Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-17-16873/USCOURTS-ca9-17-16873-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Matthew Campbell
Appellee
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Amicus Curiae
Facebook, Inc.
Appellee
Michael Hurley
Appellee
Anna W. St. John
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MATTHEW CAMPBELL; MICHAEL 

HURLEY, on behalf of themselves 

and all others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

FACEBOOK, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee,

v.

ANNA W. ST. JOHN,

Objector-Appellant.

No. 17-16873

D.C. No.

4:13-cv-05996-

PJH

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Phyllis J. Hamilton, Chief Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted January 18, 2019

Submission Vacated June 4, 2019

Resubmitted March 3, 2020

San Francisco, California

Filed March 3, 2020

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Richard R. Clifton,

and Michelle T. Friedland, Circuit Judges.

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2 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

Opinion by Judge Friedland

SUMMARY*

Objector / Class Action Settlement

In an appeal brought by an objecting class member, the 

panel affirmed the district court’s approval of a settlement 

between Facebook and a nationwide class of its users who 

alleged that Facebook routinely used website links in users’ 

private messages without their consent in violation of federal 

and California privacy laws.

Facebook acknowledged in the settlement agreement 

that it had already made several changes to the practices 

challenged in this action, and it agreed to add a disclosure to 

a Help Center page on its website for a year. The district 

court, over the objector’s challenge, found the settlement to 

be fair and approved it; and granted in full class counsel’s 

request for $3.89 million in fees and costs.

As a threshold matter, the panel held that the plaintiff 

class had Article III standing to bring the case. First, the 

panel held that the plaintiffs identified a concrete injury. 

Specifically, the panel concluded that the plaintiffs identified 

a concrete injury by claiming that Facebook violated the 

federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the 

California Invasion of Privacy Act when it intercepted, 

catalogued, and used without consent URLs that users had 

shared in private messages. Second, the panel held that the 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 3

plaintiffs established standing to seek injunctive relief, and 

post-filing developments did not moot this case. The panel 

concluded that the district court had jurisdiction to approve 

the settlement, and the panel therefore had jurisdiction to 

review the merits of that decision.

The panel rejected the objector’s challenges to the 

substantive fairness of the settlement. First, the panel 

rejected the argument that the settlement was invalid because 

the class received only “worthless injunctive relief.” Koby 

v. ARS National Services, Inc., 846 F.3d 1071, 1081 (9th Cir. 

2017). The panel held that the district court did not clearly 

err in finding that the settlement’s injunctive relief had value 

to absent class members. Moreover, the class did not need 

to receive much for the settlement to be fair because the class 

gave up very little. Second, the panel rejected the objector’s 

argument that the settlement was invalid under In re 

Bluetooth Headset Products Liability Litigation, 654 F.3d 

935 (9th Cir. 2010), because it prioritized class counsel’s 

interests over those of their clients. The panel held that the 

district court looked at the Bluetooth warning signs of 

possible collusion between class counsel and Facebook, and 

the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding 

that none of the warning signs weighed against approval of 

the settlement. The panel concluded that applying the 

Bluetooth framework did not demonstrate that the settlement 

in this case was unfair.

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4 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

COUNSEL

Adam Ezra Schulman (argued), Anna St. John, and 

Theodore H. Frank, Center for Class Action Fairness, 

Washington, D.C., for Objector-Appellant.

Hank Bates (argued), Allen Carney, and David Slade, 

Carney Bates & Pulliam PLLC, Little Rock, Arkansas; 

Michael W. Sobol, David T. Rudolph, and Melissa Gardner, 

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, San Francisco, 

California; Rachel Geman and Nicholas Diamand, Lieff 

Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, New York, New York; 

for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Christopher Chorba (argued), Joshua A. Jessen, Ashley M. 

Rogers, and Ryan S. Appleby, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher 

LLP, Los Angeles, California, for Defendant-Appellee.

Marc Rotenberg, Alan Butler, and Sam Lester, Electronic 

Privacy Information Center, Washington, D.C., for Amicus 

Curiae Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

OPINION

FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judge:

Objecting class member Anna St. John (“Objector”) 

appeals from the district court’s approval of a settlement 

between Facebook and a nationwide class of its users who 

alleged that Facebook routinely captured, read, and used for 

several purposes the website links included in users’ private 

messages without their consent, and that these practices 

violated federal and California privacy laws. After years of 

litigation that included lengthy discovery, four mediation 

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 5

sessions, and Facebook’s failed attempts to convince the 

district court to dismiss the case or deny class certification, 

the parties reached a settlement. Facebook acknowledged in 

the settlement agreement that it had already made several 

changes to the practices challenged in this action, and it 

agreed to add a disclosure to a Help Center page on its 

website for a year. The settlement agreement also provided 

that class counsel could apply for court approval of up to 

$3.89 million in attorney’s fees and costs, and that Facebook 

would not take any position on that application. The district 

court, over Objector’s challenge, found the settlement to be 

fair and approved it. The district court also granted in full 

class counsel’s request for $3.89 million in fees and costs.

Addressing Objector’s appeal from the district court’s 

approval of the settlement, we first consider whether 

Plaintiffs had standing to bring this action and whether it 

later became moot. We conclude that the district court had 

jurisdiction, and, accordingly, that we have jurisdiction to 

evaluate the fairness of the settlement. Second, we reject on 

the merits Objector’s contentions that the district court 

abused its discretion by approving the settlement.

I.

A.

“Facebook operates one of the largest social media 

platforms in the world, with over one billion active users. 

About seven in ten adults in the United States use 

Facebook.” Patel v. Facebook, Inc., 932 F.3d 1264, 1267 

(9th Cir. 2019) (citations omitted), cert. denied, No. 19-706 

(U.S. Jan. 21, 2020). Facebook has a messaging function on 

its platform that allows users to send electronic messages to 

one or more other users. Facebook explains on its website 

that these messages are “private” because their contents and 

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6 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

history are viewable only by the sender and his or her chosen 

recipients—in contrast to, for example, posts shared with a 

broader audience, such as all of the user’s Facebook friends.

In December 2013, Matthew Campbell and Michael 

Hurley (“Plaintiffs”) filed a putative class action against 

Facebook. Plaintiffs alleged that Facebook scanned their 

private messages looking for links to web pages, also known 

as URLs, contained in those messages. They alleged that if 

a message contained a URL, Facebook would collect that 

information and use it in a variety of ways without the user’s 

consent.

The main allegations concerned how Facebook 

integrated these private message URL shares into a feature 

that enabled third parties to show on their own websites a 

count of how many Facebook users had “Liked” the pages 

on their sites—a proxy for those pages’ popularity. Plaintiffs 

alleged that Facebook would increase a page’s “Like” 

counter not only when a Facebook user affirmatively pressed 

a “Like” button, but also when the user sent a private 

message containing a URL corresponding to the page, 

regardless of what the message said about the URL.1

 

Plaintiffs also alleged that Facebook used the private 

message URL data that it was collecting to help build 

profiles of individual users that could facilitate, among other 

things, targeted advertising on Facebook.

Plaintiffs contended that Facebook’s handling of their 

messages amounted to interception and use of electronic 

communications in violation of Title I of the Electronic 

1 Plaintiffs did not allege that it was possible for users or third parties 

to tell anything from the “Like” counter other than the total number of 

users whose activity had resulted in a “Like” counter increase.

