Author Archives: David Stein

About David Stein

David Stein represents plaintiffs in class action litigation against the country’s largest corporations. He has served as court-appointed lead counsel in various consumer protection class action and multi-district proceedings, and his advocacy at both the trial and appellate levels has resulted in product recalls, permanent injunctive relief, and substantial remuneration for class members.

Ninth Circuit Issues New Spokeo Opinion

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Earlier today, the Ninth Circuit issued its long-awaited Article III standing opinion in Robins v. Spokeo.  The Ninth Circuit’s new opinion comes after the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the Ninth Circuit’s earlier opinion in the same case.

The Ninth Circuit’s opinion today continues a trend among the circuit courts, identifying intangible harms arising from statutory violations that constitute concrete harm under Article III.

In reaching its conclusion, the Ninth Circuit borrowed liberally from the recent Second Circuit decision in Strubel.  It also cites a range of other circuit court opinions, suggesting a burgeoning consensus in what had been a murky and arguably dissonant jurisprudence.

The Ninth Circuit laid out its framework as follows:

In evaluating Robins’s claim of harm, we … ask: (1) whether the statutory provisions at issue were established to protect his concrete interests (as opposed to purely procedural rights), and if so, (2) whether the specific procedural violations alleged in this case actually harm, or present a material risk of harm to, such interests.

To answer the first question, the court examined the statutory purpose, and whether those aims were “‘real,’ rather than purely legal creations.”  In holding that they were, the court also pointed to the fact that similar interests have been protected at common law:

Just as Congress’s judgment about an intangible harm is important to our concreteness analysis, so is the fact that the interest Congress identified is similar to others that traditionally have been protected.

… Read more

Third Circuit Crystallizes Post-Spokeo Standard

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The Third Circuit handed down an opinion Monday holding that a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) confers Article III standing even in the case of intangible injuries.

The opinion may prove to be less interesting for its impact on TCPA jurisprudence than for guiding courts in their efforts to understand and apply the Supreme Court’s Spokeo decision.  After all, within the TCPA context, there already appears to be a consensus that statutory violations satisfy Article III’s requirements.

But post-Spokeo, courts have grappled with the opinion’s distinction between “procedural” and “substantive” statutory violations.  Some courts have focused on that distinction; others have found it unhelpful.

The Third Circuit’s new decision, in Susinno v. Work Out World, does not require distinguishing between procedural and substantive harms – even though the Third Circuit’s earlier Horizon decision had emphasized the distinction.  Per Susinno:

We summarize Horizon’s rule as follows. When one sues under a statute alleging “the very injury [the statute] is intended to prevent,” and the injury “has a close relationship to a harm . . . traditionally . . . providing a basis for a lawsuit in English or American courts,” a concrete injury has been pleaded.

… Read more

Supreme Court Rules on Plaintiffs’ Ability to Appeal Class Certification Denial

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The Supreme Court has issued its opinion in Microsoft v. Baker, ruling class action plaintiffs cannot circumvent the Rule 23(f) procedure governing the appeal of class certification denials by voluntarily dismissing their claims with prejudice.

Following oral argument several months back, the consensus had been that the ruling in Baker would be in Microsoft’s favor.  In fact, even the Ninth Circuit appeared to back away from its holding in Baker, issuing a contrary ruling while Baker remained pending before the Supreme Court.

The predictions proved right, with the Supreme Court issuing a ruling that reached a unanimous result: plaintiffs cannot appeal a denial of class certification unless they either successfully petition for permission to appeal under Rule 23(f) or continue to litigate after the denial of certification until judgment.

Perhaps most interesting about the ruling was the 5-4 split on the underlying reasoning. Justice Kennedy and the liberal wing of the Court premised the majority ruling on the basis that federal courts of appeals lack jurisdiction under the “final judgment rule” of §1291 to review an order denying class certification (or, as here, an order striking class allegations) after the named plaintiffs have voluntarily dismissed their claims with prejudice.… Read more

Second Circuit Reverses Dismissal on Standing Grounds

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It’s axiomatic that – at the pleading stage – all inferences are to be drawn in plaintiffs’ favor. All well pled allegations are to be taken as true.

