Viewer Data Class Action Narrowed, But Privacy Claims Proceed

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge partially granted and partially denied a data analytics company’s motions to dismiss and strike a data privacy class action that alleges unlawful interception and monetization of users’ video-viewing data, holding that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged Article III injury based on the collection and commercialization of identifiable viewing histories and user profiling, but dismissed claims brought under the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA), the California unfair competition law (UCL) and some claims brought under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) for failure to state a claim.

  • May 06, 2026

    9th Circuit Denies Rehearing After Classes Upheld In Nestle Labeling Case

    PASADENA, Calif. — Nestle USA Inc.’s petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc was denied by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after a divided panel in January 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).

  • May 05, 2026

    Judge: Certain Questions Outside Scope Of Remand In FirstEnergy Securities Action

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — After the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated an order granting class certification and issued a limited remand, an Ohio federal judge issued an order stating the class remains certified in a suit against FirstEnergy Corp. brought by investors regarding a $2 billion bribery scheme, finding that “any question regarding the applicability of the [Basic Inc. v. Levinson] presumption of reliance is beyond the scope of the Sixth Circuit’s limited remand.”

  • May 05, 2026

    U.S. Expresses Interest In California Homeowners’ Antitrust Suit Against Insurers

    LOS ANGELES — The United States of America filed a statement of interest in a lawsuit filed by California homeowners affected by the Los Angeles wildfires against their insurers for violations of the state’s Cartwright Act and unfair competition law (UCL), negligence and fraud, noting that although the action asserts only state competition law claims, the United States has a strong interest because the alleged conduct by the insurers “presents a serious concern under the federal antitrust laws.”

  • May 05, 2026

    New York Federal Judge Postpones Government’s Termination Of TPS For Yemenis

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted motions in two putative class complaints to postpone the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary’s decision to terminate the temporary protected status (TPS) for Yemen, which was first designated in 2015.

  • May 05, 2026

    Class Action Plaintiffs Seek $25M For Deceptively Labeled ‘San Marzano’ Tomatoes

    SAN FRANCISCO — Two consumers on May 4 filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of a putative nationwide class against a New Jersey company that sells tomatoes labeled as “Certified” and “San Marzano,” alleging that the tomatoes are not from the San Marzano region and are deceptively labeled in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and seeking $25 million in restitution.

  • May 05, 2026

    Value Of Proposed Class Deal To Close ESOP Case Is Estimated At More Than $22.5M

    NEW YORK — On May 4, a New York federal judge granted preliminary approval to a settlement that a class of employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) participants say has “a total economic value exceeding $22.5 million” and “represents a recovery of approximately 71% of remaining losses” in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act case.

  • May 04, 2026

    Timeclock Seller, Insurers Settle Biometric Privacy Suit For More Than $1.6M

    CHICAGO — A company that develops and sells workplace biometric timeclocks and its insurers will pay $1,685,000 to end class claims by an Illinois woman that the company collected and stored her biometric data and the biometric data of others in violation of the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA), according to an order dismissing the case with prejudice filed by a federal judge in that state.

  • May 04, 2026

    Judge Approves $65M Settlement In Securities Fraud Class Action Against Snap

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California granted final approval of a $65 million settlement in a case brought by investors against the company that created Snapchat for allegedly misleading investors when discussing the impact of Apple Inc.’s advertising changes to the company’s revenue.

  • May 04, 2026

    No Standing Found in Food Bank Data Tracking Class Action, Dismissal Granted

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge dismissed a data privacy class action against four food bank organizations and Meta Platforms Inc., which alleged unlawful tracking and disclosure of users’ financial and medical information through Meta’s Tracking Pixel, holding that plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege a concrete injury and had consented to the challenged data practices.

  • May 01, 2026

    Class Claims Over Artificially ‘Pumped’ Frozen Fish Adequately Pleaded, Judge Says

    CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge denied a food company’s motion to dismiss a putative class action lawsuit against it alleging violations of consumer protection laws of several states, including California’s unfair competition law (UCL), by labeling its frozen fish products as containing “100% Whole Fish” when the fish is allegedly “pumped” with water and an inorganic salt compound, writing that the plaintiffs adequately alleged the labels could deceive a reasonable consumer.

  • May 01, 2026

    Parties, Amici Dispute Bid For En Banc 4th Circuit To Review Class Cert Vacatur

    RICHMOND, Va. — Arguing in part that en banc rehearing is not warranted because “[t]he panel nowhere placed class certification off-limits for all § 502(a)(2) claims involving defined-contribution plans,” an employer urged the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to let stand an interlocutory ruling that reversed and vacated certification of a mandatory class in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case challenging the employer’s decision to include passively managed BlackRock LifePath Index target date funds (TDFs) in its retirement plan.

  • April 30, 2026

    Judge Partially Excludes Plaintiffs’ Expert In PFAS Class Action Against DuPont

    WILMINGTON, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina has partially granted and partially denied a motion by E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. and two affiliates to exclude a plaintiffs’ expert in a consolidated class action alleging injuries from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), finding that she is unqualified to offer some of her opinions but rejecting the defendants’ argument that all of her opinions related to air and water modeling should be excluded.