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 7

Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2510 

et seq.,

2 and the California Invasion of Privacy Act 

(“CIPA”), Cal. Penal Code § 630 et seq. They also alleged 

that it amounted to an unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent 

business practice under the California Unfair Competition 

Law (“UCL”), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 et seq. 

Plaintiffs sought damages as well as declaratory and 

injunctive relief.

Facebook filed a motion to dismiss, which the district 

court granted in part and denied in part. The district court 

dismissed the UCL claim and a portion of the CIPA claim, 

but it declined to dismiss the ECPA claim and the portion of 

the CIPA claim alleging interception and use of 

communications in violation of California Penal Code 

section 631. The district court also rejected Facebook’s sole 

jurisdictional argument: that the prayer for injunctive relief 

should be stricken for failure to allege ongoing or future 

injury.3

The parties engaged in extensive discovery, which 

included the production of tens of thousands of pages of 

documents, depositions of eighteen fact and expert 

witnesses, hundreds of hours of analysis of Facebook’s 

2 Title I of ECPA amended the federal Wiretap Act. For this reason, 

the provisions at issue in this case are often also referred to as part of the 

Wiretap Act.

3 Specifically, Facebook pointed out that Plaintiffs had not alleged 

that the “Like” counting practice was still in place. The district court 

held that Plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that, even if Facebook had 

temporarily stopped that practice, Facebook was likely enough to inflict 

future injury in a similar manner to support standing to seek injunctive 

relief.

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8 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

source code, and significant briefing about discovery 

disputes.

Plaintiffs moved for certification of a damages class 

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), and in the 

alternative an injunctive and declaratory relief class under 

Rule 23(b)(2). Facebook opposed the motion, arguing that 

Plaintiffs failed to satisfy Rule 23’s requirements—but not 

arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction.4 In May 2016, the 

district court granted the motion in part and denied it in part.

The court denied certification of a damages class. It 

explained that Plaintiffs had proposed two methods for 

calculating damages but that neither was acceptable. One of 

Plaintiffs’ proposals was to measure Facebook’s profits from 

intercepting and using URL data from messages. The court 

explained, however, that Plaintiffs’ proposed methodology 

had unjustifiably assumed that all interceptions resulted in 

the same profit, which made the model too inaccurate. 

Plaintiffs’ other proposal was to award statutory damages, 

which fared no better. The court reasoned that it would be

required to either award the full statutory sum or nothing, but 

“many individual damages awards [of that full sum] would 

be disproportionate” to the small amount of harm suffered 

by many class members. It held that class treatment was 

4 Facebook included two statements in its opposition to Plaintiffs’ 

class certification motion that gestured toward standing: (1) that the 

testimony of one (but not both) of the named Plaintiffs “calls into 

question his standing under Article III to seek injunctive relief”; and 

(2) that “Facebook also reserves its rights pursuant to [the Supreme 

Court’s then-pending decision in the case that would ultimately be issued 

a few months later as Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (Spokeo I), 136 S. Ct. 1540 

(2016)].” Although Facebook has argued that these statements “raised 

[the] issue [of jurisdiction] at class certification,” neither was in fact an 

argument that jurisdiction was lacking.

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 9

inappropriate because “sorting out those disproportionate 

damages awards would require individualized analyses.”

The district court granted certification of an injunctive 

and declaratory relief class. The certified class 

encompassed:

All natural-person Facebook users [aside

from those excluded through standard 

carveout provisions] located within the 

United States who have sent, or received 

from a Facebook user, private messages that 

included URLs in their content (and from 

which Facebook generated a URL 

attachment), from [December 2011] up 

through the date of the certification of the 

class.

In the class certification order, the district court observed 

that Plaintiffs had focused their claims on three specific uses 

of the URL data that had been collected from private 

messages: (1) Facebook’s counting URL shares as a “Like” 

of the relevant third-party web page; (2) Facebook’s sharing 

data regarding URLs in messages with third parties, enabling 

those third parties to generate customized content and 

targeted advertising on their own websites informed by this 

data; and (3) Facebook’s use of the URL data to generate 

recommendations for other Facebook users. The district 

court concluded that although Plaintiffs had made 

allegations in their complaint about the first of these uses and

“arguably” about the third, they had not specifically alleged 

the predicate for the second use, “sharing of data with third 

parties.” But the district court further concluded that 

Plaintiffs’ decision to focus on all three of these uses of URL 

data was “based on a review of discovery that was not 

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10 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

available at the time of the complaint’s filing.” The district 

court therefore permitted Plaintiffs to represent the class in 

challenging all three uses, and it directed them to file a 

conforming amended complaint (which they then did).

The parties expended significant effort to try to settle this 

case. Several months after the motion to dismiss ruling, they

participated in a full-day mediation session. The parties 

returned to the negotiating table after the district court’s May 

2016 order certifying an injunctive and declaratory relief 

class. During the last several months of 2016, the parties 

attended a total of three mediation sessions and continued to 

negotiate informally. About a week before the fact 

discovery period was scheduled to close, the district court 

approved the parties’ stipulation to stay discovery and vacate 

existing deadlines to facilitate their settlement efforts. 

Shortly thereafter, in December 2016—almost two years 

into the parties’ extensive discovery—the parties reached an 

agreement in principle during their fourth mediation session. 

A few months later, the parties executed a written settlement 

agreement, which they then submitted to the district court for 

approval.

In the settlement agreement, Facebook acknowledged 

that it had at one point used the URL data in the three ways 

the district court had described in its class certification 

order—but it also represented that it had since stopped each 

of them. Two of the data uses had ceased before this action 

was filed in late 2013: in December 2012, Facebook stopped 

using private message URLs to increase “Like” counts, and, 

in October 2012, Facebook stopped sharing with third party 

websites “information about URL shares in Facebook 

messages . . . and attendant statistics and demographic 

information.” The third use, which the settlement agreement 

specified was related to Facebook’s using the URL data in 

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 11

its Recommendations Feed, ceased in July 2014, several 

months after this action was filed. Facebook further 

represented that these three uses had relied on “anonymous, 

aggregate” information curated from the URL shares. 

Facebook separately confirmed that, as of the date of the 

settlement, it was not using any private message URL data 

for targeted advertising (as Plaintiffs had initially alleged)

and was not sharing with third parties any personally 

identifying user information associated with the URL data.

The settlement agreement further described “enhanced 

disclosures and practice changes” that Facebook had made 

after this case was filed. The agreement pointed out, for 

example, that Facebook had revised its Data Policy about a 

year after this action was filed to state that Facebook collects 

the “content and other information” that users provide when 

they “message or communicate with others,” and to further 

explain the ways in which Facebook may use that 

information.

Facebook agreed as part of the settlement to display for 

one year a new twenty-two-word disclosure in the Help 

Center portion of its site, stating: “We use tools to identify 

and store links shared in messages, including a count of the 

number of times links are shared.”5 Although Facebook

promised to display this Help Center disclosure for a year, it 

did not say that it would continue to refrain from any of the 

uses of URL data described above. Nor did Facebook 

promise to continue using the version of the Data Policy 

adopted after this action was filed. The agreement did not 

provide for monetary compensation to class members other 

5 The agreement provided “that Facebook may update the 

disclosure[] to ensure accuracy with ongoing product changes.”

