{"id":505,"date":"2020-07-06T22:38:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T22:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/?p=505"},"modified":"2020-07-11T00:15:52","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T00:15:52","slug":"on-class-actions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/abtlreport\/on-class-actions\/","title":{"rendered":"On Class Actions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Roger N. Heller<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Roger
Roger N. Heller<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Picking up where the last decade left off, the 2020s are off\nto a fast developing and interesting start for class action practitioners in\nthe Ninth Circuit, with the court already handing down several notable opinions\naddressing such important issues as personal jurisdiction, privacy law, class damages,\npunitive damages, and Article III standing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the intersection of several of these issues, is perhaps\none of the most closely-watched cases of the year, Ramirez <\/em>v. TransUnion\nLLC<\/em>, — F.3d —, 2020 WL 946973 (9th Cir. Feb. 27, 2020), where the Ninth\nCircuit recently provided clarification regarding the application of Article\nIII standing principles in the class action context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ramirez <\/em>case involved allegations that the\ndefendant credit reporting bureau knowingly violated the Fair Credit Reporting\nAct (\u201cFCRA\u201d) by placing inaccurate \u201cterrorist alerts\u201d on consumers\u2019 credit\nreports, failing to take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of the\ninformation, and incorrectly indicating to the consumers that the alerts had\nbeen removed from their credit reports when that was not the case. The\nplaintiff, on behalf of himself and a proposed class of others who had these\nfalse alerts on their reports, sought statutory and punitive damages under the\nFCRA. After the district court certified a litigation class pursuant to Federal\nRule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), the case proceeded to a jury trial. After the\ntrial, the jury found in favor of plaintiff and the class and awarded statutory\ndamages and punitive damages. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the jury\u2019s\naward of statutory damages as \u201cclearly proportionate to the offense and\nconsistent with the evidence.\u201d The court determined, however, that the jury\u2019s\npunitive damages award\u2014approximately 6.45 times the amount of the statutory\ndamages\u2014were excessive under the facts of the case and the standards\narticulated by the Supreme Court in BMW of N. Am., Inc. v. Gore<\/em>, 517\nU.S. 559 (1996), and ordered that the punitive damages be reduced by\napproximately 38% (i.e.<\/em>, to a ratio of 4:1). Ramirez<\/em>, 2020 WL\n946973, at *18-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to addressing the damages issues, the majority tackled\ntwo important issues regarding Article III standing in the class context. First<\/em>,\nthe majority held that, at the motion to dismiss stage, class certification\nstage, and, for purposes of injunctive relief, at the judgment stage, only the\nrepresentative plaintiffs must have Article III standing. Ramirez<\/em>, 2020\nWL 946973, at * 7. Second<\/em>, the majority held that, at the final judgment\nstage of a class action, only those class members who can satisfy Article III\nstanding requirements may recover monetary damages. Ramirez<\/em>, 2020 WL\n946973, at * 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is probably fair to say that neither of these holdings\nsignificantly defied general expectations among class practitioners. As the Ramirez\n<\/em>majority noted, the first holding followed prior Ninth Circuit authority on\nthe issue. Id. <\/em>at * 7 (citing In re Zappos.com, Inc.<\/em>, 888 F.3d\n1020, 1028 n.11 (9th Cir. 2018); Melendres v. Arpaio<\/em>, 784 F.3d 1254,\n1262 (9th Cir. 2015), Bates v. United Parcel Serv.<\/em>, Inc.<\/em>, 511\nF.3d 974, 985 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc); Casey v. Lewis<\/em>, 4 F.3d 1516,\n1519\u201320 (9th Cir. 1993)). As for the second holding, the issue was essentially\npresented but not resolved by the Supreme Court in Tyson Foods, Inc. v.\nBouaphakeo<\/em>, 136 S.Ct. 1036 (2016). The requirement that class members must\nsatisfy Article III to recover damages at the final judgment stage does not\nstray significantly from the practice, employed in certain types of class cases\nthat go to trial, of utilizing a second phase or process (i.e.<\/em>,\nbifurcation) regarding the calculation and\/or allocation of class members\u2019\ndamages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After addressing these doctrinal issues, the Ramirez <\/em>majority\nconducted a detailed analysis of whether the recovering class members in the\ncase at hand had Article III standing under the Supreme Court\u2019s and Ninth\nCircuit\u2019s respective decisions in Spokeo<\/em>, concluding that each class\nmember did, in fact, allege a concrete injury and had Article III standing. The\nmajority emphasized the severe nature of the inaccurate information at issue\nand the corresponding risk of harm. Ramirez<\/em>, 2020 WL 946973, at *8-14.\nThe third member of the panel, who concurred in part and dissented in part,\nwould have held that only those class members who had the false information\ndisseminated to a third party had Article III standing. Id. <\/em>at *23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead, while the generally fact-specific and\nclaim-specific nature of the Article III standing and punitive damages\ninquiries may very well limit the direct applicability of Ramirez <\/em>to\nother cases, class practitioners in the Ninth Circuit should expect to see Ramirez\n<\/em>cited and quoted in their cases for the foreseeable future, particularly\nregarding the doctrinal issues. On the plaintiffs\u2019 side, the confirmation in Ramirez\n<\/em>regarding Article III standing standards at the pleading and class\ncertification stages, and the majority\u2019s analysis and application of Spokeo <\/em>to\nclaims involving risk of harm, may prove helpful. On the defense side, it is\nprobably reasonable to expect an uptick in the filing of decertification\nmotions at or around the time of trial, which was already becoming an\nincreasingly standard procedural event for those class cases that go to or\nthreaten to go to trial. Class practitioners on both sides should pay careful\nattention to the development of the law in this area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Roger N. Heller, a Partner in the San Francisco office of\nLieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, specializes in litigating consumer\nclass actions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Roger N. Heller<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":521,"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abtl.org\/northerncalifornia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}