18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

662 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition routes or flight times presented an increased risk of sexual assaults, that Plaintiffs were at a heightened risk of being sexually assaulted, or that these assailants fit the profile of a typical sexual-assault perpetrator. Id . at *8-9. Thus, the Court concluded that there were no allegations to suggest that Defendant had notice that Plaintiffs or the proposed class members were likely to experience a sexual assault. As to Plaintiffs’ class allegations, Plaintiffs sought to represent a class consisting of "all passengers who flew on Frontier flights between December 16, 2017 and the present." Id. at *17. Defendant argued that the class definition was overbroad and the class members’ claims were too dissimilar. The Magistrate Judge had concluded that “a class which includes all Frontier passengers, whether they have been sexually assaulted or not . . . is wildly overbroad." Id. The Magistrate Judge further reasoned that issues regarding each individual Plaintiff would predominate over any questions that were common to the class such that class certification would not be appropriate. The Court agreed with the Magistrate Judge’s conclusion that the class definition was overbroad. The Court reasoned that Plaintiffs’ proposed class would include thousands of individuals who never have been, and will never be, sexually assaulted on one of Defendant’s flights. Id . at *18. Further, members of the proposed class may never fly on Defendant’s airline again, and accordingly, would not retain any benefit from the relief sought. Therefore, the Court agreed that the proposed class was overbroad and that class treatment would not be appropriate. For these reasons, the Court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s recommendations, dismissed the majority of Plaintiffs’ claims, and struck the class allegations from the complaint. Syeed, et al. v. Bloomberg L.P., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 205237 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 25, 2021). Plaintiffs, two reporters, filed a class action alleging claims on behalf of themselves and a putative class of similarly-situated current and former women employees, alleging that Defendant subjected them to discrimination on the basis of their sex and race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the New York State Human Rights Law ("NYSHRL"), and the New York City Human Rights Law ("NYCHRL"). Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). The Court granted the motion. First, as to Plaintiff Syeed’s claims, since she worked in Washington D.C., the Court ruled that Syeed failed to establish that she felt the impact of Defendant’s constructive discharge or their failure to promote her in New York as required by the NYCHRL and the NYSHRL. Accordingly, the Court granted Defendant’s motion as to Syeed’s claims for constructive discharge and failure to promote under the NYCHRL and the NYSHRL. The Court also dismissed Plaintiff Ndugga’s Title VII claims because she failed to exhaust her administrative remedies with respect to the claims. Ndugga also brought claims under the NYCHRL for disparate compensation, denial of promotions, and a hostile work environment. The Court found that Ndugga’s allegations that she was systematically looked over for promotions and opportunities that were "given to her male peers" and her identification of these individuals provided contextual support for her claims. Id . at *40. However, the Court ruled that Ndugga’s claims for failure to promote failed because she did not identify a position for which she applied and was denied a promotion. For these reasons, the Court therefore granted Defendant’s motion dismiss Syeed’s claims under the NYCHRL and the NYSHRL and Ndugga’s Title VII claims, denied Defendant’s motion to dismiss Ndugga’s disparate pay and hostile work environment claims under the NYCHRL and the NYSHRL, granted Defendant’s motion as to Ndugga’s disparate impact claims under the NYSHRL and Ndugga’s failure to promote claims under the NYCHRL. Vargas, et al. v. Facebook, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158259 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of application users, filed a class action alleging that Defendant’s former practice of allowing advertisers to self- select target audiences for their paid housing advertisements ("Targeted Ads" or "Ads") violated the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”). Defendant filed a motion to dismiss for failure to sate a claim, which the Court granted. The Court previously had granted Plaintiff leave to file a third amended complaint, with instructions to include additional details. Defendant contended that the more detailed allegations were still not sufficient to confer standing because they did not plausibly allege that Plaintiffs were injured by the advertisers’ use of the Ad targeting tools. The Court agreed with Defendant. The Court noted that the only facts Plaintiffs alleged were that they each used Facebook to search for housing based on identified criteria and that no results were returned that met their criteria. Id . at *9. The Court determined that Plaintiffs failed to allege any facts to support their contention that there were no results returned because of their protected class status when there actually were results available based on their criteria. The Court opined that even if Plaintiffs had alleged sufficient facts to plausibly state an injury, their claims would still be barred by § 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which "immunizes providers of interactive computer services against liability arising from content created by third-