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12 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

than the two named Plaintiffs, each of whom was permitted 

to apply to the court for an award not to exceed $5,000.

In exchange, class members were required to release 

their declaratory and injunctive relief claims. Absent class 

members did not, however, release any “claims for monetary 

relief, damages, or statutory damages.” Only the named 

Plaintiffs released their damages claims.

The agreement provided that class counsel could request 

that the court award attorney’s fees and costs of up to 

$3.89 million—an amount that the parties represented had 

been negotiated after and independent of the other settlement 

terms and constituted a significant reduction from the more 

than $7 million that class counsel claimed would fully 

compensate them for their work on the case. Facebook 

agreed not to object to that request and to pay any amount 

the court approved up to this $3.89 million cap.

The district court granted preliminary approval of the 

settlement. Although the parties had agreed that it was 

unnecessary to provide notice to the class beyond what was 

already publicly available (primarily through news 

coverage), the court rejected that proposition. It held that 

class counsel would be required to post information about 

the settlement on their public websites during the period 

between preliminary approval and a final fairness hearing.

Objector Anna St. John, who is a member of the class 

and an attorney at the Center for Class Action Fairness, filed 

an objection to the settlement. Following a final fairness 

hearing, the district court approved the settlement. 

Evaluating the settlement using the factors outlined in 

Hanlon v. Chrysler Corp., 150 F.3d 1011, 1026 (9th Cir. 

1998), the district court reasoned that “[t]he settlement offers 

immediate, tangible benefits directed to the three uses of 

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 13

URLs challenged by Plaintiffs, without requiring class 

members to release any claims for monetary damages that 

they may have against Facebook.” The court also explained 

that “the relief to the class must be viewed against the likely 

rewards of litigation,” and observed that “proceeding with 

litigation would be very risky for the class.” In addition, the 

court emphasized that the settlement was “the result of four 

in-person, arms’-length mediations before two different 

mediators,” that both sides were able “to negotiate the 

settlement on a fully-informed basis,” and that “[c]lass 

counsel [are] highly experienced.”

The district court also granted the full $3.89 million in 

attorney’s fees and costs for which class counsel had applied. 

In addition to deeming the amount “reasonable” in light of 

the results obtained for the class and counsel’s substantial 

investment of time and resources on a contingency basis, the 

court determined, based on an assessment of the factors 

listed in In re Bluetooth Headset Products Liability 

Litigation, 654 F.3d 935, 947 (9th Cir. 2011), that this 

portion of the settlement agreement did not indicate 

collusion among the negotiating parties at the expense of 

absent class members.

Objector timely appealed the district court’s approval of 

the settlement.

B. 

After oral argument in this appeal, the Supreme Court 

issued Frank v. Gaos, 139 S. Ct. 1041, 1045–46 (2019) (per 

curiam), which vacated the final approval of a class action 

settlement and remanded for an assessment of Article III 

standing under Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (Spokeo I), 136 S. Ct. 

1540 (2016). In Gaos, the plaintiffs had claimed that Google 

violated the Stored Communications Act by transmitting

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14 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

information to third-party websites about the search terms 

users had entered to arrive at those websites. See 139 S. Ct.

at 1044. Although the Supreme Court had granted certiorari 

intending to resolve a question about use of cy pres awards 

in class action settlements,6 the Court did not reach that issue 

“[b]ecause there remain[ed] substantial questions about 

whether any of the named plaintiffs ha[d] standing to sue in 

light of [Spokeo I].” Id. at 1043–44. The Court explained 

that federal courts’ “‘obligation to assure ourselves of 

litigants’ standing under Article III’ . . . extends to court 

approval of proposed class action settlements.” Id. at 1046 

(quoting DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 340 

(2006)).

Because of the possibility that this case would present 

“substantial questions” about standing like the ones the 

Court identified in Gaos, id. at 1043, we requested and

received supplemental briefing from the parties about the 

effect, if any, of Spokeo I on jurisdiction in this case.

II.

To establish standing, plaintiffs must show that they 

have suffered an injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the 

challenged conduct of the defendant and is likely to be 

redressed by a favorable judicial decision. Lujan v. Defs. of 

Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992). Injury in fact is “the 

6 Cy pres refers to a method for distributing unclaimed settlement 

funds “to the ‘next best’ class of beneficiaries.” Nachshin v. AOL, LLC, 

663 F.3d 1034, 1036 (9th Cir. 2011). “Under the cy pres approach, ‘class 

members receive an indirect benefit (usually through defendant 

donations to a third party) rather than a direct monetary payment.’” In 

re EasySaver Rewards Litig., 906 F.3d 747, 760 (9th Cir. 2018) (quoting 

Lane v. Facebook, Inc., 696 F.3d 811, 819 (9th Cir. 2012)), cert. denied, 

139 S. Ct. 2744 (2019).

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 15

‘[f]irst and foremost’ of standing’s three elements.” Spokeo, 

Inc. v. Robins (Spokeo I), 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016) 

(alteration in original) (quoting Steel Co. v. Citizens for a 

Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 103 (1998)). Among other things, 

“an injury in fact must be both concrete and particularized.” 

Id. at 1548.

“[A] plaintiff must demonstrate standing separately for 

each form of relief sought.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. 

Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 185 (2000). 

“[A]s the party invoking federal jurisdiction, [the plaintiff] 

bears the burden of establishing” standing. Spokeo I, 136 S. 

Ct. at 1547.

Our discussion of standing proceeds in two parts. We 

first conclude that Plaintiffs identified a concrete injury.7 

Next, we hold that Plaintiffs established standing to seek 

injunctive relief and that post-filing developments did not 

moot this case. These conclusions satisfy us that there was 

and is Article III jurisdiction over this case, and that we may 

therefore consider the merits of Objector’s challenges to the 

approval of the settlement.

A.

An injury is concrete for purposes of standing if it 

“actually exist[s],” meaning it is “real, and not abstract”—

but not necessarily “tangible.” Spokeo I, 136 S. Ct. at 1548–

49 (quotation marks omitted). Where, as here, we deal with 

an “intangible harm” that is linked to a statutory violation, 

7 Once we conclude that this was a concrete injury, it is clear that it 

was also particularized, fairly traceable to Facebook, and likely to be 

redressed by a favorable judicial decision. The parties have not 

contested any of those other standing requirements in their supplemental 

briefs, and we do not discuss them in further detail.

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16 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

we are guided in determining concreteness by “both history 

and the judgment of Congress,” or the legislature that 

enacted the statute. See id. at 1549; Patel v. Facebook, Inc., 

932 F.3d 1264, 1273 (9th Cir. 2019) (looking to “[t]he 

judgment of the Illinois General Assembly” to inform the 

Article III standing inquiry for a claim alleging a violation 

of an Illinois privacy statute), cert. denied, No. 19-706 (U.S. 

