MVA Litigation Blog

We have been following the Frank v. Gaos, 586 U. S. __ (2019) class action case, which presented an opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to determine the limits on the use of the cy pres doctrine in the context of class action settlements to distribute damages paid by a defendant company to entities other than the plaintiff class. On March 20, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court halted Gaos in its tracks, vacating the Ninth Circuit’s decision approving the contested cy pres settlement and remanding the case for further proceedings to determine whether any named plaintiffs had ...

What is the value of the class action mechanism if no redress is provided to plaintiffs at all? Is the class action about providing a remedy to plaintiffs, is it just about getting the defendant company to pay something to someone…or has it evolved simply into a mechanism for plaintiffs’ attorneys to collect fees? These are several of the questions raised by Frank v. Gaos, (No. 17-961), which presents the U.S. Supreme Court with an extreme case of the use of the cy pres doctrine in the context of class action cases. The High Court is faced with a cy pres-only settlement in which the ...

We have been talking about Frank v. Gaos, (No. 17-961), since the U.S. Supreme Court decided to tackle the extreme case of the use of the cy pres doctrine in the context of class action cases. The settlement is a cy pres-only agreement which called for distribution of all funds paid by the defendant directly to charitable organizations and plaintiffs’ attorneys (in the form of attorneys’ fees) and there was no attempt at all to distribute any funds to the plaintiff class. The Supreme Court oral argument was held in Gaos on October 31st and the Justices probed several aspects of the heart ...

Class actions consume considerable company resources and can pose significant risk of exposure in the $ millions or $ billions. Therefore, it is critical for companies to prepare themselves – to know the trends in class action litigation and the tools available to minimize their exposure to class action liability. Over the last several weeks, the Supreme Court has heard arguments in three cases that have potential to further define the landscape of class action litigation: Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez (No. 14-857), Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (No. 13-1339), and Tyson Foods, Inc. v ...

Class actions consume considerable company resources and can pose significant risk of exposure in the $ millions or $ billions. Therefore, it is critical for companies to prepare themselves – to know the trends in class action litigation and the tools available to minimize their exposure to class action liability. Over the last several weeks, the Supreme Court has heard arguments in three cases that have potential to further define the landscape of class action litigation: Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez (No. 14-857), Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (No. 13-1339), and Tyson Foods, Inc. v ...

Class actions consume considerable company resources and can pose significant risk of exposure in the $ millions or $ billions. Therefore, it is critical for companies to prepare themselves – to know the trends in class action litigation and the tools available to minimize their exposure to class action liability. Over the last several weeks, the Supreme Court has heard arguments in three cases that have potential to further define the landscape of class action litigation: Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez (No. 14-857), Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (No. 13-1339), and Tyson Foods, Inc. v ...