18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 619 that it would not further the just and efficient resolution of the litigation. Id . at *2. The Panel determined that the actions had common questions of fact, including how the GEICO breach occurred, what security measures were in place at the time of the breach, and what steps were taken by GEICO in response to the breach. Id . at *3. However, the Panel reasoned that there were only five actions, three of which were pending in the same district before the same judge, and no potentially related actions had been filed. The Panel explained that under the circumstances presented, informal coordination among the small number of parties appeared feasible such that centralization was not necessary. Piper, et al. v. Bayer CropScience LP , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66153 (N.D. Ill. April 6, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of farmers in 21 class actions filed in Illinois, Minnesota, and other states, alleged antitrust allegations that Defendants, a group of agricultural suppliers, worked together to fix crop input prices. Plaintiffs in some of the class actions requested that the lawsuits be consolidated before the Judicial Panel of Multi-District Litigation (“JPML”). Defendants filed a motion to stay the action pending the decision of the JPML. The Court denied the motion. The Court found that there was no justification for a stay because there was no guarantee that the JPML would consolidate the matters and there was no indication that the decision would be coming in the near future. Further, the Court reasoned that despite Defendants’ contentions, the risk of inconsistent rulings at the stage of the matter was minimal since the cases were in their infancy. Therefore, the Court reasoned that no matter where the cases end up, Defendants would still be required to file responsive pleadings, answer discovery, produce documents, and make their witnesses available for deposition. Id . at *11-12. The Court further opined that a stay would only delay the inevitable without any reasonable need. For these reasons, the Court denied Defendants’ motion. (l) Jurisdiction Issues In Class Action Litigation Baton, et al. v. Ledger, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 215793 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 8, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of customers who purchased a hardware wallet to protect cryptocurrency assets, filed a putative class action seeking redress for harms they allegedly suffered stemming from a data breach exposing over 270,000 pieces of personally identifiable information, including customer names, email addresses, postal addresses and telephone numbers. Id . at *2. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the Court granted the motion. Plaintiffs argued that the Court had general jurisdiction over Defendant Shopify USA, even though it was incorporated in Delaware and had its principal place of business is Ottawa, Canada, because Shopify USA previously listed San Francisco, California as its principal place of business since 2014, including, allegedly, during the time period that the data breach took place in 2019. Id . at *10. The Court explained that Plaintiffs’ observation that Shopify USA’s place of business at the time of the data breach was in California did not establish general jurisdiction over Shopify USA. The Court noted that case law authorities had uniformly held that general jurisdiction is determined no earlier than the time of filing of the complaint. The Court found that Plaintiffs failed to establish that the Court had personal jurisdiction over Shopify USA because Plaintiffs did not show: (i) that the Shopify, Inc. "purposefully directed" their activities toward California; and (ii) that their claims arose out of Shopify’s forum-related activities. Id . at *11. Accordingly, the Court dismissed Shopify Defendants from the action. As to Defendant Ledger, the Court ruled that Plaintiffs could not establish that Ledger expressly aimed an intentional act at California or that any such intentional act caused harm that Ledger knew was likely to be suffered, and thus failed to prove that it purposefully directed its activities in California to give rise to the Court’s specific jurisdiction over Ledger. Id. at *32. The Court opined that Plaintiffs offered no facts to connect Ledger’s activity with regards to the data breach to California. In sum, the Court ruled that because Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden to demonstrate that Ledger "purposefully directed" its activity at California, and that Plaintiffs’ claims arose out of Ledger’s California-related activities, it lacked specific jurisdiction over Ledger. Id . at *34-35. For these reasons, the Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Ford Motor Co., et al. v. Montana Eight Judicial District, 141 S. Ct. 1017 (2021). In two separate products liability cases, Plaintiffs brought class actions in state court stemming from a car accidents involving automobiles manufactured by Defendant. Specifically, the lawsuits were brought in Montana and Minnesota, the states where Plaintiffs’ respective accidents occurred and where each Plaintiff resided. Defendant moved to dismiss the lawsuits on the basis that the state courts lacked personal jurisdiction over Defendant because the vehicles were designed and manufactured elsewhere, and Defendant had originally sold the cars at issue outside the forum States. Only later resales and relocations by consumers had brought the vehicles to Montana and