This page has a list of lawsuits brought as class actions.
Lawsuit | Subject of lawsuit | Court of decision | Year of decision |
---|---|---|---|
Alperin v. Vatican Bank | conversion, unjust enrichment, restitution, the right to an accounting, human rights violations and violations of international law | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | |
In re American Realty Capital Properties, Inc. Litigation | violations of Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933 | U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York | |
Anderson v. Jackson | demolition of public housing damaged by Hurricane Katrina | United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit | 2009 |
Burnett v. National Association of Realtors | conspiracy among real estate agents to inflate fees paid by home sellers | United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri | 2023 |
Cobell v. Salazar | Indian trust assets | United States District Court for the District of Columbia | 2009 |
Collins v. United States | honorable discharge under "Don't ask, don't tell" | United States Court of Federal Claims | 2013 |
Conant v. McCaffrey | right to recommend medical marijuana | United States district court | |
Daniels v. City of New York | racial profiling and unlawful stop and frisk | ||
De Beers Diamonds Antitrust Litigation | U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey | ||
Doe v. Chiquita Brands International | funding and arming known terrorist organizations | ||
Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores | discriminating against women in promotions, pay, and job assignments | United States Supreme Court | 2011 |
Fraley v. Facebook, Inc. | misappropriation of users' names and likenesses | United States District Court for the Northern District of California | |
Gonzalez v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores | racial and gender discrimination in employment and marketing | ||
Gratz v. Bollinger | undergraduate affirmative action admissions policy too mechanistic in its use of race as a factor in admissions | Supreme Court of the United States | 2003 |
Greek Cypriots v. TRNC and HSBC Bank USA | denial of access to land and property | United States District Court for the District of Columbia | |
GM Instrument Cluster Settlement | owners of vehicles with faulty instrument clusters receive "special coverage" | U.S. District Court in Seattle | 2008 |
Hepting v. AT&T | surveillance of telecommunications | ||
James v. Meow Media | video game responsibility for murders | ||
Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. | sexual harassment, abusive language, threats, stalking and intimidation | ||
Jewel v. NSA | surveillance | 2010 | |
Lane v. Facebook, Inc. | internet privacy and social media | United States District Court for the Northern District of California | 2010 |
Luévano v. Campbell | racial bias in written test for employment | ||
Madrigal v. Quilligan | involuntary sterilization | ||
Mauldin v. Wal-Mart Stores | health insurance not covering prescription contraceptives | United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia | |
Mochizuki v. United States | forcible kidnapping and imprisonment | ||
Morgan v. Hennigan | racial segregation and school busing | ||
Nasdaq Market Makers Antitrust Litigation | stock market collusion | ||
National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation | e-commerce website accessibility | ||
National Organization for Women v. Scheidler | anti-abortion activities | Supreme Court of the United States | 1994 |
Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation | price fixing and other allegedly anti-competitive trade practices in the credit card industry | 2012 | |
Pigford v. Glickman | racial discrimination in its allocation of farm loans and assistance | 1999/2010 | |
Price v. Philip Morris, Inc | cigarette company advertising class action led by plaintiff's attorney Stephen Tillery resulted in $10.1 billion judgement [1] | Madison County, Illinois | 2003/2006 |
Ritalin class action lawsuits | promoting disorder ADHD to increase drug profits | ||
Robbins v. Lower Merion School District | charged schools secretly spied on students through surreptitiously and remotely activated webcams embedded in school-issued laptops the students were using at home; privacy rights | U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania | filed 2010 |
Ruiz v. Estelle | prisoners' rights | United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas | 1979 |
Scheidler v. National Organization for Women (2003) | anti-abortion activities | Supreme Court of the United States | 2003 |
Scheidler v. National Organization for Women (2006) | anti-abortion activities | Supreme Court of the United States | 2006 |
Shell Canada lawsuit | gasoline additive damaging fuel supply systems of cars | ||
Shyamala Rajender v. University of Minnesota | employment discrimination based on sex | United States District Court for the District of Minnesota | 1980 |
Smiley v. Citibank | limiting credit card late fees and other penalties | Supreme Court of the United States | 1996 |
Sullivan v. Zebley | Social Security regulation on determining disability for children | Supreme Court of the United States | 1990 |
Swift v. Zynga | misleading advertising | United States District Court for the Northern District of California | |
TNA Entertainment, LLC v. Wittenstein and World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. | use of secret contact information to steal talent | ||
Turkmen v. Ashcroft | unlawful detainment | ||
Vroegh v. Eastman Kodak Company | false advertising, unfair business practices, breach of contract, fraud, deceit and/or misrepresentation | ||
World Jewish Congress lawsuit against Swiss banks | retrieving deposits from dormant bank accounts | 2000 |
Lawsuit | Subject of lawsuit | Court of decision | Year of decision |
---|---|---|---|
AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion | contracts that exclude class action arbitration | Supreme Court of the United States | 2011 |
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Dabit | SLUSA preempting state law class action claims | Supreme Court of the United States | 2006 |
West v. Randall | required parties to class action | United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit |
A class action, also known as a class action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action originated in the United States and is still predominantly an American phenomenon, but Canada, as well as several European countries with civil law, have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers.
Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, PLLC is a US plaintiffs' law firm, established in 1965 and based in New York City. It has mounted many class action cases on behalf of investors.
