Class Action Fairness Act – Standing

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Civil

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and KANNE and TINDER, Circuit Judges

Class Action Fairness Act – Standing

No. 14-3122 Hilary Remijas v. Neiman Marcus Group, LLC

Where district court erred in dismissing plaintiff claims for lack of standing under Article III of the constitution.

“Injury‐in‐fact is only one of the three requirements for Article III standing. Plaintiffs must also allege enough in their complaint to support the other two prerequisites: cau‐ sation and redressability. As the Supreme Court put it in Clapper, plaintiffs must “show[ ] that the defendant’s actual action has caused the substantial risk of harm.” 133 S. Ct. at 1150, n.5. Neiman Marcus argues that these plaintiffs cannot show that their injuries are traceable to the data incursion at the company rather than to one of several other large‐scale breaches that took place around the same time. This argu‐ ment is reminiscent of Summers v. Tice, 199 P.2d 1, 5 (Cal. 1948), in which joint liability was properly pleaded when, during a quail hunt on the open range, the plaintiff was shot, but he did not know which defendant had shot him. Under those circumstances, the Supreme Court of California held, the burden shifted to the defendants to show who was responsible. Neiman Marcus apparently rejects such a rule, but we think that this debate has no bearing on standing to sue; at most, it is a legal theory that Neiman Marcus might later raise as a defense.”

Reversed and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing attorney at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.