A loophole left open for defendants in a critical class action ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last year is making little headway in the courts, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit striking down the procedural maneuver this week.
In a Tuesday opinion, the Seventh Circuit found that a defendant’s deposit of $3,600 into a court account that compensated the lead plaintiff in full did not moot the entire class action. Bisco Inc., the defendant in the case, deposited the funds after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Campbell-Ewald v. Gomez barred a similar tactic designed to “pick off” lead plaintiffs in class actions but reserved any opinion on whether the situation would be different had the defendant actually paid the funds.
