Appeals

Supreme Court Dismisses ADA Website Accessibility Class Action for Mootness, Vacates First Circuit Decision

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At the close of 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of petitioner Acheson in Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer as moot and vacated the underlying decision by the First Circuit that Laufer had constitutional standing to bring her ADA claims. The decision came as no surprise following the Justices’ sharp focus on mootness during oral argument in October. Our earlier posts provide coverage of that oral argument and the petition for appeal. At the time of oral argument, it was uncertain whether the Court would rest its decision concerning jurisdiction on mootness or standing. That question has now been resolved.

Laufer’s Unusual Controversy and Procedural History

The Court’s decision rested on the unique procedural posture of the case. Acheson filed its appeal following the First Circuit’s decision that Laufer demonstrated sufficient injury to have Article III standing to pursue her ADA claims against a hotel with alleged accessibility

First Circuit Revives Data Breach Class Action Claims in Webb v. Injured Workers Pharmacy, LLC

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Courts and class action counsel have been considering what kinds of injuries can confer standing to pursue federal claims following the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, which held that the defendants’ alleged actions that “deprived [plaintiffs] of their right to receive information in the format required by statute” was not sufficient to establish a concrete injury necessary to bring a claim. Ever since the TransUnion decision, the question of what is sufficient injury has been reverberating throughout the lower courts and reaching federal courts of appeal.

The First Circuit has now confronted that question on multiple occasions, including its 2022 decision in Laufer v. Acheson (now on appeal to the Supreme Court) that held “dignitary harm” from discrimination was sufficient, along with allegations of “frustration and humiliation” to confer standing on a serial plaintiff who is a website accessibility tester. For more on Laufer,

Staying Put: Supreme Court Holds that District Courts Must Stay Proceedings Pending Arbitration Appeals

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On June 23, 2023, in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, the Supreme Court resolved a deeply divided circuit court split and ruled that a district court must stay its proceedings while an interlocutory appeal on the question of arbitrability is ongoing. Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, with Justices Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett joining the majority. Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sotomayor and Kagan joined in full, and in which Justice Thomas joined in part. The 5-4 decision has far-reaching implications for class action strategy and practice when arbitration provisions are at issue.

The Underlying Dispute Concerning Whether Proceedings Must Be Stayed Pending Arbitration Appeals

In the underlying case, Coinbase filed a motion to compel arbitration based on its user agreement following the filing of a putative class action on behalf of Coinbase users who alleged the company failed to replace funds fraudulently taken from user accounts. The district court

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Appeal from First Circuit of Website Accessibility Tester Case

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On March 27, 2023, the Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari by Acheson Hotels in Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Deborah Laufer, Case No. 21-1410. In its petition to appeal from an earlier First Circuit decision analyzed in a prior post,  Acheson Hotels asks the Supreme Court to resolve the following question:

Does a self-appointed Americans with Disabilities Act “tester” have Article III standing to challenge a place of public accommodation’s failure to provide disability accessibility information on its website, even if she lacks any intention of visiting that place of public accommodation?

In support of its petition, Acheson Hotels argued that the question was ripe for resolution by the Supreme Court based on the distinct divide among the circuit courts on the question presented and the errors it claims plagued the First Circuit’s decision.

The First Circuit’s Decision on Laufer’s Standing to Bring her Claim

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District of Maine Applies the First Circuit’s Murray Decision to Approve Class Action Settlement

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In early 2023, the District of Maine was the first district court to apply and interpret a recent and notable First Circuit ruling that should be top-of-mind for class action attorneys and litigants seeking approval of settlements for cases brought on behalf of multiple plaintiff classes and including class representative incentive awards.

That notable First Circuit class action decision from December 2022 was Murray v. Grocery Delivery E-Services USA, Inc., 55 F.4th 340 (1st Cir. 2022), in which the appellate court considered a challenge to the approval of a class action settlement under Federal Rule 23(e).

