Articles

Yesterday’s Daily Journal published my take on Monday’s Supreme Court decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, which held that the constitutional requirement that federal courts hear only real “cases or controversies” demands that plaintiffs show some sort of “concrete” injury.  Beyond explaining the context and exte ...

Thomas Robins, an unemployed man, sued Spokeo, a “people search engine” that collects and publishes information about individuals, for willful violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), because it published false information—specifically, that Robins was married, had a graduate degree, and was wealthy. The statute prohibits p ...

Three years ago, Richard Chen and Florencio Pacleb sued Allstate Insurance Company for alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. They purported to represent a class of people who received unwanted Allstate robocalls and sought the statutory remedy of $500 per unwanted call. Allstate responded to the lawsuit with a settlement offe ...

Everyone has received in the mail one of those letters from lawyers you’ve never heard of, informing you that you are part of a class action lawsuit against some company, say, a department store, and that you can mail in a form to reserve your share of the settlement or opt out of the class … ...

Though much of constitutional discourse today focuses on liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the real genius of the Constitution lies in its use of structural devices. One such device is the doctrine of standing, embedded in Article III, which permits federal courts only to hear cases as brought by plaintiffs who have suffered actual ha ...

The obvious answer is none. Unless you’re a judge on the D.C. Circuit. Then it has a legally protected interest in having land listed as a historic battlefield in order to shut down any visible productive use of that private property. As Judge Sentelle explained in dissent, this radically expands access to the courts. It … ...

Spokeo Inc., runs a website that collects and publishes consumer “credit estimates.”  Thomas Robins, an unemployed man, sued Spokeo for willful violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), alleging that Spokeo published false information, such as Robins was married, had a graduate degree, and was wealthy.  The trial court held ...

The Sixth and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals twice certified massive classes of consumers in lawsuits claiming that front-loading washing machines sold by Sears and Whirlpool were defectively designed such that some of them developed a “biofilm” that resulted in musty odors.  After the first certification, Sears and Whirlpool filed ...

Last year, the Sixth and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals both certified massive classes of consumers in a lawsuit claiming that washing machines sold by Sears and Whirlpool were defectively designed such that some of them developed a “biofilm” that resulted in musty odors.  Sears and Whirlpool filed petitions for writs of certiorari ...