Campbell v. Facebook, Inc.

Docket number: 16-cv-4196 (Eastern District of New York)

The Center for Class Action Fairness objected to a cynical class action settlement in Campbell v. Facebook, Inc. This class action arose from Facebook’s alleged practice of capturing and using URL content in its users’ personal Facebook messages without their consent. The parties reached a lopsided settlement in which the plaintiffs’ attorneys recover $3.9 million while the class gets injunctive relief consisting of 22 words regarding Facebook’s practices added to a Facebook help page.

Class member Anna St. John objected to the unfairness of this disproportionate allocation and to the inadequacy of the class representatives who tried to foist such a settlement on the class with no notice other than postings on the law firms’ websites.

The fairness hearing was held on August 9, 2017. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California approved the settlement on August 18, 2017.

“We had hoped the court would recognize that this settlement exemplifies the worst of lawyer-driven class actions and should not be approved under existing law,” said CCAF director Ted Frank about the decision. “The class relief is entirely illusory and yet the attorneys claim they are entitled to millions of dollars in fees.”

CCAF appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed approval of the settlement due to the unique facts of the case, particularly the fact that the district court had denied certification of damages claims, precluding class members from winning more than injunctive relief.

This case was formerly a project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and now is being actively litigated by the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute.

Case Documents