Yet complaints are often nitpicked, especially by defendants who foresee trouble once discovery is underway.  They search for holes in the pleadings, even when (or especially when) those holes are likely to be filled later with evidence.

That strategy often works.  So plaintiffs can take solace in the new Second Circuit opinion that not only reiterates these general principles, but expressly relies on them to form the backbone of its opinion.

The case is John v. Whole Foods Market Group.  Plaintiff alleged Whole Foods systematically overstated the weights of prepackaged foods, leading to overcharges for its customers.  The case followed a New York Department of Consumer Affairs investigation, which concluded some 89% of Whole Foods’ prepackaged foods featured overstated weights.

Whole Foods moved to dismiss on standing grounds.  It argued that just because the weight of 89% of its food had been overstated, that didn’t necessarily mean that the weight of plaintiff’s food had been overstated.  So, Whole Foods argued, plaintiff could not plausibly allege that he overpaid.  Whole Foods also sought dismissal on the ground that the complaint lacked details about the New York investigation’s methodology.… Read more

Toyota Can’t Enforce Dealer Arbitration Agreements (11th Cir.)

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In a recent unpublished opinion, the Eleventh Circuit refused Toyota’s request to compel arbitration against one of its customers.  This decision is consistent with several others, including in the Ninth Circuit.

In Drayton v. Toyota Motor Credit Corp., plaintiff sued Toyota for violating the TCPA and Florida’s analog statute. Toyota moved to compel arbitration, pointing to the purchase contract entered into between plaintiff and her local dealership.

Toyota, like most automotive manufacturers, does not sell vehicles directly to its customers.  So as is typical of vehicle purchase transactions, Toyota was not a party to the purchase agreement.  And Florida law, like many other states, does not ordinarily allow non-signatories to enforce contracts.

Toyota sought to exploit an exception, arguing that under the equitable estoppel doctrine, plaintiff could not seek to hold a party to the terms of an agreement while simultaneously trying to avoid the agreement’s arbitration clause.  The problem?  Plaintiff was not seeking to hold Toyota to the terms of the agreement.  Her claims stemmed from Toyota attempting to collect a consumer debt.

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision continues the consumer friendly trend of disallowing automotive manufacturer attempts to avoid liability by pointing to the forced arbitration clauses in their dealers’ contracts. … Read more

11th Cir.: VPPA Violation Satisfies Spokeo

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The Eleventh Circuit yesterday joined several other courts in holding that a bare procedural violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act confers Article III standing under the Supreme Court’s Spokeo decision.

In Perry v. Cable News Network, the plaintiff alleged that a downloadable CNN app for smartphones tracks and records user’s views of news articles and videos. Plaintiff alleged that when a user closes the app, CNN sends the viewing activity and other data to a company called Bango, a third party company that conducts data analytics.

CNN moved to dismiss, arguing plaintiff failed to allege a legally cognizable injury under Spokeo because the alleged violation of a statutory right is not on its own sufficiently concrete.  The Eleventh Circuit disagreed:

Perry has established his standing to file this action because his alleged injury is sufficiently concrete. Although Perry does not allege any additional harm beyond the statutory violation, the Supreme Court has made clear that our analysis does not end there. See Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1549. Instead, “the violation of a procedural right granted by statute can be sufficient in some circumstances to constitute injury in fact” so that “a plaintiff in such a case need not allege any additional harm beyond the one Congress has identified.” Id.; see also Havens Realty Corp.

… Read more

California Supreme Court Issues Consumer-Friendly Arbitration Ruling

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The year 2017 has brought in several consumer-friendly arbitration rulings, with several federal appellate courts refusing to enforce arbitration clauses.   Today, the California Supreme Court followed suit, ruling that a Citibank arbitration provision did not bar its customers from proceeding in court with claims seeking a public injunction under California consumer protection law.

Dating back to 1999, in its decision in Broughton v. Cigna Healthplans of California, 21 Cal.4th 1066 (1999), the California Supreme Court has held that California law does not permit arbitration of claims brought for broad, public injunctive relief.  The Court reaffirmed that principle in 2003 in Cruz v. PacifiCare Health Systems, Inc., 30 Cal.4th 303 2003).  And it has remained in effect, at least in California state courts, ever since.