Joseph Michael Arpaio is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He was the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017, losing reelection to Democrat Paul Penzone in 2016.
Mauldin v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. was a sexual discrimination class action lawsuit filed on October 16, 2001, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, seeking back pay and an injunction. The suit challenged Walmart's denial of health insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives. The case was granted class action status with an estimated 400,000 women eligible for participation in the lawsuit.
The Florida Justice Institute (FJI) is a nonprofit public interest law firm in Miami, Florida. It was established in 1978 by Randall C. Berg Jr. The institute has been dedicated to improving conditions in Florida's prison system and has initiated numerous class action lawsuits toward this end. Berg is past president of the Florida ACLU. Berg also served on Governor Lawton Chiles' Transition Criminal Justice Task Force and is the past Chairman of the Corrections Committee.
Larry Elliot Klayman is an American attorney, right-wing activist, and former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor. He founded both Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch.
Theodore Harold Frank is an American lawyer, activist, and legal writer based in Washington, D.C. He is the counsel of record and petitioner in Frank v. Gaos, the first Supreme Court case to deal with the issue of cy pres in class action settlements; he is one of the few Supreme Court attorneys ever to argue his own case. He wrote the vetting report of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin for the John McCain campaign in the 2008 presidential election. He founded the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) in 2009; it temporarily merged with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in 2015, but as of 2019 CCAF is now part of the new Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a free-market nonprofit public-interest law firm founded by Frank and his CCAF colleague Melissa Holyoak.
Eva Jefferson Paterson is the president and founder of the Equal Justice Society, a national legal organization focused on civil rights and anti-discrimination.
Edelson PC is an American plaintiffs' law firm that focuses on public client investigations, class actions, mass tort, and consumer protection laws. Edelson’s cases include class action settlements against Facebook for $650 million (2021), social casino apps for nearly $200 million (2021), and a $925 million verdict against ViSalus (2020.)
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) is a law enforcement agency in Maricopa County, Arizona that was involved in a number of controversies. It is the largest sheriff's office in the state of Arizona and provides general and specialized law enforcement to unincorporated areas of Maricopa County, serving as the primary law enforcement for unincorporated areas of the county as well as incorporated cities within the county which have contracted with the agency for law-enforcement services. It also operates the county jail system. Elected in 2016, Paul Penzone is the current sheriff of Maricopa County. Penzone replaced Joe Arpaio after his 24-year tenure as sheriff.
A private attorney general or public interest lawyer is an informal term originating in common law jurisdictions for a private attorney who brings a lawsuit claiming it to be in the public interest, i.e., benefiting the general public and not just the plaintiff, on behalf of a citizen or group of citizens. The attorney may, at the equitable discretion of the court, be entitled to recover attorney's fees if they prevail. The rationale behind this principle is to provide extra incentive to private attorneys to pursue suits that may be of benefit to society at large. Private attorney general suits are commonly, though not always, brought as class actions in jurisdictions that permit the certification of class action lawsuits.
Raymond Paul Boucher is an American trial attorney. Throughout his career, Boucher has represented clients in a wide range of complex civil litigation, including consumer litigation, construction defect litigation, product liability, toxic tort litigation, childhood sexual assault, and employment discrimination. He served as lead attorney for plaintiffs in the landmark $660-million sexual-abuse settlement with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he represented over 250 abuse victims in the July 2007 settlement. He was able to help secure over one billion dollars in recovery for victims of abuse by Catholic Priests in Southern California. In 2024, Boucher and a team of three other lawyers serving as plaintiffs' leadership counsel secured a second, proposed $880 million settlement with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles for 1,353 additional survivors of childhood sexual assault by Clergy members.
Harvey Thomas Strosberg, is a Canadian lawyer. He is a senior partner at the law firm of Strosberg, Sasso, Sutts LLP.
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is an American law firm headquartered in San Diego, California. It is a plaintiffs law firm specializing in securities litigation and shareholder rights cases.
Eric Gibbs is an American attorney at Gibbs Law Group LLP in the United States. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Consumer Attorneys of California. As a part of the American Association for Justice, he co-chairs the Consumer Privacy and Data Breach Litigation Group and the Lumber Liquidators Litigation Group, and serves as the secretary for the Qui Tam Litigation Group.
Strategic litigation, also known as impact litigation, is the practice of bringing lawsuits intended to affect societal change. Impact litigation cases may be class action lawsuits or individual claims with broader significance, and may rely on statutory law arguments or on constitutional claims. Such litigation has been widely and successfully used to influence public policy, especially by left-leaning groups, and often attracts significant media attention. One prominent instance of this practice is Brown v. Board of Education.
Baron & Budd, P.C. is an American plaintiffs' law firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Opponents of mass tort litigation have criticized the firm for the zealousness with which it represents its clients, and for the political activities of some of its attorneys.
Deepak Gupta is an American attorney known for representing consumers, workers, and a broad range of clients in U.S. Supreme Court and appellate cases and constitutional, class action, and complex litigation. Gupta is the founding principal of the law firm Gupta Wessler LLP and a lecturer at Harvard Law School, where he is an instructor in the Harvard Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC is an American plaintiffs' law firm that engages in large-scale class action litigation. The firm filed a number of lawsuits against Donald Trump during and after his presidency, including a lawsuit which successfully blocked the Trump administration's attempt to roll back the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.