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District Court grants preliminary approval of class action settlement against national convenience store chain
On July 30, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted preliminary approval of a settlement in a class action against a national convenience store chain (defendant) for a 2019 data security incident that allegedly compromised consumers’ credit and debit card information. As previously covered by InfoBytes, class members—comprised of a nationwide group of consumers whose information was allegedly compromised in the data security incident—claimed that “despite the foreseeability of a data breach” the defendant, among other things, “failed to implement adequate measures to protect the sensitive, non-public payment card information entrusted to it by its customers.” In May, the court ruled that the defendant must face certain claims filed by a group of financial institutions (covered by InfoBytes here). Under the terms of the preliminarily approved settlement, the defendant must provide monetary relief to class members totaling approximately $9 million, plus $3.2 million for attorneys’ fees and expenses and class representative service awards, in addition to requiring the defendant to take additional measures for a period of two years to prevent future unauthorized intrusions. The settlement includes three tiers of customers, who will receive gift cards for either $5 or $15, or $500 in cash, depending on the level of their injury caused by the data breach.
District Court approves supplemental $22 million class action foreclosure settlement
On July 26, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted preliminary approval of a proposed supplemental class settlement, adding new class members who were not part of the list of borrowers included in the court’s October 2020 original settlement order. The supplemental settlement provides more than $21.8 million for additional class members who lost their homes after allegedly being denied loan modifications from a national bank. Class members include borrowers who allegedly should have qualified for loan modifications but were not offered a home loan modification or repayment plan “due to excessive attorney’s fees being included in the loan modification decisioning” and “whose home[s] [the bank] sold in foreclosure.” According to the court’s order granting class certification, a software glitch allegedly caused a calculation error, which resulted in certain fees being misstated and led to incorrect mortgage modification denials. The original settlement set aside $1 million to compensate borrowers who endured “severe emotional distress” as a result of the error, and the supplemental settlement will provide new class members the same opportunity to apply for additional settlement amounts.
District Court grants final approval to grocery chain data breach settlement
On July 21, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois granted final approval to a class action data breach settlement, resolving allegations that a grocery chain was responsible for a data breach that exposed the credit card information of consumers. The final settlement (which was preliminarily approved in January) allows class members representing consumers who used a payment card to make a purchase at an impacted point-of-sale device during the security incident to receive reimbursement of up to $225 for out-of-pocket expenses related to the breach, including (i) unreimbursed bank, overdraft, and late fees; (ii) telecommunication charges; (iii) payday loan interest; and (iv) costs related to credit monitoring, identity theft protection, and time spent replacing credit cards and addressing fraudulent charges. Additionally, class members may be awarded up to $5,000 for “extraordinary expenses” resulting from the compromise of personal information. The grocery chain also agreed to “establish and maintain security enhancements that are estimated to cost more than $20 million.” However, the court reduced the attorneys’ fees to $739,000 in the final settlement after determining the initial fee request was too high compared to the overall relief for class members.
District Court certifies “rent-a-tribe” class action
On July 20, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia certified a “rent-a-tribe” class action alleging an individual who orchestrated an online payday lending scheme violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), engaged in unjust enrichment, and violated Virginia’s usury law by partnering with federally-recognized tribes to issue loans with allegedly usurious interest rates. The plaintiffs alleged the defendant partnered with the tribes to circumvent state usury laws even though the tribes did not control the lending operation. The court ruled that, as there was “no substantive involvement” by the tribes in the lending operation and evidence showed that the defendant was “functionally in charge,” the lending operation—which allegedly charged interest rates exceeding Virginia’s 12 percent interest cap—could not claim tribal immunity. The plaintiffs moved to certify two RICO classes, distinguished from each other based on the lending entity, each with two sub-classes of borrowers: (i) a usury sub-class of borrowers who either paid any principal, interest, or fees on their loans; and (ii) a unjust enrichment subclass of borrowers who paid any amount on their loans. The defendant challenged class certification, arguing that “due to his changing roles” in the lending operation over the class period “differences between class members will result in a need for a series of complicated mini-trials.” In certifying the two RICO classes, the court called the defendant’s recommendation to bring individual lender suits “an unnecessary and untenable burden on the judicial system.” Furthermore, the court wrote that “[w]ith respect to [p]laintiffs’ unjust enrichment claims, [the defendant] also attempts to argue that some [p]laintiffs did not confer a benefit on [the defendant] because they paid back less than they received on their loans.” However, the court noted that because Virginia law states that any contract in violation of the state’s usury law is void, “any money paid on a void contract could constitute a benefit for the purposes of an unjust enrichment.”
District Court preliminarily approves class action settlement concerning mortgage “Pay-to-Pay” fees
On July 19, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota granted preliminary approval of a proposed settlement in a class action against a mortgage lender (defendant) alleging breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and unjust enrichment, as well as violations of the FDCPA and various state laws. The plaintiffs originally filed three separate putative class actions against the defendant alleging the lender violated state laws in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Texas and breached consumers’ mortgage agreements by improperly charging and collecting “Pay-to-Pay” fees when borrowers made monthly mortgage payments by telephone, interactive voice response, or the internet. The defendant denied the allegations and any wrongdoing and moved to dismiss the claims. After proceedings were stayed in all three class actions pending mediation, notices of settlement were filed in each case providing that a global settlement had been reached and that plaintiffs would be added to one lawsuit. Under the terms of the preliminarily approved settlement, the defendant agreed to pay $5 million to establish a settlement fund and resolve the plaintiffs’ claims.
