Latest news with #plaintiffs
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
The ACLU bet big on a trans rights case. Its loss was predictable.
It was clear from oral arguments that the ACLU was going to lose U.S. v. Skrmetti, a challenge to Tennessee's ban on gender transition treatments for minors. But really, it was clear long before that. The plaintiffs were facing six conservative justices who needed to be convinced that such treatments are so compelling — as the litany goes, 'lifesaving, evidence-based and medically necessary' — that states could have no good reason to ban them.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Federal Judge Certifies Class Action for Transgender People Seeking Passports
A federal judge in Boston granted class-action status to transgender and nonbinary Americans on Tuesday in a lawsuit challenging a U.S. State Department policy that requires passports to reflect only the holder's sex recorded on their original birth certificate. The order extends a preliminary injunction blocking the State Department from enforcing the policy against six plaintiffs to apply to all class members who apply for or update passports while the case proceeds. In the earlier order from April, U.S. District Judge Julia E. Kobick concluded that the passport policy likely violates the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee because it discriminates based on sex and is 'rooted in irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans.' The State Department filed an appeal of the preliminary injunction last week. The government maintains that it has a strong interest in passports that accurately reflect the holder's sex. The State Department adopted the new policy earlier this year to comply with an executive order from President Trump directing all government agencies to limit official recognition of transgender identity and mandating that federal documents reflect what it termed the 'immutable biological classification as either male or female.' In court documents, plaintiffs argued that a mismatch between the sex listed on their passport and their gender identity puts them at risk of suspicion and hostility that other Americans do not face. During the first weeks of Mr. Trump's administration, several plaintiffs received passports with an 'F' or 'M' marker contrary to the one they had requested. Another learned that selecting an 'X' marker, indicating a nonbinary gender identity, was no longer an option, though it had been allowed since 2022. The government argued against certifying trans and nonbinary passport holders as a legal class in the case, contending that gender identity is subjective and that a class-wide injunction would create an undue administrative burden. Judge Kobick, who was nominated by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., found that those claims did not outweigh significant harm faced by transgender and nonbinary passport holders. She noted that plaintiffs in the case had described being forced to 'effectively 'out' themselves every time they presented their passports,' leading to anxiety and fear safety fears. 'These are the types of injuries that cannot adequately be measured or compensated by money damages or a later-issued remedy,'' she wrote.
Reuters
13-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Google takes a gamble in class action jury trial over cell phone data use
June 4 (Reuters) - Class actions rarely go to trial, which is why a case against Google is proving to be an outlier. The tech giant is defending itself before a jury in Santa Clara County, California, superior court in an $800 million lawsuit, opens new tab by Android smartphone users who say Google misappropriates their cellphone data. A jury of eight women and four men was seated on Tuesday in what lawyers say is expected to be a three-to-four-week trial, with opening statements kicking off on Wednesday. The stakes are high, but the class, which includes an estimated 14 million Californians whose mobile devices use Google's Android operating system, is in some ways just an appetizer. The same plaintiffs lawyers from Korein Tillery; Bartlit Beck and McManis Faulkner are litigating a parallel case in San Jose federal court covering Android users in the other 49 states, with billions of dollars in alleged damages. The plaintiffs in court papers say that even when their phones are turned off, Google causes Android devices to surreptitiously send information over cellular networks 'for Google's own purposes,' including targeted digital advertising. These transfers improperly eat up data that users purchase from their mobile carriers, the plaintiffs allege. Google spokesperson José Castañeda said the claims 'mischaracterize standard industry practices that help protect users and make phones more reliable,' he told me. 'We look forward to making our case in court." A unit of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet, Google has a well-used playbook for settling class actions. Earlier this week, for example, the company agreed to pay $500 million to resolve shareholder litigation — a move that comes on the heels of a $50 million deal in May to resolve class-wide allegations of racial bias against Black employees and a $100 million payout in March to a proposed class of advertisers who claimed they were overcharged for clicks on ads. So why is Google taking this case to trial? In court papers, Google's outside counsel from Cooley argue that Android users incurred no actual losses, and that consumers consented to Google's so-called 'passive' data transfers via terms of service agreements and device settings. The lawyers also dispute the fundamental premise of the case: that cellular data allowances can be considered 'property' under California law and subject to conversion, a civil cause of action that involves taking a person's property without permission. When the 'rhetoric and hyperbole are set aside, Plaintiffs' theory is revealed as little more than a (misguided) product design claim — not wrongful conversion,' defense counsel wrote. The Cooley team, which includes Whitty Somvichian, Michael Attanasio, Max Bernstein and Carrie Lebel, declined comment. The plaintiffs sued Google in Santa Clara County Superior Court in 2019, asserting that they have a property interest in their cellular plans' data allowances, and that each quantum they pay for has a market value. They don't object to data transmissions when they're actively engaged with Google's apps and properties, like checking email or playing a game. But they say Google never told them it would avail itself of their cellular data when they weren't using their phones to send and receive a range of information on their usage. 'The upshot is that these phone users unknowingly subsidize the same Google advertising business that earns over $200 billion a year,' plaintiffs lawyer George Zelcs of Korein Tillery said via email. In addition to injunctive relief, the plaintiffs want Google to reimburse them for the value of the cellular data the company consumed. Per person, the amount is modest – 1 to 1.5 megabytes of data each day, the plaintiffs estimate. To put that in context, Americans used just over 100 trillion megabytes of wireless data in 2023, my Reuters colleagues reported. But with a class period dating back to 2016, the totals add up quickly. In court papers, Google lawyers sound almost incredulous at the amount of the claimed nationwide damages, which they say runs in the tens of billions — more than the $7.4 billion Perdue Pharma settlement for the opioid crisis, they note. "Plaintiffs cannot show remotely commensurate harm to the class," they wrote. In denying Google's motion for summary judgment in May, Judge Charles Adams allowed the plaintiffs' claim for conversion to go forward, ruling there are triable issues of material fact for jurors to decide. While Adams said no direct state law precedent exists as to whether cell phone data is property, he pointed to a decision, opens new tab by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year in the parallel federal class action, Taylor v Google. In that case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia DeMarchi in San Jose sided with Google and dismissed the complaint, opens new tab with prejudice in 2022, only to be reversed and remanded on appeal. The appellate panel in an unpublished decision ruled that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged they incurred damages when Google used their cellular data. Adams in a pre-trial order set some limits on what the lawyers will be allowed to argue to the jury. Plaintiffs may not suggest Google engages in "surveillance" of Android users, he wrote, or that the data transfers are a privacy violation. As for Google, Adams said, it 'must not present evidence or argument suggesting that this case is 'lawyer driven' or was 'invented' by Plaintiffs' counsel.'
