SCOTUS Bolsters Class Actions

The Supreme Court bolstered class actions this week when it ruled that members of a potential class may continue to pursue that legal action, even if a defendant has offered to settle by giving plaintiffs what they’ve asked for. After receiving a spam text message from the Navy, Jose Gomez sued under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, seeking to represent a class of people asking for $1,500 each in damages. Gomez didn’t respond after the Navy’s contractor offered to settle for $1,503 for each unsolicited text, court costs, and a promise to stop sending such messages. In a dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Navy contractor’s offer represented a fulfillment of Gomez’s request, and therefore the lawsuit was no longer live, thus ineligible to be heard in the federal court system. But in their 6-to-3 majority ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the company’s true aim was “to avoid a potential adverse decision, one that could expose it to damages a thousandfold larger than the bid Gomez declined to accept.”