US District Court – Mass

  • February 13, 2024

Part 4: Making a COVID-19 Tuition Suit Last

Class Action Litigation, Class Actions, Class Certifications, Legislation, Litigation, Massachusetts Decisions, US District Court - Mass
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We recently highlighted two Boston-based COVID-19 tuition refund class action suits, against Brandeis University and Boston College, and the impact of a provision in the Commonwealth’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget that grants retroactive immunity from claims arising out of tuition or fees paid for the Spring 2020 term. In both cases, with orders issued just days apart, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston found that provision, Section 80(b), was reasonable and narrowly tailored and therefore not unconstitutional. In the Brandeis case, the ruling ended the matter entirely, whereas the case against BC will proceed as to the non-Spring 2020 semesters.

A Refresher on the Boston-Based Cases

In Part 2 of our series, we reviewed the legal backdrop of this wave of class action litigation and explored some common pitfalls in education-based claims, building off of our initial post, which focused on suits against Suffolk University and Boston University. In

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  • February 01, 2024

The Budget Saves Brandeis: An Update on COVID-19 Tuition Litigation

Class Action Litigation, Class Actions, Current Affairs, First Circuit Decisions, Litigation, Massachusetts Decisions, US District Court - Mass
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In Part 2 of our series on our Massachusetts and Boston-based COVID-19 tuition refund class action suits, we reviewed the legal backdrop of this wave of class action litigation and explored some common pitfalls in education-based claims, noting that even where cases are able to proceed based on adequate framing of the claims and underlying facts, many lose their steam when a university successfully argues for denial of plaintiffs’ attempts to pursue their cases as class actions. One example of a Boston-area case in which class certification that we discussed was the May 2023 denial in Omori v. Brandeis University, which was dismissed earlier this month for an entirely different reason. We discuss that below, along with a similar ruling in Rodrigues v. Boston College issued just days prior.

Immunity for Tuition Claims in the 2024 Budget

Despite the defeat of its attempt to certify the proposed class (as well as the First Circuit’s denial of plaintiffs’

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  • July 27, 2023

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

Appeals, Class Actions, First Circuit Decisions, Litigation, Privacy Class Actions, Standing, US District Court - Mass
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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,

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  • May 23, 2023

Part 2 – Slowing the Spread of Litigation: An Update on First Circuit COVID-19 Tuition Refund Class Actions

Class Action Litigation, Class Actions, Class Certifications, First Circuit Decisions, Litigation, Massachusetts Decisions, US District Court - Mass
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Part 2: The Legal Backdrop

In Part 1 of this series, we provided a brief overview and introduction of the Boston-based COVID-19 tuition refund class action cases, noting generally that most similar suits haven’t made it very far, as courts tend to rule early and often for the educational institution. Below is a brief discussion of some common pitfalls that have repeatedly plagued this type of litigation.

Framing the Case

One threshold hurdle is that COVID-19 tuition reimbursement cases against public colleges and universities are often dismissed in the earliest stages of litigation under sovereign immunity, leaving cases against private institutions with the most possibility for advancement. Even in those cases, however, courts often find that plaintiffs’ claims are not properly framed. For example, although some states permit claims for educational malpractice, plaintiffs often run into problems in attempting to establish a basis on which to evaluate the quality of services provided by the educational institution. To

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  • April 28, 2023

Slowing the Spread of Litigation: An Update on First Circuit COVID-19 Tuition Refund Class Actions

Class Action Litigation, Class Actions, First Circuit Decisions, Litigation, Massachusetts Decisions, US District Court - Mass
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Part 1: Introduction and Overview

Earlier this month, Boston University prevailed in one of the few surviving Boston-based COVID-19 tuition refund class action suits. The U.S. District Court in Boston granted BU’s Motion for Summary Judgment finding that BU “did not make an open-ended promise to provide an ‘on-campus experience’ in exchange for a ‘semester cost.’” Unlike student-plaintiffs in other, largely unsuccessful COVID tuition refund litigation, the plaintiffs in this case made arguments based not on the difference in quality of in-person versus online education but rather based on their contracts with the university, which plaintiffs said constituted a “binding promise to provide students in-person instruction (or tuition refunds should in-person classes become unavailable), a promise on which students relied in prospectively paying their tuition.” Although the Court disagreed, Judge Richard Stearns, citing a still-live COVID tuition litigation case against Brandeis University, found that “BU must still provide restitution for the difference in value between what they were

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  • November 16, 2022

District of Massachusetts Dismisses Data Breach Class Action for Lack of Injury

Class Actions, Consumer Class Actions, First Circuit Decisions, Litigation, Privacy Class Actions, Standing, US District Court - Mass
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On October 18, 2022, in Webb v. Injured Workers Pharmacy, LLC, the District of Massachusetts dismissed a class action complaint brought by former pharmacy patients alleging that their sensitive personal information had been exposed in a data breach affecting more than 75,000 customers. In its analysis, the court determined that the named plaintiffs and putative class members could not satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement for constitutional standing. Plaintiffs Webb and Charley had claimed the breach caused “anxiety, sleep disruption, stress, and fear” and cost them “considerable time and effort” monitoring their accounts.

