Class action defense

Overview

When faced with a class action, your money is not the only thing at stake; your reputation and entire business could be on the line, too. At McDonald Hopkins, our class action defense attorneys will aggressively pursue your defense to achieve the best possible outcome.

The starting point for any successful class action defense is knowledge of the law, the facts, the players, and the business. Our team will work with yours to truly understand the issues, identify strengths and weaknesses, define success, develop a litigation strategy, and engage the right experts – with an eye toward narrowing discovery, defeating class certification, and ultimately ending the case at the earliest possible opportunity.

McDonald Hopkins’ attorneys have extensive experience defending against numerous types of class action claims. Our experience covers a wide range of issues, from data breach, consumer protection, product labeling, and securities matters, to Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act cases and antitrust, wage-and-hour, and mass-tort claims. Through our class action defense and data privacy experience, McDonald Hopkins attorneys have worked with a broad array of businesses, including in the insurance, software and technology, healthcare, food production, banking, manufacturing, and transportation industries.

McDonald Hopkins has particular expertise in supporting companies involved in data breach, cybersecurity and other privacy matters. Our attorneys have responded to thousands of incidents involving the inadvertent disclosure of customer and patient information, phishing scams, and ransomware attacks, and have handled numerous class action cases arising from those events.

Experience

Our specific class-action experience includes defense of:

• Data Breach and Data Privacy Cases

Multiple data breach class actions involving over a million putative class members
A multi-state hospital system in a case alleging violations of state law and breach of contract
A local hospital group against allegations that it failed to protect patient privacy after a phishing attack
A large healthcare association accused of improperly securing patient data

• Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act Claims

Companies accused of using fingerprint-based timekeeping devices with employees
Over 30 healthcare facilities accused of using employee hand geometry to track time at work
The manufacturer of facial-recognition timeclocks and associated cloud-based services accused of indirectly collecting biometrics from its customers’ employee

• Telephone Consumer Protect Act (“TCPA”) Litigation

Fax and text “blast” cases brought under the TCPA
Claims involving debt-collection calls with an auto-dialer

• Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) Lawsuits

Fortune 500 and mid-sized corporations in FLSA class actions alleging overtime and similar wage-and-hour claims
An international courier against FLSA billing fraud claims

• Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) Cases

A multinational freight transportation company in a class action complaint alleging violations of FCRA

• Antitrust and Consumer Protection Disputes

Antitrust cases in the dairy and technology industries, including a 23-count complaint alleging various federal antitrust violations and tort and consumer-protection claims under the laws of five different states
A software manufacturer in a consumer fraud class action
A multinational oil and gas company in products liability class action filed by boat owners