Class Action & Mass Torts

A plaintiff’s failure to satisfy basic pleading requirements can be a potent defense to class actions.  That was illustrated by a recent Pennsylvania federal court decision granting defendants’ motion to dismiss an amended complaint in a class action alleging that major food companies manufactured and marketed addictive ultra-processed foods (“UPFs”) that caused the plaintiff’s health…

Standing remains a powerful defense to putative class actions.  Recently, a New Jersey federal court relied on Article III standing to dismiss a lawsuit against Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc. alleging that it made false and misleading representations about the safety and efficacy of certain cholesterol drugs despite initiating a recall of those drugs. Chambers et al.…

Courts are increasingly addressing putative class actions aimed at curbing allegedly illegal government conduct.  An Oregon federal court recently certified a Rule 23(b)(2) class action in a challenge to alleged ICE warrantless arrest practices, holding that plaintiffs may proceed on behalf of people arrested, or at risk of arrest, without a warrant and without pre-arrest…

Recently, a California federal judge dismissed—for the second time—a suit asserting that Sojern, Inc., a travel marketing platform, violated the Federal Wiretap Act and California privacy laws by allegedly deploying “tracking technology” on two hotel websites.  Crano v. Sojern, Inc., 2026 WL 1670136 (N.D. Cal. June 9, 2026).…

The First Circuit recently affirmed a Puerto Rico district court’s ruling dismissing a class action suit arising from a 2019 ransomware attack against a hospital in which 522,493 patients’ personally identifiable information (“PII”) and protected health information (“PHI”) was allegedly accessed by hackers, albeit in “encrypted” form.  See Santos-Pagán v. Bayamon Medical Center, No. 24-2018,…

In In re Outpatient Medical Center Employee Antitrust Litigation, 2026 WL 1678954,the Northern District of Illinois recently refused to certify a proposed class of healthcare employees who alleged that their employers entered into a “no-poach agreement” that prohibited them from recruiting each other’s senior-level personnel and thereby suppressed compensation for all employees with similar qualifications. …

The Fourth Circuit recently vacated a district court’s grant of class certification based on a lack of commonality and predominance.  See Overby v. Anheuser-Busch, LLC, 2026 WL 1718962 (4th Cir. June 15, 2026).  The plaintiffs sought to represent a class of hourly employees asserting claims based on allegations that their employer had a corporate policy…