When negotiating a class action settlement, lawyers on both sides may need to consider whether subgroups within the class need to be separately represented by different counsel. The First Circuit recently reached that conclusion in Murray v. Grocery Delivery E-Services USA Inc., 2022 WL 17729630 (1st Cir. Dec. 16, 2022).
Murray involved three different…
A recent Ninth Circuit decision on a class action settlement, In re Apple Inc. Device Performance Litigation, 2022 WL 4492078 (9th Cir. Sept. 28, 2022), received significant attention in the legal media. It addressed several issues of significance to lawyers negotiating class settlements: (1) class representative incentive awards; (2) a requirement that class members…
Last week the Eleventh Circuit addressed an issue that many class action practitioners probably haven’t thought much about: whether approval of a class action settlement requires that each class member obtaining relief have Article III standing to sue. Defendants typically want a broad class definition because they are focused on finality and buying peace. Plaintiffs…
A recent decision by the Eleventh Circuit struck down a practice that is commonplace in class action settlements—providing a modest incentive award to a named plaintiff. In Johnson v. NPAS Solutions, LLC, No. 18-12344, 2020 WL 5553312 (11th Cir. Sept. 17, 2020), the district court, as part of the final approval of a class…
Class action settlements are complicated. They often take months to negotiate. The last thing the lawyers or their clients on either side want to happen is for the trial court to deny approval or, even worse, for an appellate court to overturn a decision approving the settlement when an objector appeals. That happened earlier this…
The Supreme Court recently granted review in a case that involves whether, or in what circumstances, cy pres relief may be used in class action settlements. In Frank v. Gaos, No. 17-961, the Court will review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in In re Google Referrer Header Privacy Litig., 869 F.3d 737 (9th Cir.…
The Ninth Circuit recently ruled in favor of President Trump. That was not a typo, and this is not fake news. The ruling was not in favor of Trump in his official capacity, but in his capacity as a class action defendant. And it was in a case where the plaintiffs were on his side,…
The Ninth Circuit’s decision this week vacating a class action settlement in In re Hyundai and Kia Fuel Economy Litig., No. 15-65014 (9th Cir. Jan. 23, 2018) is getting a lot of attention in the class action bar. It’s 84 pages long, but the bottom line is that the Ninth Circuit held that the…
Yesterday the Second Circuit reversed the approval of what was reportedly the largest antitrust class action settlement in history, valued at $7.25 billion. In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 12047 (2d Cir. June 30, 2016). The case was brought by merchants who challenged the fees…
A recent Florida appellate court decision caught my eye because it addressed a potentially-important issue that is not expressly addressed by Fed. R. Civ. P. 23, and has rarely been litigated: whether persons who have opted out of a class action settlement may pursue another class action on the same claims. The court held that…
