Class Action Insider

Since the 1970s, the Song–Beverly Consumer Warranty Act has protected buyers of potentially defective vehicles. The latest update, Assembly Bill 1755, aims to curb excessive lemon law litigation and speed up resolutions—but faced pushback from both consumer advocates and automakers, prompting a follow-up measure: Senate Bill 26. 

Cy pres provisions are often used in class action settlement agreements. Under such provisions, settlement funds that go unclaimed by class members are distributed to one or more third parties, usually a charity, legal-services organization, or other entity with some relation to the underlying dispute.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in two companion cases that courts properly can consider the wording on the back labels of products to clarify any ambiguous claims on the front labels.

Readers of Winston & Strawn blogs know that PFAS are not new. According to Bloomberg Law, more than 6,400 PFAS-related lawsuits have been filed since 2005. Lately, however, PFAS have increasingly captured headlines, and there has been a marked increase in consumer protection litigation related to PFAS across the United States.

In the past six months, juries have awarded huge punitive damages awards in individual California employment cases. Given that these individual cases could also proceed as class actions, it is important to examine the frequency and reasoning behind the juries’ decisions.

Earlier this week the popular diet app Noom announced that it had reached a $62 million settlement with plaintiffs in a class action who brought a host of state-law consumer protection and common law claims based on Noom’s allegedly deceptive enrollment scheme.