We achieved an outright dismissal in a closely watched privacy class action. The court agreed with us that it is appropriate to apply common sense in the class action context. Defendants can therefore use pleading-stage attacks to rid themselves of costly class litigation at the earliest opportunity, before incurring the expense of class-wide discovery.
We achieved summary judgment in an alleged national class action. We expanded the protection for companies against privacy claims where consumers have previously interacted with the company and provided their data.
The court granted our motion to dismiss in a ground breaking ruling that clarified the scope of liability under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). The court held that the VPPA applies only to consumers who rent, purchase, or subscribe to a business' audiovisual products. By narrowing the definition of "consumer," the ruling helps businesses maintain standard web-based advertising and information-sharing practices essential to modern business operations without incurring heightened liability.
We pursued and were granted sanctions against Plaintiff's counsel for misrepresentations of fact in this alleged false advertising class action. The sanctions caused plaintiff to dismiss the class action claims.
Prior to Plaintiff's counsel doing much work we highlighted the methodology and factual basis of the company's sustainability claims which emphasized that Plaintiff faced significant factual and legal hurdles in maintaining her claims. As a result, we secured an extremely favorable individual settlement in this class action filed in federal court.
In this ground-breaking class action Plaintiff claimed that New York's automated toll system imposed excessive and unfair penalties on motorists. Plaintiff sought seven figures in damages for violations of the Eighth Amendment, due process violations and unjust enrichment. Following a hard-fought two-year battle in federal court we secured a summary judgment victory in favor of the MTA. The court ruled the fees constitutional and dismissed the class action.
We successfully opposed class certification by emphasizing that Plaintiff's own methodology highlighted the need to engage in individualized inquiries to determine whether the privacy statute had been violated.
We innovated a novel defense strategy that resulted in dismissal of the action without protracted litigation by focusing on minor adjustments to labeling, rendering Plaintiff's request for injunctive relief moot.
We secured dismissal of a putative class action alleging the San Francisco Bay Area's public rail system secretly collected users' personal data with its BART Watch smartphone app. We expanded the protection for companies against privacy claims where consumers voluntarily download apps to their devices.
We achieved dismissal of a nationwide class action which led to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to adopt the Moench presumption which treats a fiduciary’s decision to continue offering company stock as a plan investment option as being consistent with ERISA, unless the plaintiff can show that the fiduciary knew during the relevant time period of an imminent corporate collapse or other dire financial situation. The favorable decision for many plan sponsors has helped defendants litigating in district courts within the Ninth Circuit to dispose of ERISA stock drop claims at an early stage in the litigation.
We succeeded in narrowing discovery to the issues presented in Yelp's motion for summary judgment which we filed early on in the case. This strategy avoided expending unnecessary resources on discovery and focused the parties and the court on the dispositive issues presented in the MSJ, which the court granted, dismissing Plaintiff's alleged call recording claims in this putative class action.
We moved quickly to file a motion to dismiss on the basis that using Plaintiff's data to confirm a business transaction was within an exemption under the TCPA. While other Fortune 500 companies have paid over $100 million cumulatively in settlements for nearly identical allegations, we succeeded in dismissing the class action on an initial round of motion practice and without any discovery. This is also comforting news to all businesses who contact consumers in furtherance of an ongoing transaction.