The US Supreme Court’s Concepcion decision in 2011 engendered doubt as to whether the Broughton and Cruz decisions remain in effect, or whether they are instead preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act.  A series of district court decisions in 2011 and 2012 reached differing outcomes, and the Ninth Circuit ultimately ruled in Kilgore v. KeyBank N.A. that the FAA does preempt the Broughton-Cruz rule.

Today’s California Supreme Court ruling in McGill v. Citibank appeared poised to either contradict or fall in line with Kilgore.  … Read more

3d Cir. Refuses to Compel Arbitration

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Last week, the Third Circuit was presented with an arbitration issue that dealt with, as the court put it, “an unusual hybrid of technology.”  The defendant had offered services through an interactive telephone system.  But the contract that purportedly bound plaintiffs to arbitration was located exclusively on defendant’s website.

Because of the disconnect between the phone-based interaction between the parties, on the one hand, and the web-located terms of service, on the other, the court declined to compel arbitration.  James v. Global TelLink Corp., — F.3d —, 2017 WL 1160893 (3d Cir. 2017).

The court emphasized that while defendant informed telephone users their service was governed by website terms, users were not required to visit the website or otherwise demonstrate acceptance of the website’s terms.

The Third Circuit then distinguished various lines of cases.  It distinguished cases where plaintiffs had “manifested assent through the affirmative act of signing contracts”; where the contractual terms had been “immediately accessible to online users”; where plaintiffs had “received a copy of the contract with their [purchase] and conceded that they had notice of the [relevant] clause”; and where the plaintiffs “received physical copies of the terms and conditions upon opening the products, and their subsequent use of the products manifested assent.”

The court concluded by emphasizing that while arbitration is a favored remedy where the parties assent to its use, arbitration cannot be compelled where one party did not agree to arbitrate:

Congress has made clear that arbitration is an important federal policy and the Supreme Court has vindicated that policy many times.

… Read more

Class Cert Appeals & the Muddy Waters of the 9th Circuit

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In less than two weeks, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument on the following issue: Whether a federal court of appeals has jurisdiction to review an order denying class certification after the named plaintiffs voluntarily dismiss their individual claims with prejudice.

The underlying decision, which we’ve written about previously, is the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Baker v. Microsoft.  In Baker, the district court struck class allegations, Plaintiffs sought leave to appeal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f), and leave was denied.  Plaintiffs then voluntarily dismissed their individual claims with prejudice and appealed.  The Ninth Circuit concluded it had jurisdiction because the dismissal – even though it came by stipulation – was “sufficiently adverse” to be an appealable final decision.

With the Supreme Court poised to rule in Baker, the Ninth Circuit recently issued a second published decision involving a similar issue. Bates v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co.  In Bates, as in Baker, the district court granted a motion to strike class allegations.  From there, the posture of the cases diverged.  Rather than voluntarily dismissing with prejudice (as in Baker), the Bates plaintiffs filed an unopposed motion for entry of final judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b).… Read more

9th Circuit Affirms Class Certification in RICO Suit

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Last week, the Ninth Circuit affirmed certification of nationwide classes in a suit featuring RICO, contract, and other claims.  The published opinion dealt with a range of issues, including typicality, predominance, and superiority.

The case is Just Film, Inc. v. Buono.  No. 14-16132, 2017 WL 510452 (9th Cir. Feb. 7, 2017).  The full opinion is worth a read; a few highlights follow.

Typicality

One argument defendants raised was that the named plaintiffs’ injuries differed from the injuries suffered by other class members.  The Ninth Circuit held that the differing injuries did not defeat typicality:

The requirement of typicality is not primarily concerned with whether each person in a proposed class suffers the same type of damages; rather, it is sufficient for typicality if the plaintiff endured a course of conduct directed against the class. Although Campbell was able to fend off the attempted fraud before it reached into and diminished her bank account, there is no reason why she cannot prove the nature of the fraudulent scheme for benefit of all class members, whether or not their precise injuries are identical.

Predominance

Defendants challenged predominance on several grounds, including that damages would vary by class member and would require individualized evidence.  … Read more