PRACTITIONER BLOG
Read our analyses of developments in Impact Litigation and stay current on class action law
Impact Fund & AMICI Urge Sixth Circuit to Affirm Class Certification in Discriminatory Water Billing Case
In October 2024, the Impact Fund and fellow amici Bet Tzedek Legal Services, Centro Legal de la Raza, Legal Aid at Work, and Public Counsel, filed a brief urging the Sixth Circuit to uphold the federal district court’s certification of a class of Black Cleveland residents who brought a lawsuit alleging discriminatory water billing practices by the City.
Impact Fund joins NAACP LDF Amicus Brief defending standing in ADA discrimination case
The brief calls out Acheson’s attempts to argue the merits of Ms. Laufer’s case as a distraction to the straightforward standing inquiry at hand. Standing is a threshold issue that requires plaintiff’s allegations be taken as true. This low bar is cleared by the mere allegation of a concrete injury. Arguments about the merit of Ms. Laufer’s case including whether she experienced the “right type of discrimination” that warrants ADA protection and the degree of emotional harm she suffered are inappropriate to the threshold matter of standing and subject to review in future motions. In summary, Ms. Laufer alleges that she personally experienced discrimination, a harm in itself sufficient for standing, so Ms. Laufer has standing.
SCOTUS Rules on TransUnion v. Ramirez Class Action: "We Decide If It’s a Federal Case, Not Congress."
On the one hand, the outcome is hardly surprising. The conservative majority has once again limited access to the federal courts for consumers to challenge corporate malfeasance, erecting ever higher threshold procedural hurdles. On the other hand, the decision holds some interesting surprises, including a full-throated defense of the rights of the injured consumers by the dissenting Justice Thomas, joined by Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor. The decision is well worth a close read.
Uninjured Class Members - How Many Is Too Many? Ninth Circuit Weighs In On Class Action Article III Standing
So how exactly does Article III work in a class action? It is generally understood that, at the outset of a class action, Article III standing is determined based on the claims of the named plaintiffs. At the tail end, if the case goes to judgment, unnamed class members must prove an Article III injury in order to receive damages. But what about in the middle of the case? What about at class certification?
Third Circuit Crystallizes Post-Spokeo Standard
The Third Circuit handed down an opinion last Monday holding that a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) confers Article III standing even in the case of intangible injuries.
The opinion may prove to be less interesting for its impact on TCPA jurisprudence than for guiding courts in their efforts to understand and apply the Supreme Court’s Spokeo decision. After all, within the TCPA context, there already appears to be a consensus that statutory violations satisfy Article III’s requirements.
"Concrete" Still Not Set In Spokeo Decision
The Supreme Court yesterday decided the third of three class actions cases from this term that we have been closely watching, Spokeo Inc. v. Robins. A few observations.
Phew! The Court did not adopt the most extreme of defense arguments that Congress cannot authorize statutory damages where the victim cannot prove that he or she actually lost money as a result of corporate malfeasance.