Class Action Procedure

The Ninth Circuit recently upheld a California district court’s dismissal of a proposed class action against Shopify for lack of personal jurisdiction, cautioning that subjecting web-based platforms to jurisdiction in every forum in which they are accessible would lead to the “eventual demise of all restrictions” on personal jurisdiction.

In Briskin v. Shopify, Inc., 2022 WL 1427324 (N.D. Cal. May 5, 2022), the plaintiff alleged that Shopify, a Canadian-based company that provides online merchants throughout the United States with an e-commerce payment platform, violated California privacy and consumer protection laws by allegedly collecting his sensitive personal information while using a California-based retailer’s website.  The district court in the Northern District of California dismissed the action, finding that it lacked both general and specific personal jurisdiction over Shopify. 

A panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, holding that Shopify could not be subjected to jurisdiction in California where it did not expressly aim the alleged conduct implicated by the lawsuit toward California.  Briskin v. Shopify, Inc., 2023 WL 8225346 (9th Cir. Nov. 28, 2023).  Briskin confirms the Ninth Circuit’s view that for interactive websites and other web-based services and platforms that operate nationwide, “something more” is needed to satisfy the express aiming requirement for personal jurisdiction.…

Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Finds No Personal Jurisdiction in California Over Website

            December 1 marks an important and long-awaited change to Federal Rule of Evidence 702.  The Rule, pertaining to the testimony of expert witnesses, has not received a substantive update since 2000, when it was amended in the wake of the Daubert decision.  Now, more than 20 years later—and after years of study—the Rule has been amended to make two issues clear:  (1) that the proponent of an expert’s testimony must establish the admissibility of that testimony by a preponderance of the evidence; and (2) that an expert’s opinion must reflect a reliable application of his or her methodology to the case.  These changes reinforce the key gatekeeping role that courts play in ensuring that only helpful, reliable expert testimony is heard by the factfinder. …

Continue Reading A Closer Look:  Changes To F.R.E. 702 Will Help Ensure Courts Follow The Expert ‘Gatekeeping’ Function

On November 3, the Second Circuit reversed a lower court decision denying a motion to compel arbitration in a putative class action against Klarna.  See Edmundson v. Klarna, Inc., 85 F.4th 695 (2d Cir. 2023).  The decision offers guidance (and support) for companies looking to enforce similar “click-wrap” agreements with mandatory arbitration provisions.…

Continue Reading A Closer Look: Second Circuit Steps In to Reverse Decision Refusing To Enforce “Click-Wrap” Mandatory Arbitration Agreement

The Sixth Circuit vacated an order certifying five statewide classes alleging a common brake defect in Ford Motor Company’s F-150 pickup trucks, remanding the case to the district court “for more searching consideration” of whether commonality under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(2) was satisfied.

In Weidman v. Ford Motor Co., 2022 WL 1071289 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 8, 2022), plaintiffs had filed a putative class action against Ford over an alleged defective brake cylinder in their F-150 pickup trucks.  The district court certified five statewide classes on three issues under Rule 23(c)(4): (1) whether the trucks’ brake systems were defective; (2) whether Ford possessed pre-sale knowledge of the defect; and (3) whether concealed information about the defect would be material to a reasonable buyer.

On a Rule 23(f) petition for interlocutory review, the Sixth Circuit vacated the class certification order, finding that the district court’s “cursory treatment of commonality, one of the four necessary class action ingredients, failed to meet Rule 23’s stringent requirements.”  In Re Ford Motor Co., 2023 WL 7877971, at *1 (6th Cir. Nov. 16, 2023).…

Continue Reading Sixth Circuit Pumps the Brakes on Class Certification Alleging Common Defects in Ford F-150 Pickup Trucks

A California Superior Court recently certified a putative class action of California residents “who have used mobile devices running the Android operating system to access the internet through cellular data plans provided by mobile carriers.” See Order Concerning: (1) The Parties’ Expert Exclusion Motions; and (2) Plaintiffs’ Class Certification Motion, Csupo, et al. v. Alphabet…

We are seeing a growing number of class actions alleging consumer harms from corporate carbon offset policies.  On October 13, a California federal court threw out such a case (albeit with leave to amend) against e-commerce site Etsy.   