Jan. 21, 2020). Historical practice is “instructive” as to 

“whether an alleged intangible harm has a close relationship 

to a harm that has traditionally been regarded as providing a 

basis for a lawsuit in English or American courts.” Spokeo 

I, 136 S. Ct. at 1549. We also look to legislative judgment 

because legislatures may “elevat[e] to the status of legally 

cognizable injuries concrete, de facto injuries that were 

previously inadequate in law.” Id. (alteration in original) 

(quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 578). But the fact that a 

legislature has “grant[ed] a person a statutory right and 

purport[ed] to authorize that person to sue to vindicate that 

right” is not by itself sufficient for standing. Id. When a 

legislature has enacted a “bare procedural” protection, a 

plaintiff “cannot satisfy the demands of Article III” by 

pointing only to a violation of that provision, but also must 

link it to a concrete harm. Id. at 1550 (emphasis added). 

When, however, a statutory provision identifies a 

substantive right that is infringed any time it is violated, a 

plaintiff bringing a claim under that provision “need not 

allege any further harm to have standing.” Eichenberger v. 

ESPN, Inc., 876 F.3d 979, 983–84 (9th Cir. 2017).

For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the 

statutory provisions under which Plaintiffs sued protect 

concrete interests because, like the provisions examined in 

several of our recent decisions, they “codif[y] a contextspecific extension of the substantive right to privacy.” See 

id. at 983.

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 17

ECPA includes a private right of action, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2520, against anyone who “intentionally intercepts, 

endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to 

intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or 

electronic communication,” 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(a). 

Plaintiffs sued under that provision and also alleged a 

violation of ECPA’s prohibition on the intentional use of the 

contents of information knowingly obtained through such 

interception. See id. § 2511(1)(d). Plaintiffs also sued under 

CIPA, which likewise includes a private right of action, Cal. 

Penal Code § 637.2(a), and which similarly prohibits the 

unauthorized reading, or attempting to read, of “any 

message, report, or communication while the same is in 

transit or passing over any wire, line, or cable,” as well as 

the use of “any information so obtained.” Cal. Penal Code 

§ 631(a).

The harms protected by these statutes bear a “close 

relationship” to ones that have “traditionally been regarded 

as providing a basis for a lawsuit.” See Spokeo I, 136 S. Ct. 

at 1549. “Violations of the right to privacy have long been 

actionable at common law.” Eichenberger, 876 F.3d at 983. 

And one of the several privacy torts historically recognized 

was “unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of another,” 

which traditionally extends to, among other things, “tapping

. . . telephone wires” as well as “opening . . . private and 

personal mail.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652B 

cmt. b. There is a straightforward analogue between those 

traditional torts and the statutory protections codified in 

ECPA and CIPA against viewing or using private 

communications. Moreover, under the privacy torts that 

form the backdrop for these modern statutes, “[t]he intrusion 

itself makes the defendant subject to liability.” Restatement 

(Second) of Torts § 652B cmt. b. “In other words, ‘privacy 

torts do not always require additional consequences to be 

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18 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

actionable.’” Patel, 932 F.3d at 1274 (quoting 

Eichenberger, 876 F.3d at 983). Thus, historical practice 

provides support not only for the conclusion that wiretapping 

is actionable, but also for the conclusion that a wiretapping 

plaintiff “need not allege any further harm to have standing.” 

See Eichenberger, 876 F.3d at 984.

The reasons articulated by the legislatures that enacted 

ECPA and CIPA further indicate that the provisions at issue 

in this case reflect statutory modernizations of the privacy 

protections available at common law. The purpose of ECPA 

includes creating “[f]ederal statutory standards,” analogous 

to the “protection against unauthorized opening” of mail, “to 

protect the privacy and security of communications” made 

using newer technology. S. Rep. No. 99-541, at 5 (1986), as 

reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3555, 3559. CIPA’s 

purpose similarly includes “protect[ing] the right of privacy 

of the people of [California],” because “the invasion of 

privacy” resulting from the use of new technology to 

“eavesdrop[] upon private communications” causes “a 

serious threat to the free exercise of personal liberties.” Cal. 

Penal Code § 630. Plaintiffs’ challenges here arise under the 

core provisions of those statutes regarding interception and 

use of private communications. We respect the legislatures’ 

judgment about the importance of the privacy interests 

violated when communications are intercepted, as reflected 

in their decisions to enact a private right of action that is 

available when these provisions are infringed. See Spokeo I, 

136 S. Ct. at 1549.

Our precedent confirms that Plaintiffs have asserted a 

concrete harm. We have, in the years since Spokeo I, 

identified several statutory provisions that guard against 

invasions of concrete privacy interests. See, e.g., Patel, 

932 F.3d at 1269, 1271–75 (concrete interests protected by 

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 19

the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act’s 

requirements relating to private entities’ “collection, 

retention, disclosure, and destruction of biometric identifiers 

and biometric information,” such as face templates (quoting 

Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entm’t Corp., 129 N.E.3d 1197, 

1203 (Ill. 2019))); Eichenberger, 876 F.3d at 981, 983–84 

(concrete interests protected by the Video Privacy Protection 

Act’s requirement that “video tape service providers” not 

disclose “personally identifiable information concerning any 

consumer of such provider” (quoting 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2710(b)(1))); Van Patten v. Vertical Fitness Grp., LLC, 

847 F.3d 1037, 1041–43 (9th Cir. 2017) (concrete interests 

protected by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which 

“establishes the substantive right to be free from certain 

types of phone calls and texts absent consumer consent”).

There is no meaningful distinction between the concrete, 

substantive privacy interests protected by the statutes at issue 

in Patel, Eichenberger, and Van Patten and the interests 

protected by the provisions of ECPA and CIPA at issue in 

this case. For example, just as the Video Privacy Protection 

Act’s prohibition on disclosure of information about an 

individual’s video rentals protects a substantive privacy 

interest, rather than merely codifying “a procedure that video 

service providers must follow,” Eichenberger, 876 F.3d 

at 983, ECPA and CIPA section 631 are targeted at the 

substantive intrusion that occurs when private 

communications are intercepted by someone who does not 

have the right to access them, rather than merely setting out 

a procedure for handling data.

For all of the foregoing reasons, every violation of the 

provisions of ECPA and CIPA at issue in this case

“‘present[s] the precise harm and infringe[s] the same 

privacy interests Congress [and the California legislature] 

sought to protect’ by enacting” ECPA and CIPA section 631. 

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20 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

See Eichenberger, 876 F.3d at 984 (first two alterations in 

original) (quoting Van Patten, 847 F.3d at 1043). The Third 

Circuit has indeed already held that violations of ECPA and 

CIPA of the type alleged here “involve[] a clear de facto 

injury.” In re Nickelodeon Consumer Privacy Litig., 

827 F.3d 262, 274 (3d Cir. 2016); see also In re Google Inc. 

Cookie Placement Consumer Privacy Litig., 934 F.3d 316, 

325 (3d Cir. 2019) (concluding, in accord with Nickelodeon 

and after Gaos was decided, that “a concrete injury for 

Article III standing purposes occurs when Google, or any 

other third party, tracks a person’s internet browser activity 

without authorization”). We agree. We thus conclude that 

Plaintiffs identified a concrete injury by claiming that 

Facebook violated ECPA and CIPA when it intercepted, 

catalogued, and used without consent URLs they had shared 

in private messages.8

Facebook initially did not contest in this appeal that 

Plaintiffs had standing, and it argued that we should affirm 

the settlement approval. Facebook now argues in its 

supplemental brief, however, that the settlement should be 

vacated and the case dismissed because Plaintiffs lacked

standing to bring this case. Specifically, Facebook argues 

8 Robins v. Spokeo, Inc. (Spokeo II), 867 F.3d 1108 (9th Cir. 2017), 

further supports our conclusion. There, on remand from the Supreme 

Court, we held that the plaintiff had alleged sufficiently concrete injuries 

resulting from Spokeo’s failure to follow procedures of the Fair Credit 

Reporting Act that ensure accuracy of consumer report information. Id. 

at 1110–11, 1117. Standing is easier to prove here than it was in Spokeo 

because “although the [Fair Credit Reporting Act] outlines procedural 

obligations that sometimes protect individual interests,” ECPA and CIPA 

section 631, as discussed above, codify “a substantive right to privacy”

the intrusion of which causes concrete harm “any time” there is a 

violation. See Eichenberger, 876 F.3d at 983–84.

