TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez
Issues
Should a class action lawsuit pursuing statutory damages be allowed under Article III or Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 when the majority of the class members did not experience harm as severe as that suffered by the named plaintiff?
This case asks the Supreme Court to determine whether Article III or the typicality requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 (“FRCP”) should allow a class action claiming statutory damages when most of the class members did not suffer actual injury, or an injury similar to that of the class representative. Petitioner TransUnion, LLC (“TransUnion”) argues that in order for a class in a statutory damages action to have standing under Article III, each absent class member must show common concrete injury and, if future risk constitutes the injury, must demonstrate that such risk is certainly impending. TransUnion asserts that to achieve typicality under FRCP 23, a class representative’s facts must be substantially shared with those of the rest of the class. Respondent Sergio L. Ramirez (“Ramirez”) counters that a class may show Article III injury by demonstrating that the harm caused by a statutory violation is analogous to that of common law claims. Ramirez also asserts that the typicality requirement is satisfied when a class representative shares the same interest and has suffered injury common to the absent class members. This case involves questions of how the Court should weigh the role of class actions and statutory damages in protecting consumers against the due process rights of litigants.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
Whether either Article III or Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 permits a damages class action when the vast majority of the class suffered no actual injury, let alone an injury anything like what the class representative suffered.
In February 2011, Sergio Ramirez (“Ramirez”) went to a Nissan dealership and decided to buy a new car with his wife. Ramirez v. TransUnion LLC at 1017. After running a joint credit check on Ramirez and his wife, the dealership informed Ramirez that they could not complete the purchase because his name matched one appearing on a “terrorist” list maintained by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls (“OFAC”).
Edited by
Additional Resources
- Alison Frankel, Unlikely Bedfellows in TransUnion SCOTUS case: Justice Thomas and Class Action Fans, Reuters (Mar. 11, 2021).
- Rucha Desai, Do All Class Members Have Standing for Mere Statutory Violations? The Supreme Court Will Decide, The National Law Review (Feb. 17, 2021).