Judge William Alsup of the federal court in San Francisco has refused a motion to certify a privacy class action in which the named plaintiff would be a man who has “filed 10 other California Invasion of Privacy Act actions, none of which ever reached the class certification stage” but instead concluded with private settlements [Mario Marroquin, Legal NewsLine; Alison Frankel, Reuters]
“Wuest’s litigation history is more than unusual,” Alsup wrote. “This order finds that it shows a pattern of using the threat of class action to extract an undeserved premium on an individual claim. This pattern is further evidenced by the fact that in several of the bases, both Wuest and his counsel received settlement amounts disproportionate to maximum recovery allowed under the statute.
“The pattern is quite clear. The premium was something rightfully due to the ‘class’ but no absent putative class member ever got anything. Wuest and his counsel got it all.”
One Comment
Kudos to MyPillow for going to court rather than cave to Wuest’s demands. A lot of companies fear class action litigation enough that they just pay the danegeld whether or not they’ve committed the tort they’re accused of.
And I must say MyPillow got lucky that the case was assigned to Judge Alsup, who got my attention for his careful, informed rulings during the Oracle v. Google Java litigation.