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 21

that Plaintiffs suffered no concrete harm from the “use of 

anonymized and aggregated data from website links.”

But, ultimately, this new argument is beside the point in 

the context of this case. Plaintiffs alleged, and Facebook has 

confirmed (through, among other things, its revised Data 

Policy), that Facebook identifies and collects the contents of 

users’ individual private messages. Plaintiffs’ position that 

this was being done without consent meant that they claimed 

a violation of the concrete privacy interests that ECPA and 

CIPA protect, regardless of how the collected data was later 

used. No more is needed to support standing under Spokeo.

9

B.

To have standing to seek to enjoin Facebook’s private 

message practices, Plaintiffs must show “either ‘continuing, 

present adverse effects’ due to [their] exposure to 

9 Facebook’s supplemental brief also argues that, because Plaintiffs 

consented to the uses of URL data, they lack standing. Both this 

argument and Facebook’s contention about anonymized and aggregated 

use of data are better understood as arguments that ECPA and CIPA were 

not actually violated by the practices challenged here. Such merits 

arguments in disguise tell us nothing about whether Plaintiffs had 

standing to bring the case in the first place. See Kirola v. City & County 

of San Francisco, 860 F.3d 1164, 1175 (9th Cir. 2017) (rejecting an 

injury-in-fact argument that would have meant there was “no difference 

between [the plaintiff] succeeding on the merits and establishing 

standing to assert her claims in the first place”). As explained below, the 

merits of this case would have turned on several legal questions that 

Plaintiffs have since acknowledged are difficult and unresolved. 

Because the parties settled this case rather than continuing to litigate, we 

have no occasion to resolve any of those questions here. We emphasize 

that this case also does not present the question whether standing could 

be based entirely on injury from anonymized, aggregated uses of data 

because Plaintiffs also focused on unconsented-to collection and storage 

of information from private messages that enabled those uses.

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22 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

[Facebook’s] past illegal conduct or ‘a sufficient likelihood 

that [they] will again be wronged in a similar way.’” Villa 

v. Maricopa County, 865 F.3d 1224, 1229 (9th Cir. 2017) 

(first quoting O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 495–96 

(1974); then quoting City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 

95, 111 (1983)). Objector and Facebook both contend that 

Plaintiffs did not satisfy this requirement. We disagree.

This aspect of standing, like any other, must “focus[] on 

whether the party invoking jurisdiction had the requisite 

stake in the outcome when the suit was filed.” Davis v. FEC,

554 U.S. 724, 734 (2008); see also Slayman v. FedEx 

Ground Package Sys., Inc., 765 F.3d 1033, 1047–48 (9th 

Cir. 2014) (“When evaluating whether [the standing] 

elements are present, we must look at the facts as they exist 

at the time the complaint was filed.” (alteration in original) 

(quoting Am. Civil Liberties Union of Nev. v. Lomax, 

471 F.3d 1010, 1015 (9th Cir. 2006))). It turns out that some 

(but not all) of Facebook’s challenged uses of private 

message URL data had ended before Plaintiffs sued, as 

Facebook ultimately acknowledged in the settlement 

agreement. But when Plaintiffs sued, Facebook was actively 

accessing private messages—conduct that Facebook has 

never claimed to have ceased. Facebook was also still using 

the data from these messages for its Recommendations Feed. 

And Facebook’s ongoing retention of the data collected from 

private messages meant that there was a risk that it would 

resume using the data for “Like” counters, resume sharing 

the data with third parties, or begin using the data for some 

other purpose. This combination of continuing harm plus 

likelihood of future harm was sufficient for Plaintiffs to have 

standing to seek injunctive relief.

To be sure, Facebook apparently did stop using data from 

private messages in its Recommendations Feed after this 

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 23

case was filed, and did not resume either that use of URL 

data or the already-stopped uses of “Like” counting and 

third-party sharing at any time between the action’s filing 

and its settlement. But the question whether Facebook’s 

conduct since Plaintiffs filed this action made it unlikely that 

Plaintiffs would again be injured by the challenged practices 

presents a separate issue: whether their challenges had 

become moot. There are “important difference[s] between” 

standing and mootness, motivated in part by the 

“wasteful[ness]” of “abandon[ing]” cases as moot that 

“ha[ve] been brought and litigated, often (as here) for years.” 

Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 191–92. Among the 

differences between standing and mootness is that, to show 

that Plaintiffs’ claims had become moot, Facebook would 

have needed to satisfy “the formidable burden of showing 

that it is absolutely clear the allegedly wrongful behavior 

could not reasonably be expected to recur.” See id. at 190. 

Neither Facebook nor Objector has suggested that Facebook 

could have carried that heavy burden, nor does the record 

demonstrate that it could have.

* * *

In sum, we conclude that the district court had 

jurisdiction to approve the settlement, and that we therefore 

have jurisdiction to review the merits of that decision.

III.

A.

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(e)(2), a 

district court may approve a class action settlement only 

after finding that the settlement is “fair, reasonable, and 

adequate.” Courts reviewing class action settlements must 

“ensure[] that unnamed class members are protected ‘from 

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24 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

unjust or unfair settlements affecting their rights,’” while 

also accounting for “the ‘strong judicial policy that favors 

settlements, particularly where complex class action 

litigation is concerned.’” In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel Econ. 

Litig., 926 F.3d 539, 556, 568 (9th Cir. 2019) (en banc) (first 

quoting Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 623 

(1997); then quoting Allen v. Bedolla, 787 F.3d 1218, 1223 

(9th Cir. 2015)).

We have described several factors for district courts to 

consider when evaluating the fairness of a class action 

settlement:

[1] the strength of the plaintiffs’ case; [2] the 

risk, expense, complexity, and likely duration 

of further litigation; [3] the risk of 

maintaining class action status throughout the 

trial; [4] the amount offered in settlement; 

[5] the extent of discovery completed and the 

stage of the proceedings; [6] the experience 

and views of counsel; [7] the presence of a 

governmental participant; and [8] the 

reaction of the class members to the proposed 

settlement.

Hanlon v. Chrysler Corp., 150 F.3d 1011, 1026 (9th Cir. 

