Tagged: Ascertainability

New Jersey Appellate Division Finds No Ascertainable Loss Where a Plaintiff Never Used a Product and Made Hypothetical Allegations of Loss

On May 31, 2022, the Appellate Division in Hoffman v. Pure Radiance, Inc. affirmed the trial court’s order granting summary judgment for a defendant and dismissing the plaintiff’s Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) claims because the plaintiff could not show that he suffered an ascertainable loss where he never used the product and his allegations were not supported by facts. In this putative class action, serial plaintiff Harold Hoffman sued defendant Pure Radiance, Inc., alleging that it falsely marketed a hair growth product. Specifically, Pure Radiance advertised that its product Re-Nourish could help an individual regrow “a thick, full head of hair, even after years of balding” and was “the world’s first and only hair loss solution that revives dead hair follicles” to regrow hair “in just 30 days.” The advertisement also showed a before-and-after picture of a man’s head, with the before picture showing a balding head and the after picture showing a full head of hair. Based on this advertisement, Hoffman purchased the product and then, after researching the product but before ever trying it himself, filed a proposed class action alleging, among other things, that the ad contained material misrepresentations and that he suffered an ascertainable loss by reason of his purchase of the product for $108.90. Significantly, Hoffman did not receive the...

Eleventh Circuit Holds That Administrative Feasibility is Not a Precondition for Class Certification

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently analyzed a “hotly contested issue in class action practice” – whether administrative feasibility is a requirement for class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. Breaking from the First, Third, and Fourth Circuits and agreeing with the Second, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits, the Eleventh Circuit held putative class representatives need not prove the existence of an administratively feasible method to identify absent class members as a precondition for certification of a class action.

Third Circuit Reverses Denial of Class Certification: Holds Ascertainability Satisfied Even with Gaps in Records

On September 9, 2020, a split panel of the Third Circuit issued a precedential opinion in Hargrove v. Sleepy’s LLC, reversing the denial of class certification because the district court “misapplied” the Circuit’s ascertainability case law and was “too exacting” when it “essentially demanded” that plaintiffs identify the class members at the certification stage. The circuit court also determined that the district court erroneously applied the motion-for-reconsideration standard to plaintiffs’ renewed motion for class certification, and held that courts should apply “the usual Rule 23 standard.” In Hargrove, the plaintiffs, delivery drivers, brought an employee misclassification suit alleging that defendant misclassified them as independent contractors, rather than employees, and thus violated several New Jersey labor laws. The district court denied class certification, twice, on the ground that the ascertainability requirement was not satisfied. In denying plaintiffs’ renewed motion for certification, the Court held that plaintiffs’ proposed class was “not ascertainable because the records kept by Sleepy’s regarding the identity of the drivers lacked critical information.” The plaintiffs sought leave to appeal pursuant to Rule 23(f), and the Third Circuit granted their request. First, the circuit court addressed the split among the district courts, both in and out of the Third Circuit, on the issue of the standard that applies to renewed motions for class certification....

Class Certification of TCCWNA Claims Dealt a Serious Blow by NJ Supreme Court in Dugan v. TGI Fridays and Bozzi v. Restaurant Partners, LLC

On October 4, 2017, the Supreme Court of New Jersey dealt a subtle but serious blow to “no injury” TCCWNA class actions. In consolidated appeals, Dugan v. TGI Fridays and Bozzi v. Restaurant Partners, LLC, the plaintiffs had argued that the defendant restaurant operators violated the plaintiffs’ clearly established rights by failing to list prices for beverages on their menus, that the restaurants were required to plainly mark the prices, and that when the restaurants’ employees presented menus to customers (class members), they “offered” contracts that violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“CFA”) and the Truth-in Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (“TCCWNA”). However, the Court concluded that class certification was not appropriate because individual, rather than common, issues would predominate in proving TCCWNA’s “aggrieved consumer” and “clearly established legal right” requirements. The fundamental take-away from the Supreme Court’s analysis of TCCWNA’s “aggrieved consumer” requirement is that simply demonstrating that a consumer contract offends TCCWNA does not establish liability under the Act, because “[b]y its very terms, TCCWNA . . . does not apply when a defendant fails to provide the consumer with a required writing.” Rather, “at a minimum, a claimant must prove that he or she was presented with a menu” (i.e., the allegedly offending writing). Using the word “critical” three times,...

New Jersey Federal Court Relies on Spokeo to Dismiss FACTA Class Action For Failure to Allege Concrete Harm

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey recently relied on the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Spokeo v. Robins to grant a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss a statutory violation-based class action complaint for failure to allege a concrete injury. In Kamal v. J. Crew Group Inc., et al. the Court concluded that the plaintiff lacked standing to sue under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (“FACTA”) because, as in Spokeo, the claims were based on a purely statutory injury, i.e., the plaintiff did not allege a “concrete and particularized” injury.

New Jersey Appellate Division Says Ascertainability Not Required for Class Certification

As recently reported by this blog, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld and clarified the implied requirement of Rule 23 that a class be ascertainable in order to be certified. But a New Jersey appellate court recently ruled that there is no such requirement under the New Jersey Court Rules, at least where each class member holds a low-value claim.

Third Circuit Clarifies Apparent Confusion Regarding Rule 23(b)(3) Ascertainability Requirement

In Byrd v. Aaron’s Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit added to, and clarified, its “quartet” of ascertainability cases to resolve the “apparent confusion in the invocation and application of ascertainability in this Circuit.” The plaintiffs in Byrd brought a class action claiming violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 because laptop computers had “spyware” installed, which had captured a wide array of personal information from the users including photographs and screenshots of websites visited. Adopting the recommendation of the Magistrate Judge, the District Court denied class certification for failure to establish ascertainability, finding that the proposed classes were both “underinclusive” (i.e., did not include all individuals whose information was gathered) and overinclusive (not every computer user had data intercepted), and that it was insufficient to propose that “household members” be identified by public records. “Because the District Court confused ascertainability with other relevant inquiries under Rule 23,” it “erred in determining that the Byrds’ proposed classes were not ascertainable.”

Third Circuit Emphatically Enforces Last Year’s Ruling in Marcus on Rule 23(a) Prerequisites

In Hayes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the Third Circuit determined that the plaintiff consumer failed to satisfy Rule 23’s ascertainability and numerosity requirements for class actions as articulated in Marcus v. BMW of North America, LLC and remanded the matter to the District Cout so that the plaintiff could address the clarified requirements expressed in Marcus, which was not yet decided at the time of the District Court proceedings in Hayes. By doing so, the Third Circuit demonstrated that it intends to continue vigilantly enforcing Rule 23’s threshold requirements for plaintiffs.