Jim Sciaroni v. Target Corporation
Opinion
This case is back to us after our reversal of the certification of a class composed of individuals whose payment card information was compromised as a result of the 2013 Target security breach.
See
In re Target Corp. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig.
,
I. Background
In 2015, the district court certified a class of "[a]ll persons in the United States whose credit or debit card information and/or whose personal information was compromised as a result of the data breach that was first disclosed by Target on December 19, 2013." As has become common, the class was certified solely for the purpose of entering into a settlement agreement. The parties presented such an agreement to the court in short order.
Under the terms of this agreement, Target agreed to pay $10 million to settle the claims of all class members and waived its right to appeal an award of attorney's fees less than or equal to $6.75 million. 3 For those class members with documented proof of loss, the agreement called for full compensation of their actual losses up to $10,000 per claimant. For those class members with undocumented losses, the agreement directed a pro rata distribution of the amounts remaining after payments to documented-loss claimants and class representatives. Additionally, Target agreed to implement a number of data-security measures and to pay all class notice and administration expenses.
There were two primary objectors to the court's certification of the class and approval of the settlement agreement: Leif Olson and Jim Sciaroni. In the original appeal of this matter, Olson argued that the court failed to conduct the appropriate pre-certification analysis, and Sciaroni objected to the court's approval of the settlement. We agreed with Olson's argument and therefore remanded to the district court without considering Sciaroni's objections.
On remand, the court again certified the class. Olson appeals that decision, claiming the district court factually misunderstood the settlement agreement and failed to account for a number of alleged conflicts of interest between class counsel and class members and among competing subgroups of class members. In addition, Sciaroni's original objections to the settlement are before us. We first address Olson's claims before moving to Sciaroni's objections.
II. Olson
On appeal, Olson raises two principal challenges to the district court's certification order.
4
First, he contends the district court fundamentally misunderstood the structure of the settlement agreement. Next, he argues that there is an intraclass conflict between class members who suffered verifiable losses from the data breach and those, like Olson, who have not, and that this conflict necessitates separate legal counsel.
5
We address each argument in turn, applying the deferential abuse of discretion standard.
See
Petrovic v. Amoco Oil Co.
,
A.
Olson first launches a factual challenge to the district court's order. Under the terms of the settlement, the proceeds are first distributed to those individuals who submit proof of actual loss, up to a total amount of $10,000 per claimant. Next, the class representative awards are paid. Then any remaining proceeds are distributed in equal amounts to those claimants with undocumented losses. The district court accurately presented this structure on page 3 of its order, but it later made two comments which form the basis of Olson's attack:
Plaintiffs who have not suffered any monetary injury likely have no claim to any future payment and thus the equitable relief from the settlement, in addition to the possible pro-rata share of the remaining settlement fund, constitutes all of the relief they could hope to reap from this litigation.
....
Plaintiffs who have no demonstrable injury receive the benefit of Target's institutional reforms that will better protect consumers' information in the future, and will also receive a pro-rata share of any remaining settlement fund.
Proceeding from these statements, Olson contends the district court fundamentally misunderstood the settlement structure because it apparently believed that those claimants in the zero-loss subclass would receive a share of remaining settlement proceeds. Under Olson's view, "that error alone warrants reversal." We disagree.
To be sure, as Olson points out, we have stated that "[t]he district court ... abuses its discretion if its conclusions rest on clearly erroneous factual determinations."
Blades v. Monsanto Co.
,
B.
Olson next argues that there is an intraclass conflict between class members who suffered verifiable losses from the data breach and those, like Olson, who have not. Olson uses different names for this latter subclass, sometimes referring to it as a zero-recovery subgroup
6
and other times calling it a future-damages subclass. In substance, Olson's contention is that under the Supreme Court's asbestos decisions in
Amchem
and
Ortiz
, the district court's ruling was legally deficient because, even assuming there were named representatives from the zero-loss subclass, separate legal counsel was required to protect that subclass's interests.
See, e.g.
,
Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp.
,
We need look no further than the language of Amchem itself to refute this assertion.