1998). District courts may consider some or all of these 

factors. See Rodriguez v. West Publ’g Corp., 563 F.3d 948, 

963 (9th Cir. 2009).10

10 After the district court’s approval of the settlement in this case, 

Rule 23(e)(2) was amended. Whereas the rule previously did not expand 

upon what was necessary for a settlement to be “fair, reasonable, and 

adequate,” it now lists criteria that are relevant to that determination. We 

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 25

Our review of a district court’s decision to approve a 

class action settlement is “extremely limited.” Hanlon, 

150 F.3d at 1026. “Parties seeking to overturn the settlement 

approval must make a ‘strong showing’ that the district court 

clearly abused its discretion.” Hyundai, 926 F.3d at 556

(quoting Linney v. Cellular Alaska P’ship, 151 F.3d 1234, 

1238 (9th Cir. 1998)). A district court clearly abuses its 

discretion by either failing to apply the correct legal standard 

or by making clearly erroneous factual determinations. See 

id. When the issue presented is the substantive fairness of 

the settlement, we must refrain from “substitut[ing] our 

notions of fairness for those of the district judge.” In re 

Bluetooth Headset Prods. Liab. Litig., 654 F.3d 935, 950 

(9th Cir. 2011) (alteration in original) (quoting Officers for 

Justice v. Civil Serv. Comm’n, 688 F.2d 615, 626 (9th Cir. 

1982)); see also Lane v. Facebook, Inc., 696 F.3d 811, 818 

(9th Cir. 2012) (explaining that the “district court should 

have broad discretion because it ‘is exposed to the litigants, 

and their strategies, positions and proof’” (quoting Hanlon, 

150 F.3d at 1026)).

B.

The issue Objector raises here is the substantive fairness 

of the settlement, so we approach our review with substantial 

deference. And this case does not implicate the “higher 

standard of fairness” that applies when parties settle a case 

need not determine whether this amendment should be applied 

retroactively here because applying the amended version of the rule 

would not change our conclusions. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 advisory 

committee’s note to 2018 amendment (explaining that “[t]he goal of this 

amendment is not to displace” any of the factors historically considered 

in assessing settlement fairness, “but rather to focus the court and the 

lawyers on the core concerns of procedure and substance that should 

guide the decision whether to approve the proposal”).

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before the district court has formally certified a litigation 

class. See Hanlon, 150 F.3d at 1026 (explaining that when 

a case settles before class certification, “[t]he dangers of 

collusion between class counsel and the defendant, as well 

as the need for additional protections when the settlement is 

not negotiated by a court-designated class representative, 

weigh in favor of a more probing inquiry than may normally 

be required under Rule 23(e)”); see also Newberg on Class 

Actions § 13:13 (5th ed.) (explaining that earlier settlements 

can make it “more difficult to assess the strengths and 

weaknesses of the parties’ claims and defenses, to determine 

the appropriate definition of the class, and to consider how 

class members will actually benefit from the proposed 

settlement” (quoting Manual for Complex Litigation 

§ 21.612 (4th ed.))).11

As to the settlement’s substantive fairness, Objector does 

not seriously dispute the district court’s findings that several 

of the governing factors weigh in favor of approving this 

settlement—including that the case proceeded to nearly the 

close of discovery before settling, which was “much further 

than almost every other class action” for which the judge had 

overseen settlement “in the past 17 years”; that the 

settlement was “the result of four in-person, arms’-length 

mediations before two different mediators”; and that “highly 

experienced” class counsel advocated for the settlement. See 

Hanlon, 150 F.3d at 1026 (“the extent of discovery 

completed and the stage of the proceedings,” as well as “the 

experience and views of counsel,” are relevant to approval 

of settlement); Rodriguez, 563 F.3d at 965 (“We put a good 

11 The district court did, as part of its approval of the settlement, 

certify a settlement-only class, but that class did not differ materially 

from the litigation class the court had already certified in its order 

granting in part the contested class certification motion.

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 27

deal of stock in the product of an arms-length, non-collusive, 

negotiated resolution.”).

Objector’s contentions focus instead on only a subset of 

the considerations that were relevant to the district court’s 

holistic assessment of the settlement’s fairness. First, 

relying primarily on our decision in Koby v. ARS National 

Services, Inc., 846 F.3d 1071 (9th Cir. 2017), Objector 

argues that the settlement should not have been approved 

because it provides absent class members with “worthless 

injunctive relief.” See id. at 1080–81. Second, relying 

primarily on our decision in Bluetooth, Objector argues that 

the settlement contains several “warning signs” that indicate 

“that class counsel have allowed pursuit of their own selfinterests . . . to infect the negotiations.” See 654 F.3d at 947. 

For the reasons that follow, we reject each of these 

arguments.

1.

In Koby, we held that a magistrate judge had abused her 

discretion by approving a settlement, “for one primary 

reason: There [was] no evidence that the relief afforded by 

the settlement [had] any value to the class members, yet to 

obtain it they had to relinquish their right to seek damages in 

any other [similar] class action” against the same defendant. 

846 F.3d at 1079. That “primary reason” had two 

components. First, the settlement at issue in Koby provided 

injunctive relief that was “of no real value” because the 

defendant did not have “to do anything it was not already 

doing,” plus, “[t]o make matters worse,” there was a clause 

in the settlement giving the defendant an option to “escape” 

the injunction in “the only scenario in which [it] might be 

tempted” to do something inconsistent with the injunction. 

Id. at 1080. Second, the lack of any value in what the class 

received meant that class members “could not fairly or 

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28 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

reasonably be required to give up anything in return.” Id. 

Yet the settlement would have nevertheless required class 

members to “relinquish” something that “plainly” had at 

least “some value”: claims for damages in other class actions 

against the defendant, including in one such action that was 

already pending. Id. at 1080–81.

Objector’s argument that the settlement here is invalid 

because the class received only “worthless injunctive relief,” 

see id. at 1081, is premised on a view of the settlement’s 

value that we decline to adopt. The district court found that 

the settlement’s injunctive relief had value to absent class 

members. This finding was not clearly erroneous. The 

settlement requires, in relevant part, that Facebook make a 

plain English disclosure on its Help Center page that tells 

users that Facebook “use[s] tools to identify and store links 

shared in messages.” The settlement requires Facebook to 

display the relevant language on its Help Center page for a 

year.12 In light of the nature of the claims here, a year-long 

requirement to make such a disclosure has value: it provides 

information to users about Facebook’s message monitoring 

practices, making it less likely that users will unwittingly 

12 Objector argues that this disclosure is duplicative of the change 

Facebook had already made to the disclosure language in its Data Policy, 

and therefore that the Help Center disclosure has no marginal value. The 

district court did not clearly err by concluding otherwise. As the district 

court explained, the twenty-two-word Help Center disclosure provides 

“further relief to the class” beyond the Data Policy change because, in 

addition to being required to stay on display for a year, it “explain[s] 

Facebook’s policy regarding its use of data in messages in plain English, 

on a web page accessed by hundreds of thousands of Facebook users per 

year.”

