Tag Archives: Standing

SDNY Finds Standing Well-Pleaded Post-Spokeo

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As we’ve discussed previously, following the Supreme Court’s Spokeo decision, there is some question of how courts will analyze the “concrete” injury requirement for Article III standing.

In Boelter v. Hearst Communications, 2016 WL 3369541 (S.D.N.Y. June 17, 2016), the plaintiffs filed a class action complaint alleging violations of the Michigan Video Rental Privacy Act, among other things. Defendant sought dismissal, arguing that plaintiffs lacked standing because they had “not suffered an ‘injury-in-fact’—that is, that violation of the VRPA, as well as the other harms alleged in the amended complaint, do not constitute a particularized, concrete injury sufficient to confer standing.”

The court denied the motion to dismiss, based on allegations that

Defendant disclosed protected information about Plaintiffs in two ways: by selling it to third parties, and by providing it to “data mining” companies who then supplemented it with additional data to enhance the value of the information for Defendant.

By that conduct, the court reasoned, the defendant had

deprived Plaintiffs of their right to keep their information private, subjected them to unwanted solicitations and the risk of being victimized by “scammers,” and unjustly retained the economic benefit the value of that information conferred. Moreover, had Plaintiffs known that Defendant would disclose their information, they “would not have been willing to pay as much, if at all, for [their magazine] subscriptions.”

Accordingly, the court held plaintiffs had suffered a particularized, concrete injury-in-fact, sufficient to establish their standing to sue.  … Read more

W.D. Wash. Court Finds Spokeo “Concrete Injury” in TCPA Case

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Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Spokeo, practitioners are keeping a close eye on how courts will analyze the “concrete” injury requirement for Article III standing.

One recent opinion comes from Judge James L. Robart of the Western District of Washington, who held that a plaintiff in the TCPA case before him contained sufficient allegations of a concrete injury:

Here, the court is satisfied that Plaintiffs’ allegations demonstrate “concrete injury” as elucidated in Spokeo. In Spokeo, the “injury” Plaintiffs incurred was arguably merely procedural and thus non-concrete. In contrast, the TCPA and WADAD violations alleged here, if proven, required Plaintiffs to waste time answering or otherwise addressing widespread robocalls. … As Congress and Washington State’s legislature agreed, such an injury is sufficiently concrete to confer standing.

Booth v. Appstack, Inc., 2016 WL 3030256 (W.D. Wash. May 25, 2016).… Read more

Court Rules It Has Authority To Decide Whether Class Cert. Is “Logically Antecedent” to Standing Inquiries

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In consumer class actions, it is not uncommon for named plaintiffs to assert state-law claims arising under the laws of states in which no named plaintiff resides. After all, many consumer suits concern products sold nationwide, and there often may be close parity between the laws of states in which named plaintiffs and unnamed plaintiffs reside.

When faced with a class action complaint structured in this way, defendants typically argue, at the pleadings stage, that named plaintiffs lack Article III standing to assert claims based on these other state laws. This is a threshold issue, according to defendants, which must be decided at the outset of the case. Plaintiffs often respond that differences between a named plaintiff’s claims and unnamed class members’ claims should be treated as an issue of adequacy and typicality under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, and should be resolved at the class certification stage.

District courts in the Ninth Circuit have issued conflicting rulings on this question. Some hold that standing analysis must precede class certification, while others hold that class certification may be decided before standing is addressed. Compare Los Gatos Mercantile, 2014 WL 4774611, *4 (adopting the former approach), with Jepson v. Ticor Title Ins.… Read more

Named Plaintiff’s Standing to Sue Over Products Not Purchased — Best Deferred to Class Cert Stage

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As noted in a recent post, defendants in proposed class action suits commonly argue that the named plaintiff only has standing to represent those who purchased the very same product that the plaintiff bought.  This argument appeared again in Reid v. GMC Skin Care USA Inc., 2016 WL 403497 (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 15, 2016), with the defendant arguing that plaintiffs lacked both Article III and class standing to assert claims in connection with products they didn’t buy.  

In Reid, the court concluded that because the plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged standing, individually, with respect to the product that plaintiffs did purchase, Article III standing was satisfied and dismissal was inappropriate.  The court held that whether plaintiffs could pursue claims based on other products amounted to a question of class standing, which was better “addressed at the class certification stage.”  Reid, 2016 WL 403497, at *3-4.… Read more

Wisconsin District Court Analyzing Restitution Under California Law

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In an earlier post, we wrote about the Ninth Circuit’s Pulaski decision, which analyzed restitution under California law among other topics.  A new and thorough opinion from U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller in Le v. Kohls Dept. Stores, Inc., No. 15-cv-1171 (E.D. Wi. Feb. 8, 2016), expands further on those principles.

The Le case arises from allegations that Kohls Department Stores engages in a continuous marketing campaign that falsely advertises that its products are sold at far higher priced by other merchants.  Mr. Le sought restitution under California’s CLRA and UCL statutes and sought to enjoin the misleading advertising going forward.

Kohls moved to dismiss the restitution claim on the grounds “that the only legally cognizable method of calculating Le’s restitution is through the price-to-value method,” which requires showing the delta between price paid and value received.  Le responded that while it was premature at the pleading stage to sayprecisely how restitution should be calculated, other options existed — full restitution, partial restitution based on the false “transaction value” promised by Kohls, or restitution tied to Kohls’ profits from the scheme. The court agreed:

the Court agrees with Le’s interpretation of California law, namely, that restitutionary relief under the UCL and CLRA is not strictly and categorically confined to the price-to-value method as proffered by Kohls.

… Read more

Automotive Class Action Not Restricted to the Specific Vehicle Model Owned by Plaintiff

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In Bedi v. BMW of N. Am., LLC, 2016 WL 324950 (D.N.J. Jan. 27, 2016), the court was presented with an increasingly common issue:  BMW argued that the named plaintiff only has standing to represent those members of the class who purchased the very same vehicle model as he did.  The court disagreed:

In this district, a class complaint generally may survive a motion to dismiss on products a lead plaintiff did not purchase, so long as: (1) the basis for each of the claims is the same, (2) the products are closely related, and (3) the defendants are the same. Eberhart v. LG Elecs. USA, Inc., No. CV 15-1761, 2015 WL 9581752, at *3 (D.N.J. Dec. 30, 2015); In re L’Oreal Wrinkle CreamMktg. & Sales Practices Litig., No. 12-03571, 2013 WL 6450701, at *4 (D.N.J. Dec. 9, 2013); Burke v. Weight Watchers Int’l, Inc., No. 12-6742, 2013 WL 5701489, at *3-4 (D.N.J. Oct. 17, 2013); Stewart v. Smart Balance, Inc., No. 11-6174, 2012 WL 4168584, at *16 (D.N.J. June 26, 2012).
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The alleged misrepresentation in this case is identical across all BMW vehicles included in the class: the use of “TwinPower Turbo” to describe single turbocharger engines.
… Read more