One More Time: No Standing for Injunctive Relief, No Class Settlement Approval

For the second time in less than a year, the Eleventh Circuit has vacated a district court’s approval of a class action settlement on the ground that the named plaintiffs lacked standing to seek the injunctive relief component of the settlement. In Smith v. Miorelli, 2024 WL 7700360 (11th Cir. Feb. 26, 2024), the court held that because none of the three named plaintiffs alleged any threat of future injury at the hands of the defendant, they lacked Article III standing to seek injunctive relief.  The district court thus erred in assigning a $5 million value to the settlement’s injunctive relief and in approving the overall settlement valued at $32 million, which also included product vouchers and attorneys’ fees.  Judge Lisa Branch’s opinion for the court applied the court’s holding to the same effect last year in Williams v. Reckitt LLC, 65 F.4th 1243, 1251 (11th Cir. 2023).  The court remanded the case without reaching objections to other aspects of the settlement, including that the settlement was a coupon settlement requiring heightened scrutiny under 28 U.S.C. § 1712(e).