The lawsuit, Blackburn v. Etsy, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-05711 (C.D. Cal. 2023), stemmed from a number of carbon offset promises Etsy has made since 2019—that the company engages in “100% offsetting [of] all carbon emissions from shipping[,]” that it was “the first major online shopping destination to offset 100% of carbon emissions generated by shipping[,]” and that its “goal [is] to run a carbon neutral business[.]”  Dkt. No. 20 at 1.  Plaintiffs alleged that the carbon offset promises were false “due to endemic methodological errors and fraudulent accounting on behalf of offset vendors.”  Id.  Plaintiffs claimed that Etsy’s false promises caused them harm because they paid more for products on the site than they otherwise would have under the mistaken belief that Etsy’s shipments were carbon neutral. …

Continue Reading California Federal Court Throws Out Carbon Offset Class Action Against Etsy

A federal district court in the Northern District of California granted in part a motion to dismiss putative class action claims filed against Western Digital, a hard drive manufacturer whose older devices experienced a cyber-attack, where the plaintiffs alleged that their stored data was deleted but not that it was stolen.  While plaintiffs will be permitted to maintain claims related to the data loss, they lack standing to assert claims based on future data misuse.…

Continue Reading Federal Court Partially Dismisses Hacked Hard Drive Claims Where Plaintiffs Could Only Show Data Deletion, Not Theft

Courts and litigants continue to grapple with the new frontier of artificial intelligence (“AI”).  One recent case in California demonstrates a new wrinkle in this evolving landscape—the use of AI to aggregate class claims.

Because class settlements bind absent class members who do not object or opt out, Rule 23 requires courts to carefully review and approve them as “fair, reasonable, and adequate.”  An important part of this inquiry is making sure class members are given adequate notice of the terms of the proposed settlement and their rights.  When class members are required to submit claims to access settlement benefits, parties often turn to professional claims administration companies to assist in providing notice and facilitating the claims process.  Under Rule 23, courts closely monitor the information that flows from class counsel and claims administrators to putative class members to make sure it complies with due process.…

Continue Reading California Federal Court Clamps Down on ‘En Masse’ Class Claims Identified by AI

A significant recent decision by the Fourth Circuit confirms that arbitration agreements that contain class-action waiver provisions can be a powerful tool to defeat class certification.  In In re Marriott International, Inc., the Fourth Circuit observed that while “no court has had occasion to expressly hold as much,” the “consensus practice” of courts is to “resolve the import of waivers at the certification stage—before they certify a class, and usually as the first order of business.”  2023 WL 5313006, at *6 (4th Cir. Aug. 18, 2023).  The Fourth Circuit held that courts must address the implication of an arbitration clause containing a class-action waiver before, not after, a class is certified.  And because the district court in this case did not do so, the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s class certification ruling.  Id. at *1.…

Continue Reading Fourth Circuit Holds that the Enforceability of Arbitration Agreements Containing Class Waivers Must Be Resolved Before Class Certification

In a recent published decision, the Fifth Circuit declined to articulate a rule for the “order and depth in which” it “grapples with constitutional standing and the Rule 23 inquiry.”  Chavez v. Plan Benefit Services, Inc., __ F.4th __, No. 22-50368, 2023 WL 5160393 (5th Cir. Aug. 11, 2023).  The court concluded that the plaintiffs—three employees who participated in health and retirement plans administered by the defendants—had standing to sue on behalf of absent class members who participated in thousands of different benefits plans administered by the defendants.  The court went on to affirm the district court’s certification of two classes, each under both Rules 23(b)(1)(B) and 23(b)(3).…

Continue Reading Fifth Circuit Declines to Wade Into Circuit Split on Relationship Between Standing and Class Certification