CBD marketers can learn something from the food industry. And it has nothing to do with the regulatory morass around whether CBD can be legally added to foods. It’s about managing the risk of consumer false advertising litigation. Lawsuits filed in California and New York help illustrate what kinds of cases are already being brought
The Justice Department Really Doesn’t Like Coupon Settlements (But They Still Can Work)
It’s no secret that the Justice Department and state Attorneys General don’t like coupon settlements in class actions. Since 2007, groups of state AGs have been objecting regularly to coupon settlements that would force class members to pay more money to defendants accused of consumer fraud. On February 4, the Justice Department filed an amicus
Understanding “Ascertainability” in Class Actions Now that the Second Circuit Has Said “No” To It.
On Friday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in In re Petrobras Securities refused to adopt what it called a “’heightened’ two-part ascertainability test in class action cases. The Second Circuit agreed that class action plaintiffs must show that ‘the class is defined with reference to objective criteria,’ but did not agree that plaintiffs
Who’s Still “Standing” Following Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins?
From the first month of district court decisions issued since the United States Supreme Court decided Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, No. 13-1339, 2016 WL 2842447, *3 (U.S. May 16, 2016), it appears the needle on Article III standing has moved slightly, but so far only slightly, in favor of the defense. Spokeo held that (i) in order to establish Article III standing, a plaintiff must allege an injury-in-fact that is both “concrete and particularized,” and (ii) the plaintiff cannot “automatically satisf[y] the injury-in-fact requirement whenever a statute grants a person a statutory right and purports to authorize that person to sue to vindicate that right.” Courts have begun to give that requirement teeth, dismissing claims where a defendant may have violated a statute’s technical requirements, but where the plaintiff suffered no adverse consequence as a result. At the same time, however, courts have recognized Spokeo’s other holding that a “concrete” injury is not necessarily synonymous with a “tangible” injury, and that the “risk of real harm” counts as such an injury (even when such harm has not materialized). Dismissals on Spokeo grounds, therefore, have been sparse.
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