The First Circuit Scrutinizes Multi-Class Settlements and Deepens the Circuit-Court Divide on Incentive Awards

In Murray, with a 31-page opinion written by Judge Kayatta, the First Circuit vacated the district court’s approval of the proposed settlement and remanded for further proceedings. The case is particularly noteworthy for its determination that members of different classes required separate

First Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Website Tester Has Standing for ‘Informational Injury’, Deepens Circuit Divide

On October 5, 2022, in Laufer v. Acheson Hotels LLC, the U.S Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a suit against Acheson Hotels, LLC, which operates an inn on Maine’s southern coast. With this reversal, the First Circuit has addressed a matter of first impression and deepened a circuit split on when, following the Supreme Court’s ruling in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2021), a plaintiff can sustain a suit based on an informational injury. In TransUnion, the Supreme Court distilled its precedent on constitutional standing into five words: “No concrete harm, no standing.” In this recent decision, the First Circuit determined the plaintiff had established both.

The Lower Court Dismissal for Lack of Standing

In her complaint, Deborah Laufer alleges that when she visited the inn’s website, it didn’t identify accessible rooms, provide an option for

Supreme Court Addresses Concrete Harm, Limits Standing in FCRA Class Action

On June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated 5-4 ruling in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez. In a 27-page decision by Justice Kavanaugh, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision upholding the certification of a class of 8,185 consumers whom the credit reporting agency TransUnion had  mistakenly labeled as potential terrorists and drug traffickers. Of this consumer class, only 1,853 class members’ misleading credit reports had been provided to third-parties. The District Court had ruled that all class members had Article III standing to pursue their Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) claims against TransUnion to recover statutory damages. A federal jury awarded the class $8.1 million in statutory damages and $52 million in punitive damages. On appeal, TransUnion challenged the award on the basis that the entire class lacked constitutional standing to recover. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part.

The Court’s Decision

Taking up the question, the Court clarified its prior holdings concerning the

Two Courts of Appeals Issue Decisions Addressing Whether Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Personal Jurisdiction Holding Extends to Class Actions

We have previously written about the Supreme Court’s personal jurisdiction decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017) and how the federal district courts were applying it.  Now, two Courts of Appeals have finally weighed in, issuing the very first appellate decisions addressing whether Bristol-Myers applies to class actions in federal courts.

In Molock v. Whole Foods Market Group, Inc., No. 18-7162, 2020 WL 1146733 (D.C. Cir. March 10, 2020), plaintiffs, current and former employees of Whole Foods, brought a putative class action seeking to recover alleged lost wages.  Defendant moved to dismiss and argued that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over the claims of nonresident putative class members.  The district court denied the motion, and Whole Foods appealed.  In a 2-1 decision, the D.C. Circuit held that the question of whether Bristol-Myers applied to class actions was premature and need not be addressed because no class had been certified and

Class Action Update from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018-2019 Term

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The 2018-2019 term of the U.S. Supreme Court opened with a newly configured court in which Justice Kavanaugh joined as an Associate Justice following the retirement of Justice Kennedy. Since October of last year, the Court has heard 69 argued appeals, several of which arose from class action litigation. Over the past nine months, the Court has addressed issues relating to class action practice concerning arbitration provisions, federal removal statutes, consumer antitrust law, FDA preemption, and the equitable tolling of interlocutory appeals. Although presented with class action questions related to cy pres awards, data privacy litigation standing, issue class certification, securities laws, and TCPA claims, the Court declined to resolve these issues. Reflective of the Court’s decisions this term at large, rulings were unanimous or sharply divided along ideological lines, with the Court declining to hear a number of controversies. The below summary provides an overview of class action decisions by the Court this term, including recent remands and certiorari decisions.

Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Equitable Tolling of Rule 23(f)’s Time Limit to Petition for Interlocutory Appeal

Yesterday, the Supreme Court in Nutraceutical Corp. v. Lambert unanimously held that Rule 23(f) is not subject to equitable tolling. After the District Court for the Central District of California decertified a class of consumers who alleged that Nutraceutical’s marketing of a dietary supplement violated California consumer-protection law, plaintiff Lambert filed a motion for reconsideration, which the court subsequently denied. Fourteen days later, Lambert petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for permission to appeal the decertification order under Rule 23(f). Nutraceutical opposed Lambert’s petition, arguing that it was untimely because more than four months had passed since the court’s decertification order. The Court of Appeals, however, deemed the petition timely and accepted the appeal, stating that the Rule 23(f) fourteen-day deadline should be equitably tolled under the circumstances as the time limit is “non-jurisdictional, and that equitable remedies softening the deadline are therefore generally available,” and Lambert had acted diligently in moving for reconsideration and subsequently filing his petition within fourteen days after