Consumer Fraud Class Action Review – 2025

state consumer protection laws, including those that require proof of reliance, varied materially, particularly between Massachusetts and other states. The plaintiff attempted to apply Massachusetts law uniformly to the entire class, but the court rejected this approach, stating that each state’s laws should govern its residents’ claims. The court conducted a choice-of-law analysis and found that the laws of each class member’s home state would apply because the misrepresentations were made in Massachusetts but received and relied upon in the plaintiffs’ respective home states. Thus, the court concluded that the differences in state laws, including variations in consumer protection standards, outweighed the common issues in the case, making class certification inappropriate. Saba also argued that the plaintiff’s proposed damages model, which relied on a full refund of tuition and fees, was unworkable. The court agreed, stating that under Massachusetts law, damages should compensate for the actual harm suffered, not provide a windfall. The court reasoned that the full refund model ignored the value that students may have derived from the education they received. While the plaintiff claimed that the education was worthless due to the misrepresentations, the court noted that the educational services provided might still have conferred some benefit to students. For these reasons, the court decertified the class, ruling that the differences in state laws related to consumer fraud claims prevented the class from satisfying the predominance requirement. 4. Rulings On Other Issues Raised In Consumer Fraud Class Actions Courts undertook adjudication of a wide range of motions in 2024 in consumer fraud class actions, some of which were ancillary to class certification motions but important to understanding the context in which these complex cases unfold. The plaintiff in Millam, et al. v. Energizer Brands, LLC , 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 14499 (9th Cir. June 14, 2024), filed a consumer class action under California consumer protection laws alleging that the defendant’s packaging of AA MAX batteries – which stated they were “up to 50% longer lasting than basic alkaline in demanding devices” – fraudulently exaggerated the performance of the batteries. The district court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims. Id. at *1. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling. The plaintiffs argued that a reasonable consumer would read the defendant’s advertising to mean that AA MAX batteries usually or always last 50 percent longer than most or all batteries in most or all compatible devices. The Ninth Circuit explained that the plaintiffs misrepresented what the packing claimed and that the defendant’s claim – that its batteries were “up to 50% longer lasting than basic alkaline in demanding devices,” – indicated an upper limit of duration; hence, it was not a statement of Energizer’s performance within a certain category of competitors when its product was used for a subset of possible applications. Id. at *2. The plaintiffs persisted in arguing that the labels were still deceptive because the qualifying language used was vague and appeared in smaller print. The Ninth Circuit disagreed. It held that the qualifying language the plaintiffs pointed to was so vague that an ordinary consumer could not understand it, and this language was located on the front of the label. The Ninth Circuit also affirmed the district court’s preclusion of evidence provided by the plaintiffs, including battery testing results and consumer perception surveys. The Ninth Circuit held that the plaintiffs’ evidence did not undermine the defendant’s advertising, nor did it support the plaintiffs’ claim that consumers were likely misled. Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order. In Johnson, et al. v. 3M , Case No. 20-CV- 8 (N.D. Ga. Dec. 10, 2024), the plaintiff filed a lawsuit against 3M and DuPont, alleging they contributed to the discharge of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or “forever chemicals”) into the Conasauga River, which supplies drinking water to Rome, Georgia. The plaintiff, a resident of Rome, sought both monetary damages and injunctive relief – specifically, $850 million for the remediation of the Dalton Land Application System (LAS), which supplies the water to the city. The court analyzed whether the plaintiff had standing to pursue injunctive relief. The court found that the plaintiff lacked standing to seek the requested injunctive relief. The court reasoned that while the plaintiff had standing to pursue damages for the increased water rates he paid due to the PFAS contamination, his claims for injunctive relief were not sufficient. To pursue injunctive relief, a plaintiff must demonstrate a concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent injury

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