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 29

divulge private information to Facebook or third parties in 

the course of using Facebook’s messaging platform.13

Further, contrary to Objector’s apparent interpretation of 

Koby, the relief provided to the class cannot be assessed in a 

vacuum. Rather, the settlement’s benefits must be 

considered by comparison to what the class actually gave up 

by settling. See Protective Comm. for Indep. Stockholders 

of TMT Trailer Ferry, Inc. v. Anderson, 390 U.S. 414, 424–

25 (1968) (“Basic to [the] process [of evaluating settlements]

. . . is the need to compare the terms of the compromise with 

the likely rewards of litigation.”); see also Hanlon, 150 F.3d 

at 1026 (relevant considerations include not only “the 

amount offered in settlement,” but also “the strength of the 

plaintiffs’ case,” i.e., what plaintiffs could expect from 

further litigation). Our holding in Koby was that the 

settlement was invalid because it gave the class nothing and 

yet required the class to give up something. 846 F.3d at 1080 

(comparing what the settlement provided to class 

members—“nothing of value”—with what they were 

“required to give up . . . in return”—the “right to pursue 

damages claims against [the defendant] as part of a class 

action”).

Here, the class did not need to receive much for the 

settlement to be fair because the class gave up very little. 

The district court did not err to the extent it concluded that 

class members’ claims were weak enough that the class was 

fairly likely to end up receiving nothing at all had this 

13 Although we hold that the district court did not clearly err in 

finding that the settlement had value for the class, this does not mean 

that, if we were reviewing the settlement ourselves in the first instance, 

we would necessarily conclude that the benefits to the class from this 

disclosure were particularly substantial.

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30 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

litigation proceeded further. As the district court stated, 

“any possible benefit to the class from continued litigation 

[was] both uncertain and insubstantial.” Damages claims 

had already been eliminated from the case, so the only forms 

of potentially available relief (absent a successful appeal 

from the damages portion of the class certification order) 

were declaratory or injunctive. To obtain such relief, 

Plaintiffs would have had to overcome many doctrinal 

hurdles. For example, they would have had to show that 

Facebook’s reading of messages sent on Facebook amounted 

to an unlawful “interception” or wiretap. This would include 

proving that Facebook had improperly read Plaintiffs’ 

messages while the messages were in “transit” as opposed to 

in “storage,” see Konop v. Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., 302 F.3d 

868, 878 (9th Cir. 2002); Cal. Penal Code § 631(a), an issue 

on which even Plaintiffs acknowledged “uncertainty in the 

law.” Plaintiffs also would have had to contend with 

Facebook’s potential argument that users had consented to 

the challenged practices—a defense that similarly could 

have precluded liability under both ECPA and CIPA. See 

18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d); Cal. Penal Code § 631(a). In 

addition, Plaintiffs would have had to overcome Facebook’s 

potential argument that the challenged activity occurred in 

“the ordinary course of its business,” 18 U.S.C. § 2510(5)(a), 

and therefore could not be the basis for liability under 

ECPA—an issue that Plaintiffs acknowledged turns on 

caselaw that is “not fully developed.”

We need not and do not resolve the merits of any of these 

issues. Collectively, however, the numerous challenges that 

Plaintiffs faced provided the parties and the district court 

ample support to conclude that Plaintiffs were ultimately 

likely to have lost this entire case.

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 31

In evaluating what class members relinquished in this 

settlement, we must also consider whether class members 

were required to release claims that were more meritorious 

than the theories Plaintiffs pursued in this litigation. As an 

initial matter, the settlement here expressly excludes any 

release of absent class members’ claims for damages—

unlike the release in Koby. See 846 F.3d at 1080. The 

release here does include a release of claims for declaratory 

and injunctive relief, and it uses somewhat broad language 

in describing which declaratory and injunctive relief claims 

are barred. We do not, however, read the terms of the 

injunctive and declaratory release in isolation.

Under our precedent, the only claims that would be 

barred in a future case by this release are those that share an 

“identical factual predicate” with the claims advanced in this 

case. See Hesse v. Sprint Corp., 598 F.3d 581, 590–92 (9th 

Cir. 2010). Facebook’s counsel assured us at oral argument 

that the parties’ intent was to release only those claims that 

could be released under that precedent. See Oral Argument 

at 36:48–37:20 (asserting that, because of Hesse, “if there 

are claims in [a different] case that involve URL shares in 

messages, then yes, [those claims] would be covered by this 

[release]. But other items would not be.”). Facebook would 

be bound in any future litigation by this representation about 

the intended scope of the release, even if that litigation took 

place in a jurisdiction that lacked the “identical factual 

predicate” rule. See U.S. Cellular Inv. Co. of L.A., Inc. v. 

GTE Mobilnet, Inc., 281 F.3d 929, 934 (9th Cir. 2002) 

(“[T]he fundamental goal of contract interpretation is to give 

effect to the mutual intent of the parties as it existed at the 

time of contracting.”). Interpreting the release consistent 

with that rule, it does not extinguish claims lacking the 

weaknesses described above, and thus does not render the 

relief provided to the class inadequate.

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In sum, given how little the class could have expected to 

obtain if it had pursued claims further based on the facts 

alleged here (and, correspondingly, how little it gave up in 

the release), it was not unreasonable that the settlement gave 

the class something of modest value.

2.

Objector next argues that the settlement is invalid under 

our decision in Bluetooth because it prioritizes class 

counsel’s interests over those of their clients. In Bluetooth, 

we identified three “subtle” warning signs that may indicate 

that class counsel colluded with defense counsel to settle the 

case in a manner that elevated class counsel’s interests over 

those of the class, and that the settlement is therefore not 

“fair, reasonable, and adequate” under Rule 23(e)(2): 

(1) when counsel receive a disproportionate distribution of 

the settlement, or the class gets no monetary distribution but 

class counsel are well compensated; (2) when the parties 

negotiate “clear sailing” arrangements for the payment of 

attorney’s fees wherein the defendant agrees not to object to 

the fee application presented to the court; and (3) when the 

agreement includes a “reversion” or “kicker” provision 

under which any reduction in attorney’s fees reverts to the 

defendant rather than being added to the class fund. See 

654 F.3d at 947. We explained in Bluetooth that 

“assessment of [a] settlement’s overall reasonableness must 

take into account the defendant’s overall willingness to pay,” 

id. at 949, keeping in mind that the defendant’s indifference 

as to how that payment is divvied up on the plaintiffs’ side 

could result in “a tradeoff between merits relief and 

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 33

attorneys’ fees,” id. at 946 (quoting Evans v. Jeff D., 

475 U.S. 717, 733 (1986)).14

The district court looked for each of these warning signs 

and concluded that none weighed against approval of the 

settlement. As to disproportionality, the court explained that 

although “it is difficult to put a dollar figure on” the value of 

the non-monetary relief obtained by the class, “the privacy 

interests of the class vindicated by the settlement” were 

significant, and the non-monetary nature of the relief was “a 

function of [the district] court’s decision to certify only an 

injunctive relief class.” Meanwhile, class counsel, who had 

filed this action under provisions that permit a court to award 

attorney’s fees, had received a substantial “lodestar 

discount,” the result of which was a fee that the court 

separately deemed reasonable in its ruling on the fee 

application. As to the second and third warning signs, the 

district court reasoned that Bluetooth’s concerns with “clear 

sailing” and reversion of unawarded attorneys’ fees to

Facebook were “inapplicable to this case because there is no 

common fund, ‘constructive’ or otherwise,” and the class 

was certified for injunctive relief only. The district court 

added that Bluetooth “only requires that the court carefully 

scrutinize the settlement for collusion,” and here there was 

none. Rather, “[t]he case was extremely hard-fought, and 

settled at an advanced procedural stage, after multiple 

mediations.”