District Court allows usury claims to proceed, calling tribal immunity “irrelevant”
On July 13, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment in a consolidated class action concerning whether a now-defunct online lender can use tribal immunity to circumvent state interest rate caps. The plaintiffs took out short-term loans carrying allegedly usurious interest rates from entities run through several federally recognized tribes. While the defendants attempted to rely on tribal immunity as a defense, the court determined that California law applies to the plaintiffs and class members who took out loans in the state. According to the court, “California, with its strong history of prohibiting usury, has the materially greater interest in enforcing its usury laws and protecting its consumers from usurious conduct than either of the relevant [t]ribal [e]ntities whose connection to the loans—while not insignificant—was temporal and whose aims were to avoid state usury laws.” Calling tribal immunity “irrelevant,” the court added that the “claims here hinge on the personal conduct of the defendants. While that conduct is based in significant part on the services defendants personally engaged in or approved to be provided to the [t]ribes, the claims do not impede on the sovereignty of the [t]ribes where the [t]ribes are not defendants in this case and no [t]ribal [e]ntities remain.”
District Court says retailer not an intended third-party beneficiary of a credit card arbitration provision
On July 8, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied a retailer’s motion to compel arbitration in a consumer data sharing putative class action, ruling that the retailer was not an intended third-party beneficiary of an arbitration provision in a credit card agreement. The proposed class had filed an amended complaint accusing several national retailers of illegally sharing consumer transaction data in violation of the FCRA, the California Consumer Privacy Act, and California’s unfair competition law, among others. The motion at issue, filed by one of the retailers, addresses a named plaintiff’s opposition to compel arbitration. The retailer argued that as an “intended” third-party beneficiary of the contract, it had the right to enforce an arbitration clause contained in a credit card agreement purportedly signed by the plaintiff when she opened a retailer credit card account issued by an online bank.
The court disagreed, finding that the contract’s arbitration provisions specifically referred to the bank, and that the contract did not clearly “express an intention to confer a separate and distinct benefit on [the retailer].” Moreover, the court noted the contract at issue instructed the plaintiff to send any arbitration demand notices to the bank, adding that “[i]t seems unlikely that the parties would expect a demand for arbitration solely against the [retailer]—that does not involve [the bank]—to be sent to [the bank].”
District Court approves final settlement in tribal lending class action
On July 9, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted final approval of a revised class action settlement, certifying the settlement class, approving the settlement terms, and entering final judgment regarding allegations that an operation used tribal sovereign immunity to evade state usury laws when charging unlawful interest on loans. As previously covered by InfoBytes, in March, the plaintiffs filed a class action complaint against the operation alleging, among other things, violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, EFTA, and TILA. The settlement cancels roughly 71,000 loans, requires the operation to pay $86 million in damages, and caps fees at $15 million. According to the final approval, the court finds the revised settlement to be “fair, reasonable, and adequate.”
District Court preliminarily approves autopay class action settlement
On June 28, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted preliminary approval of a settlement in a class action against a national bank alleging breach of contract and violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act by, among other things, misleading cardholders about their autopay options. According to the plaintiff’s memorandum of law requesting preliminary approval of the class action settlement, the bank presented cardholders with several payment options when setting up automatic online monthly payments. The plaintiff filed a putative class action alleging the “Amount Due” option, which he selected, “was misleading since customers who selected it likely intended to pay the total ‘amount due’ each month, leaving no balance to carry over and incur interest, but instead found themselves paying only the minimum amount due, thereby leaving a balance that was subject to interest charges.” This option, the plaintiff contended, was duplicative of the “Minimum Amount Due” option, which allowed cardholders to pay the minimum amount owed on their most recent credit card statement and carry the remaining balance (thus, incurring interest) to the following month. Plaintiff claimed this created potential confusion for cardholders “who intended to pay off their entire monthly credit card balance and instead ended up paying the minimum amount and accruing interest they were trying to avoid.” The parties agreed to stay the case pending mediation and reached a settlement, under which the bank agreed to pay $5.95 million to establish a settlement fund. The fund will cover approximately 100,000 class members who enrolled in the bank’s eBill autopay, “selected the ‘Amount Due’ payment option before March 7, 2021,” and “switched their payment option from ‘Amount Due’ to ‘Account Balance’ after making an ‘Amount Due’ payment and being assessed interest” during the identified time period.
Robocaller to pay $1.8 million
On June 29, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma granted final approval to a $1.75 million class action settlement involving a now-bankrupt, marketing company hired to place pre-recorded robocalls on behalf of a home security company without receiving consumers’ prior written express consent, in alleged violation of the TCPA. According to the motion for final approval of class settlement, the lead plaintiff alleged, among other things, that the marketing company was directly liable for calls advertising home security services placed using an automated soundboard system, and that the home security company was vicariously liable for hiring the marketing company to place the calls. In this case, the court decided in summary judgment that the soundboard technology used to place the calls at issue (“rather than traditional unattended prerecorded messages”) was regulated by the TCPA, an issue that the plaintiff believes to be of first impression. The settlement agreement also enjoins the company “from initiating any telephone call to any telephone line that delivers a prerecorded message and/or using soundboard technology to deliver a prerecorded message where the principal purpose of the telephone call is advertising or marketing, unless the called party has provided prior express written consent to receive such calls.” Additionally, as noted in the motion, the court previously granted final approval to a $1.85 million class wide settlement with the alarm company last November.