KMK Law Complex Litigation Blog

Last week, the D.C. Circuit joined an increasing number of federal courts applying a broad interpretation of the degree of harm required to satisfy Article III standing and expanding the holding of last summer’s Spokeo, Inc. v. Robbins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016).

Last week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the district court’s approval of the class action settlement in the Target data breach litigation. See In re Target Corp. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., 2017 U.S. App. Lexis 1767 (8^th Cir. Feb. 1 2017). 

The Ninth Circuit recently issued a decision that increases the level of antitrust risk exposure faced by companies. 

Last week, the Ninth Circuit deepened the divide among the Circuits regarding ascertainability in class certification. In Briseno v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., 2017 U.S. App. Lexis 20 (9^th Cir. Jan. 3, 2017), the Ninth Circuit rejected the Third Circuit’s line of authority (see Carrera v. Bayer Corp., 727 F.3d 300 (3d Cir. 2013) and Byrd v. Aaron’s Inc., 784 F.3d 154 (3d Cir. 2015)) which requires plaintiffs’ counsel to show ascertainability by demonstrating an administratively feasible and reliable method to determine class membership at the class certification stage.