Describing the then-current state of asbestos litigation, the Court noted:
[This] is a tale of danger known in the 1930s, exposure inflicted upon millions of Americans in the 1940s and 1950s, injuries that began to take their toll in the 1960s, and a flood of lawsuits beginning in the 1970s. On the basis of past and current filing data, and because of a latency period that may last as long as 40 years for some asbestos related diseases, a continuing stream of claims can be expected. The final toll of asbestos related injuries is unknown. Predictions have been made of 200,000 asbestos disease deaths before the year 2000 and as many as 265,000 by the year 2015.
Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor
,
After finding that Rule 23(b)(3)'s predominance requirement was not satisfied by the proposed class, the Court focused on Rule 23(a)(4)'s adequacy inquiry with the goal of uncovering whether there were "conflicts of interest between named parties and the class they seek to represent."
Olson struggles to analogize the present case to
Amchem
and
Ortiz
, asserting that class members with verified losses are attempting to maximize their recovery at the expense of those who "might only have future ... damages." His attempts are futile. As the Supreme Court noted, "[i]n contrast to mass torts involving a single accident, class members in this case were exposed to different asbestos-containing products, in different ways, over different periods, and for different amounts of time; some suffered no physical injury, others suffered disabling or deadly diseases."
Here, we have "a discrete and identified class that has suffered a harm the extent of which has largely been ascertained."
As Olson himself states, "all class members suffered the same injury, i.e., compromise of their personal and financial information from the data breach." Thus, similar to the mass tort cases the Supreme Court discussed in Amchem , we have one accident here-the data breach-that caused a series of events leading to the plaintiffs' injuries. But all class members had the ability to register for credit monitoring, and all of the compromised payment cards undoubtedly were cancelled and replaced by the issuing banks. Any risk of future harm is therefore entirely speculative, which is perhaps best illustrated by Olson's inability to direct the court-even generally-to a concrete type of future harm that the settlement fails to consider.
Of course, it is hypothetically possible that a member of the zero-loss subclass will suffer some future injury; for example, a line of credit could be opened using the personal information compromised in the breach. But this is just as likely to happen to a member of the subclass with documented losses. Accordingly, the interests of the two subclasses here are more congruent than disparate, and there is no fundamental conflict requiring separate representation.
See
DeBoer v. Mellon Mortg. Co.
,
The district court did not abuse its discretion in certifying the class.
III. Sciaroni
Having found the district court properly certified the class, we now turn to Sciaroni's challenges to the district court's original order concerning the settlement in this case. Sciaroni first launches a two-fold challenge to the court's award of attorney's fees, arguing at the outset that the court erred by considering the costs of notice and administration expenses as a benefit to the class and then challenging the overall reasonableness of the award. Next, Sciaroni contends that the court erred in approving the settlement.
A.
Sciaroni first urges us to adopt the Seventh Circuit's approach to determine whether administrative fees and costs are a benefit to the class as a whole.
See
Redman v. RadioShack Corp.
,
Sciaroni next challenges the reasonableness of the total fee award. "Decisions of the district court regarding attorney fees in a class action settlement will
generally be set aside only upon a showing that the action amounted to an abuse of discretion."
Petrovic
,
Perfunctory as its analysis may have been, we cannot say the district court failed to meet its burden "to provide a concise but clear explanation of its reasons for the fee award."
Hensley
, 461 U.S. at 437,
B. Approval of the Settlement
Finally, Sciaroni takes issue with the district court's approval of the settlement, arguing that the court awarded "worthless objective relief," inadequately compensated class members, and ignored "subtle signs of collusion." Looking past the labels he uses, the thrust of Sciaroni's argument is that the settlement was unfair. As a prerequisite to approval, a district court must find that a settlement is "fair, reasonable, and adequate," and we will set aside this finding "[o]nly upon the clear showing that the district court abused its discretion."
Prof'l Firefighters Ass'n of Omaha v. Zalewski
,
In determining whether a settlement agreement is fair, "a district court should consider (1) the merits of the plaintiff's case[ ] weighed against the terms of the settlement, (2) the defendant's financial condition, (3) the complexity and expense of further litigation, and (4) the amount of opposition to the settlement."
8
In re Uponor, Inc., F1807 Plumbing Fittings Prods. Liab. Litig.
