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Roy Hobbs returned to baseball after 16 years; Grover Cleveland returned to the White House after a four year hiatus, and Gen. MacArthur returned to the Philippines in 1944.  Perhaps with less drama and certainly less fanfare, your humble blogger returns with today’s post on MassTortDefense.

A California federal judge recently denied the motion by customers of a San Francisco fertility clinic seeking class certification of their claims alleging that a defective storage tank damaged their embryos.  The case, In Re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation, No. 3:18-cv-01586, 2020 WL 3432689 (N.D. Cal. June 23, 2020), is interesting for the court’s treatment of superiority and damages issues in the class context.

Pacific Fertility provides fertility services including egg and embryo cryopreservation. Cryopreservation involves preservation of tissue using cooling techniques. In 2018, there was an apparent incident where one of the storage tanks lost coolant for a period of time. At the time of the incident, the tank contained eggs and embryos from 600+Pacific Fertility customers. All these eggs and embryos were exposed to the temperature increase. Plaintiffs were notified, and eventually sued.

We will skip the procedural history up to the point where Plaintiffs sought certification of a class of: All individuals, and their reproductive partners, whose eggs or embryos were in Tank 4 at Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco, California on the date of the incident.
Continue Reading Class Certification Denied in Cryopreservation Litigation

The Supreme Court has decided a case involving injury-in-fact and standing issues that may have significant impacts on class actions.  See Spokeo Inc. v. Robins, No. 13-1339 (U.S. 5/16/16).

Spokeo, Inc. operated a “people search engine,” which searches a wide spectrum of databases to gather and provide personal information about individuals to a variety…

The Ninth Circuit this week declined to revive a proposed class action in Washington federal court accusing defendant of mis-labeling a water drink containing caffeine.  See Harold Maple v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, No. 13-36089, 14-35038 and 14-35059, 2016 WL 2621345 (9th Cir. 5/9/16).

This was a putative class action arising from allegedly unfair or deceptive…

The 11th Circuit recently ruled that class certification had been improperly granted to owners of front-loading washing machines that allegedly were susceptible to mold build-up. See Brown v. Electrolux Home Prods. Inc., No. 15-11455, 2016 WL 1085517 (11th Cir. 3/21/16).

Across the country, consumers have filed class actions against the manufacturers of front-loading washing machines.…

The Ninth Circuit last week rejected a putative class action accusing a defendant of deceiving consumers about the quantity of product accessible in a lip balm tube.  See EBNER V. FRESH, INC., No. Case: 13-56644 (9th Cir. 03/17/2016).

Plaintiff alleged that cosmetics and skin care products manufacturer Fresh, Inc. deceived consumers about the quantity…