Supreme Court Considers Limits on Class-Action Lawsuits

Originally published by Robert Kraft.

USA Today reports that in “a case with potentially broad implications for access to justice,” the Supreme Court’s “conservative justices sought during oral argument to limit lawsuits from individuals or groups claiming injuries that cannot be proven,” while “their liberal counterparts said violations of laws, such as those protecting privacy, are sufficient grounds for court action.” The case “is one of several on the high court’s docket this fall that will determine how far the conservative majority will go in limiting lawsuits – particularly expensive class actions that result in small individual awards, large legal fees, and multi-million dollar penalties for corporations.”

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Supreme Court justices “sounded poised to limit mass lawsuits from people who sued after seeing false information about themselves online.” According to the Times, “led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court’s conservatives said lawsuits should be limited to people who can show they were hurt in some way by inaccurate online data.” Such a ruling “would block or greatly shrink class-action claims, filed on behalf of millions of people, that have sent a scare through the tech industry.” The case, Spokeo vs. Robins, “asks a basic question about who can sue in an era of Web commerce when countless transactions take place online,” and it will determine whether “millions of consumers” can “join a class-action suit if a company allegedly violates provisions of a federal law, such as the measures that regulate credit information or prohibit unwanted phone calls and text messages,” or whether those suits are “limited to people who can show they were actually harmed.”

From the news release of the American Association for Justice.

Curated by Texas Bar Today. Follow us on Twitter @texasbartoday.

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