The district court did not abuse its discretion in 

concluding that the settlement was not the result of collusion 

14 The Bluetooth warning signs, which bear on a settlement’s 

fairness under Rule 23(e)(2), are distinct from the issue whether the 

district court awarded “reasonable” fees and costs under the standards of 

Rule 23(h)—which was not raised in this appeal.

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34 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

between class counsel and Facebook. As an initial matter, 

Bluetooth explained that the warning signs were a necessary 

addition to the Hanlon factors because the settlement at issue 

in Bluetooth had been “negotiated prior to formal class 

certification,” when “there is an even greater potential for a 

breach of fiduciary duty owed the class during settlement.” 

Bluetooth, 654 F.3d at 946. Bluetooth therefore left open a 

question no subsequent case has answered: whether district 

courts are required to look for these subtle warning signs in 

cases, like this one, that are settled after formal class 

certification. We need not resolve that threshold question 

because, assuming without deciding that courts must look 

for these warning signs in a post-certification settlement, we 

conclude that applying the Bluetooth framework does not 

demonstrate that the settlement in this case was unfair. Cf. 

In re Online DVD-Rental Antitrust Litig., 779 F.3d 934, 944 

n.6 (9th Cir. 2015) (assuming, without deciding, that 

Bluetooth’s “heightened scrutiny” does not apply to postcertification settlement in a case where such scrutiny had not 

been applied by the district court and had not been raised by 

the parties on appeal).

Turning to the district court’s evaluation of the specific 

warning signs enumerated in Bluetooth, the district court’s 

analysis of the first Bluetooth factor, disproportionality, was 

reasonable. Objector’s contention distills to her position that 

any attorney’s fee award that exceeds “roughly 25% of the 

settlement value” is “disproportionate,” and that therefore 

the only way to “justify the nearly $4 million allocated for 

attorney’s fees” in this settlement is by appraising the overall 

settlement “at more than $15.5 million.” Although 25% of 

the anticipated settlement value is a useful benchmark to 

keep in mind in all cases, our caselaw affords district courts 

discretion to refrain from attempting to measure the 

unmeasurable. As the district court here explained, “it is 

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difficult to put a dollar figure on” the value of what the class 

obtained, but the court concluded the class did obtain relief 

that has meaningful value. In situations like this one, where 

“the benefit to the class” is not “easily quantified,” district 

courts have discretion to award fees based on how much time 

counsel spent and the value of that time (a lodestar 

calculation) without needing to “perform a ‘crosscheck’” in 

which they attempt to estimate how this compares to the 

recovery for the class. See Hyundai, 926 F.3d at 571 

(quoting Bluetooth, 654 F.3d at 942). The district court 

reasonably exercised that discretion not to perform a 

crosscheck of the lodestar in this case, given the difficulty of 

measuring the value of the injunctive relief.

To be sure, in a case where the class primarily receives 

non-monetary relief, but class counsel obtain millions of 

dollars, it may be an abuse of discretion not to at least 

attempt to approximate the value of injunctive relief and use 

that valuation in an assessment of disproportionality. But in 

this case, the district court did not abuse its discretion by 

declining to do so, because of three key circumstances that 

are all present here. First, the district court had already 

declined to certify a damages class. When further litigation 

may result in substantial monetary relief to class members, 

the failure to include meaningful monetary relief in a 

settlement might be (but is not necessarily) a subtle sign that 

class counsel bargained away something valuable to benefit

themselves. In such settlements, in order to show that 

nothing was unfairly bargained away by counsel, it may be 

necessary for settling parties to show why their nonmonetary settlement is at least as good for the class as any 

monetary figure that would approximate what they could 

expect from further litigation. But where, as here, further 

litigation of the case being settled is extremely unlikely to 

result in a damages award, the assessment of whether 

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36 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

counsel got more fees by bargaining away valuable relief for 

the class is more qualitative, and more context-specific. 

Second, damages were also not part of the class release, so 

to the extent further litigation might yield damages, absent 

class members were not prohibited from trying again to 

obtain such damages—further reducing the likelihood that 

class counsel bargained away any potentially valuable relief. 

Third, the district court was well-positioned to recognize, 

based on its years-long oversight of this litigation and its 

attendant understanding of how users interact with 

Facebook, the value of the injunctive relief that was made 

available to the class through the settlement. Relatedly, the 

district court was able to determine that class counsel had 

not, at the eleventh hour after litigating the case well beyond 

a hotly contested class certification motion and up to near 

the close of extensive discovery, abandoned the interests of 

the class in favor of their own. Taking these factors together, 

we conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion by 

concluding that the value of what the class received was 

reasonable not only in proportion to what the class gave up 

(as discussed above) but also in proportion to what class 

counsel received.

The second and third Bluetooth factors do not 

demonstrate that reversal is warranted on the basis that the 

settlement was unfair. As to the third factor, the district court 

did not err in its evaluation of Bluetooth’s concern with 

“reversion.” An injunctive-relief-only class settlement, by 

definition, has no fund into which any fees not awarded by 

the court could possibly revert. There is no blanket rule 

foreclosing parties from agreeing that the class will receive 

only injunctive relief.

As to the second factor, we disagree with the district 

court to the extent that it held that a defendant’s agreement 

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CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN 37

to allow “clear sailing” of class counsel’s fee application 

should never be considered in an injunctive-relief-only 

settlement. The concern with a “clear sailing” arrangement 

is that class counsel may have obtained too little for the class 

“in exchange for red-carpet treatment on fees.” Bluetooth, 

654 F.3d at 947 (quoting Weinberger v. Great N. Nekoosa 

Corp., 925 F.2d 518, 524 (1st Cir. 1991)). There may be 

some cases in which courts should be concerned that class 

counsel gave up valuable injunctive relief in exchange for a 

defendant’s promise not to contest class counsel’s fee 

application. But we hold that any error in the district court’s 

discussion of this factor is harmless. No one factor is 

dispositive. We conclude that the evidence is insufficient to 

prove that the class would have gotten meaningfully more 

injunctive or declaratory relief if Facebook had merely been 

permitted to oppose class counsel’s fee application, which 

Facebook already knew would be requesting substantially 

less than what class counsel represented would fully 

compensate them.

Finally, we reject Objector’s argument that, in addition 

to the three warning signs in Bluetooth, this case presents a 

“fourth red flag” indicating a lawyer-driven deal: the fact 

that the parties did not want to provide any notice of the 

settlement to the class, beyond what was already publicly 

available. It does seem odd that the parties repeatedly 

emphasized the informational value of the settlement while 

simultaneously arguing that it was unnecessary to provide 

class members formal notice that this information exists and 

that, if they had been dissatisfied with the settlement terms, 

they could have objected. But this is insufficient to prove 

that the settlement was unfair. Indeed, the district court, 

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38 CAMPBELL V. ST. JOHN

before granting final approval, did require the parties to 

provide more notice than they had proposed giving.15

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district 

court’s approval of the settlement.

15 Although Objector argues that the district court should have done 

more to notify class members of the settlement, we do not understand 

her position to be that the case should be remanded solely for 

supplemental notice and a further opportunity for other class members to 

object. Whether the class notice was adequate in its own right—as 

opposed to whether the claimed failure to provide enough notice 

undermines the settlement’s fairness—is thus outside the scope of our 

review.

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