class action standing

  • May 18, 2023

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

Appeals, Class Action Litigation, Class Actions, Consumer Class Actions, First Circuit Decisions, Litigation, Standing, Supreme Court, US District Court - Maine
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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

In

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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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  • October 27, 2022

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

Appeals, Class Actions, Consumer Class Actions, Employment Class Actions, Fair Credit Reporting Act, First Circuit Decisions, Jurisdiction, Litigation, Standing, Supreme Court, US District Court - Maine
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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

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  • June 28, 2021

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

Appeals, Class Actions, Consumer Class Actions, Privacy Class Actions, Standing, Supreme Court
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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

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  • May 20, 2019

Yan v. ReWalk Robotics, Ltd.: No Substitute for Standing in the District of Massachusetts

Class Representative, Lead Plaintiff, Securities Class Actions, Standing, US District Court - Mass
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On May 16, 2019, the District of Massachusetts denied a lead plaintiff’s motion to amend a complaint that sought to overcome standing deficiencies of the original class representative by adding a new named plaintiff. The Court dismissed the putative class action without prejudice, holding that if a class action has only one representative, and that party does not have standing, the Court lacks jurisdiction over the case and cannot permit the lead plaintiff substitution.

In Yan v. ReWalk Robotics, Ltd., lead plaintiff Wang Yan brought a putative class action for alleged violations of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Exchange Act of 1934 in connection with the company’s 2014 initial public offering. In a class action complaint filed in 2017, Yan claimed that ReWalk concealed material information in its IPO documents concerning a failure to comply with FDA regulations and continued to make materially false statements after the IPO. In August 2018, the Court granted the

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