Source: https://consumer.jenner.com/us-supreme-court/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 16:47:53+00:00

Document:
First, a plaintiff may have standing to sue based solely on a defendant’s failure to disclose information when such disclosure is statutorily mandated.
In Church v. Accretive Health, Inc., the Eleventh Circuit found that the plaintiff had standing to assert a claim for violation of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act based solely on the defendant’s alleged failure to include in its letter to the plaintiff certain disclosures required by the Act. For example, the letter did not expressly state that it was sent by a “debt collector ... attempting to collect a debt and that any information obtained will be used for that purpose,” nor did it alert the plaintiff that “unless the consumer, within thirty days after receipt of notice, disputes the (Continued) validity of the debt, or any portion thereof, the debt will be assumed to be valid by the debt collector.” The plaintiffs alleged no actual damages aside from the defendant’s alleged failure to include the required disclosures. However, the court noted that, in certain instances, a plaintiff can rest on the deprivation of a Congressionally-created right to satisfy the standing inquiry. Because Congress had created “a new right—to receive the required disclosures in communications governed by the FDCPA—and a new injury—not receiving such disclosures,” the plaintiff satisfied Article III’s injury-in-fact requirement.
The Supreme Court started another term this week. One granted petition of interest is DeKalb County Pension Fund v. Transocean Ltd., which arises out of the Second Circuit’s ruling that the filing of a putative Rule 23 class action does not suspend the three-year period of repose for claims brought under Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act. In so ruling, the Second Circuit declined to extend to “statutes of repose” the Supreme Court’s landmark holding in American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974), that “statutes of limitations” are tolled for all putative class members. Quick primer: A statute of limitations is typically based on when a plaintiff experiences harm associated with the legal injury. A statute of repose, on the other hand, is a time limit that is triggered by an event unconnected to the harm – such as the date a stock was first offered for sale. Courts have typically held that statutes of limitations can be equitably tolled, while statutes of repose are stricter and cannot. In DeKalb County, the consequences of applying the statute of repose were significant. The plaintiff filed suit within the period of repose and moved for lead plaintiff status after the period of repose had expired. The court denied the motion, finding him to be a flawed representative, and consequently held that the claims of the class were time-barred. With DeKalb County, the Court will resolve a circuit split. In Joseph v. Wiles, 223 F. 3d 1155 (10th Cir. 2000), the Tenth Circuit held that American Pipe tolling does apply because statutes of repose are subject to tolling that is legal (as opposed to equitable) in nature, like that which occurs when an action is commenced and class certification is pending, and arises from the procedures set forth in Rule 23. The Court granted certiorari on this question two years ago, but later dismissed its order as “improvidently granted.” Public Employees’ Retirement System v. IndyMac MBS, 134 S. Ct. 1515 (2014).
On April 29, 2016, the Supreme Court will consider whether to grant the certiorari petition in POM Wonderful et al v. Federal Trade Commission (15-525), which asks the Court to identify the standard of review applicable to agency decisions that prohibit truthful, yet allegedly misleading, advertising. The case arises out of an FTC complaint filed against POM claiming, among other things, that certain POM ads misleadingly implied that pomegranate juice was a scientifically-established treatment for disease. An administrative law judge determined that a subset of the challenged ads contained this implied message, but the full Commission later banned a substantially larger group of ads, concluding that these ads made implied, misleading claims. On appeal, the D.C. Circuit deferred to the FTC’s determination and upheld the ban, rejecting POM’s argument that—to safeguard POM’s First Amendment rights—the court should have reviewed the Commission’s decision de novo.
What’s That Trump University Lawsuit About Anyway?
On Super Tuesday, the news regarding Republican Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump was not limited to the campaign trail. On March 1, 2016, the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division reinstated claims in a 2013 suit filed by Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman alleging that Trump University (“TU”) “through various fraudulent practices, intentionally misled more than 5,000 students nationwide . . . into paying as much as $35,000 each to participate” in programs offered by TU. Trump started TU in 2004 to instruct entrepreneurs on real estate investing. The suit accuses TU of violating New York laws related to fraudulent and deceptive practices, false advertising (General Business Law §§349-350) and fraud. People ex rel. Schneiderman v. Trump Entrepreneur Initiative LLC, No. 16093, 2016 WL 783216 (N.Y. App. Div. Mar. 1, 2016). In 2013, Schneiderman initiated a special proceeding under New York Executive Law § 63(12), seeking damages, civil penalties and a variety of equitable relief.
Schneiderman alleged, among other things, that “instructors played a video featuring Donald Trump telling prospective students the ‘professors . . are absolutely terrific – terrific people, terrific brains, successful, the best’ and ‘are handpicked by [Trump].’” Id. at *2. According to the allegations, “Trump did not handpick the instructors; indeed, only one of the live event speakers for Trump University had even ever met Donald Trump” and the instructors “had little to no experience in real estate investing, instead having prior work experience such as food service management and graphic design.” Id. Schneiderman also alleged that TU’s instructors “engaged in a bait-and-switch by urging students to sign up for . . . packages  rang[ing] from $10,0000 to $35,000 that supposedly provided the only way to succeed in real estate investment.” Id. at *3.
The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari to address whether a federal court of appeals has jurisdiction under both Article III and 28 U.S.C. §1291 to review an order denying class certification after the named plaintiffs voluntarily dismiss their individual claims with prejudice. Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, No. 15-457 (cert. granted Jan. 15, 2016). In the proceedings below, the Ninth Circuit held that a stipulated dismissal of an individual claim is an adverse and appealable final judgment and that the plaintiffs did not lose their ability to appeal from a stipulated dismissal with prejudice of their lawsuit and from the order striking their class allegations. A link to the Ninth Circuit’s opinion is available here.

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