James Tysse Quoted in Law360 on Supreme Court Privacy Class Action Case

James Tysse, counsel in Akin Gump’s Supreme Court and appellate practice, is quoted in the Law360 article “High Court Poised To Set Pace Of Privacy Class Actions,” which reports on the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case centered around the question of whether consumers can sue companies for technical violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and similar statutes without alleging an actual injury.

The article notes that the case in question, Spokeo v. Robins, has broad implications for establishing standing under statutes like the FCRA, which the respondent claims Spokeo Inc. violated by falsely reporting that he was wealthy and had a graduate degree when, in fact, he was actually struggling to find work.

Speaking of the case, Tysse said it is “shaping up to be one of the biggest corporate cases for this upcoming term, as it promises to have a broad impact on class actions.”

Depending on how the Court rules, it could become much harder, Tysse added, for lawsuits to become massive class actions: “Rather than finding a named plaintiff and trying to certify a class of millions who have alleged the same injury based on the same statutory violation, every class member would have to allege and then show at the certification stage that they suffered a concrete and particularized injury of their own.”