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Weekly litigation report — June 17, 2017

June 17, 2017 | By JAMES BURLING

Interior Secretary Zinke Recommends Bears Ears Reduction Indian River County School Board responds to public outcry, but continues to ignore First Amendment California Supreme Court protects private property Class Action action Florida family loses property rights’ case in Florida appellate court Telling truth to tort Supreme Court asks town ...

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Supreme Court calls foul on class action gamesmanship

June 12, 2017 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The Supreme Court this morning put the kibosh on a tactic by counsel for purported class actions to evade the final judgment rule. In Microsoft v. Baker, involving an alleged design defect in Xbox game consoles, class certification was denied, and the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed his case with prejudice, for the sole purpose of jumping … ...

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Supreme Court should affirm federal efforts to stop class action abuse

June 22, 2016 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

Readers of this blog are likely no stranger to class action lawsuit abuse.  Egregious examples abound. Congress responded to that abuse in 2005 by enacting the Class Action Fairness Act, or CAFA.  That law allows parties to remove class action lawsuits to federal courts—which Congress thought would better police the class action process.  ...

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Supreme Court returns zero results in Google case

June 08, 2016 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The use of statistical sampling to generate common issues for resolution via class action presents serious due process questions. Someday, the Supreme Court will need to resolve those questions because constitutional protection of due process cannot be reconciled with statistical sampling that allows plaintiffs to forego any demonstration of indivi ...

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Spokeo v. Robins : What lies ahead?

May 18, 2016 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

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 ...

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Yet another pro-class action decision in the Ninth Circuit

April 12, 2016 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

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 ...

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Supreme Court ponders class action gamesmanship

March 18, 2016 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

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 … ...

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Can Congress deem someone injured?

July 07, 2015 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

Article III of the United States Constitution allows federal courts to hear only “cases or controversies,” defined as cases brought by plaintiffs who have suffered actual (not speculative) harm that can be redressed by court action. What if a plaintiff’s asserted injury, however, is nothing more than that the defendant violated a ...

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Supreme Court grants important “standing” case

April 27, 2015 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

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