The court rejected these factual allegations as an insufficient basis to confer constitutional standing under Article III:

The Complaint does not sufficiently allege that the breach caused any identifiable harm. It is only alleged that Webb and Charley spent “considerable time and effort” monitoring their accounts and, in Webb’s case, dealing with the IRS. Plaintiffs “cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based

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  • December 11, 2019

District Of Massachusetts Holds That Consumers With No Arbitration Agreement Must Arbitrate Their “Closely Intertwined” Class Action Claims

Arbitration, Consumer Class Actions, US District Court - Mass
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It is a legal maxim that arbitration is a creature of contract. A recent District of Massachusetts decision explores critical questions about when that creature can exist outside of the confines of a binding agreement to arbitrate among the parties.

The November 27, 2019 decision by Senior U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole ordered that plaintiff fantasy sports players were obligated to arbitrate their class action claims against DraftKings, Fan Duel, and their payment processing companies. The claims referred to arbitration included not only those brought by players with arbitration agreements with DraftKings and Fan Duel, but claims by players with no contractual relationship with the defendant on the basis that their claims were closely “intertwined” with claims subject to arbitration. However, the Court drew a line at family members of players, determining that they had not reaped any benefit from a contract with an arbitration agreement, and thus could not be compelled to arbitrate. Judge O’Toole also declined to hear challenges

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  • November 18, 2019

After-Effects of In re Asacol: Recent District Court Decisions on Certification and Uninjured Class Members

Antitrust Class Actions, Class Certifications, Consumer Class Actions, First Circuit Decisions, US District Court - Mass, US District Court - Rhode Island
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About a year ago, I observed that the First Circuit in In re Asacol Antitrust Litigation had constrained plaintiffs’ ability to rely on affidavits to prove injury-in-fact.  In so doing, the First Circuit substantially curtailed its prior decision in In re Nexium Antitrust Litigation, which certified a class containing uninjured consumers because class members would be able to prove injury via affidavit.  In its In re Asacol decision, the First Circuit made it clear that trial-by-affidavit is a permissible means to establish injury only if the affidavits are unrebutted.

As the D.C. Circuit observed in relying on In re Asacol, that case “sharply limited” In re Nexium and established that “any winnowing mechanism” used to identify uninjured class members

must be truncated enough to ensure that common issues predominate, yet robust enough to preserve the defendants’ Seventh Amendment and due process rights to

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  • November 15, 2019

The District of Massachusetts Orders that Comcast Subscribers Must Individually Arbitrate Privacy Class Action Claims

Arbitration, Consumer Class Actions, Privacy Class Actions, US District Court - Mass
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On November 4, 2019, in Wainblat v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, et. al., No. 19-cv-10976, the District of Massachusetts ordered that a consumer privacy class action against Comcast must be arbitrated on an individual basis because the claims are subject to a valid and enforceable arbitration provision. Against a backdrop of rapidly expanding consumer class action litigation, especially based on consumer privacy laws with statutory damages, the case is an important reminder that arbitration provisions in customer agreements offer robust and critical protections for businesses.

Wainblat’s Consumer Privacy Class Action Claims against Comcast

In a class action complaint filed on April 25, 2019, plaintiff Wainblat asserted claims on behalf of all Massachusetts Comcast subscribers under the Cable Privacy Act, 47 U.S.C. § 55l(a)(l), and the Massachusetts consumer protection statute, M.G.L. c. 93A § 9 (“Chapter 93A”). The plaintiff alleged that Comcast “systematically violates cable television subscribers’ federal statutory privacy rights

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  • October 01, 2019

Despite Holding the TCPA’s Government Debt Exemption is Unconstitutional, the District of Massachusetts Permits Class Claims to Move Forward

Consumer Class Actions, Privacy Class Actions, US District Court - Mass
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On September 24, 2019, the District of Massachusetts held in Katz v. Liberty Power Corp., LLC that the government debt collection exemption to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. §§ 227 et seq., is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. No. 18-cv-10506-ADB, 2019 WL 4645524 (D. Mass. Sept. 24, 2019). Following the U.S. Circuit Courts for the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, Judge Burroughs concluded that the exemption to the statute could not survive constitutional scrutiny, but otherwise permitted the plaintiffs’ TCPA class action claims, which did not implicate the exemption, to go forward.

Defendants Sought Dismissal of the TCPA Class Claims by Challenging the Constitutionality of the Government Debt Exemption

In their class action complaint, the plaintiffs alleged that Liberty Power Corp., LLC and its holding company (“Liberty Power”) placed prohibited pre-recorded calls to cell phones in disregard of the national Do Not Call Registry and specific do-not-call

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