,
The district court did not abuse its discretion. Indeed, despite the brevity of its reasoning on other questions, the court gave a carefully reasoned and complete analysis of all four
Van Horn
factors. On the first, it accurately noted the uphill battle facing the plaintiffs if this litigation were to proceed: standing issues being the most prevalent given the glaring fact that most of the plaintiffs suffered no concrete injury as a result of the breach. Weighed against this consideration, the monetary and non-monetary relief offered under the settlement likely offers the plaintiffs "the only conceivable remedies they could expect."
See
In re Uponor, Inc.
,
Discussing the second factor, the court noted that Target has ample means to pay the settlement and therefore considered this neutral in the analysis. The court then discussed the third factor, commenting that "[f]urther litigation ... would undoubtedly be expensive and complex" in light of the impending "voluminous discovery" and the fact that the plaintiffs' consumer-protection claims arise under state law in nearly every jurisdiction in the country.
Cf.
Keil
,
Sciaroni argues the worthless objective relief, combined with the presence of "clear-sailing" and "kicker" clauses in the agreement, subtly shows that the settling parties are guilty of collusion. A clear-sailing provision is one where "the defendants agree[ ] not to oppose the request for attorney fees,"
Johnston v. Comerica Mortg. Corp.
,
IV. Conclusion
For the aforementioned reasons, we affirm the rulings of the district court.
The Honorable Paul A. Magnuson, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota.
Under the agreement, the $10 million class fund is entirely separate from any award of attorney's fees and costs.
Olson raises two additional arguments that can be quickly disposed of. First, he contends there are no named class representatives from the zero-loss subclass.
See
Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4) (requiring, as a prerequisite to class certification, that "the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class"). This argument is belied by the record. Olson concedes in his brief that, as of the time the suit was filed, there were thirteen named plaintiffs who had not submitted claims for reimbursement. Moreover, as of the moment the district court certified the class, there were four named plaintiffs who had claimed no out-of-pocket losses. Next, Olson claims that there is an intraclass conflict between those individuals who reside in states that offer statutory causes of action and those who do not. On this point, Olson asserts that class members from states such as California, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia are being forced to forego their state-law statutory claims in return for "marginal compensation" under the terms of the settlement. But Olson-a resident of Texas, which does not offer a statutory cause of action-has no standing to assert a conflict on behalf of residents from states offering such relief.
See
In re SuperValu, Inc.
,
Olson does not draw such neat lines between his arguments, but we are satisfied that dividing them in this way addresses all of his claims.
Littered throughout Olson's materials is his assertion that class members with no proof of loss-documented or undocumented-are barred from receiving anything of value under the agreement. This is, perhaps, why he has chosen to label those class members as the "zero-recovery subgroup." But the injunctive relief offered under the settlement has value to all class members.
See
Marshall v. Nat'l Football League
,
The factors are:
(1) the time and labor required; (2) the novelty and difficulty of the questions; (3) the skill requisite to perform the legal service properly; (4) the preclusion of employment by the attorney due to acceptance of the case; (5) the customary fee; (6) whether the fee is fixed or contingent; (7) time limitations imposed by the client or the circumstances; (8) the amount involved and the results obtained; (9) the experience, reputation, and ability of the attorneys; (10) the "undesirability" of the case; (11) the nature and length of the professional relationship with the client; and (12) awards in similar cases.
Winter v. Cerro Gordo Cty. Conservation Bd.
,
Our precedent collectively refers to these as the
Van Horn
factors, alluding to their genesis in
Van Horn v. Trickey
,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- In RE: TARGET CORPORATION CUSTOMER DATA SECURITY BREACH LITIGATION Jim Sciaroni, Objector-Appellant v. Consumer, Plaintiffs, Plaintiff-Appellee Target Corporation, Defendant-Appellee in Re: Target Corporation Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Leif A. Olson, Objector-Appellant v. Consumer, Plaintiffs, Plaintiff-Appellee Target Corporation, Defendant-Appellee in Re: Target Corporation Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Leif A. Olson, Objector-Appellant v. Consumer, Plaintiffs, Plaintiff-Appellee Target Corporation, Defendant-Appellee in Re: Target Corporation Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Jim Sciaroni, Objector-Appellant v. Consumer, Plaintiffs, Plaintiff-Appellee Target Corporation, Defendant-Appellee in Re: Target Corporation Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Leif A. Olson, Objector-Appellant v. Consumer, Plaintiffs, Plaintiff-Appellee Target Corporation, Defendant-Appellee
- Cited By
- 26 cases
- Status
- Published