Reuters
10-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Judge rejects class action for Google privacy lawsuit
June 10 (Reuters) - People who accused Google of illegally collecting their personal information, after they chose not to synchronize their Google Chrome browsers with their Google accounts, cannot sue the Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab unit as a group in a class action, a U.S. judge ruled. In a decision on Monday, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California agreed with Google that it was appropriate to address case-by-case whether millions of Chrome users understood and agreed to its data collection policies. "Inquiries relating to Google's implied consent defense will overwhelm the damages claims for all causes of action," Rogers wrote. She dismissed the proposed damages class action with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again. The judge also said Chrome users cannot seek policy changes as a group. David Straite, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, declined to comment on Tuesday. Sandi Knight, vice president of litigation at Google, in a statement said the company appreciated the decision, and that Chrome Sync has "clear privacy controls." Class actions let plaintiffs seek potentially greater recoveries at lower cost than they could in individual lawsuits. The decision followed a ruling last August by the federal appeals court in San Francisco, which said Rogers should consider whether reasonable Chrome users consented to letting Google collect their data when they browsed online. Chrome users pointed to Chrome's privacy notice, which said they "don't need to provide any personal information to use Chrome" and Google would not collect such information unless they turned on the "sync" function. Rogers had dismissed the case in December 2022. She said she oversees two other privacy cases against Mountain View, California-based Google, but the claims in those cases differed "significantly." The appeals court ruling followed Google's 2023 agreement to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming it tracked people who thought they were browsing privately, including in Chrome's "Incognito" mode. The case is Calhoun et al v Google LLC, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-16993.
Reuters
05-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
US Supreme Court reverses decision to rule on class action question
June 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday sidestepped resolving a major issue across class action litigation, turning aside an appeal that could have made it harder for plaintiffs lawyers to bring together groups of people to sue companies and others for alleged wrongdoing. The justices' order, opens new tab said the court had 'improvidently' agreed in January to hear an appeal by diagnostics testmaker Labcorp, which was challenging a lower court's order that allowed thousands of consumers to sue the company in a class action for damages. Labcorp's petition focused on a key issue in class actions that implicates billions of dollars: whether judges can certify a class action for damages that includes some members who have not been harmed. After hearing arguments in the case in April, the Supreme Court took the unsual step on Thursday of dismissing the appeal. The order did not discuss the merits of the appeal or the court's reasoning. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately that the court should have ruled for Labcorp. Labcorp and a lawyer for the company at law firm Jones Day did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The plaintiffs' lead attorney, Deepak Gupta, in a statement said Labcorp's appeal was procedurally flawed, and called the Supreme Court's order a win for his clients. 'Class actions are a critical tool for ensuring access to the courts,' Gupta said. 'Today's dismissal leaves the law of class actions intact, allowing people to band together to hold powerful corporations accountable for their misconduct.' The case had attracted many friend-of-the-court briefs at the Supreme Court, as business advocates, legal scholars, antitrust litigators and others tried to influence the justices. Visually impaired consumers sued Labcorp in 2020 over their inability to use the company's self-service check-in kiosks where a person enters information prior to an appointment for a blood draw or urine screening. Labcorp said many blind patients either were not aware of the kiosks or had no interest in using them. A federal district court judge in 2022 certified a nationwide class that made claims against Labcorp under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws. In its petition, opens new tab, Labcorp said U.S. appeals courts are divided over whether to certify a class action that includes people who have not been injured. The possibility that the justices might dismiss the case without ruling on the merits came up at the Supreme Court's argument in April. Gupta, responding to a question, told the justices that Labcorp could still ask a lower judge to decertify the class action. 'They're not without rights,' Gupta told the court. The case is Laboratory Corp of America v Davis, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 24-304. For petitioner: Noel Francisco of Jones Day For respondent: Deepak Gupta of Gupta Wessler Read more: Class action administrators, banks accused of kickback scheme in new lawsuits Marriott wins US appeals order striking down data breach class action This Supreme Court case could upend class actions Lawsuit accuses American Arbitration Association of monopolizing consumer market
