General Motors class action will be centralized in Northern District of Georgia
The suit alleges GM provided driver data to brokers who created reports of individuals' driving history and sold them to insurance companies to charge higher premiums.
Several class action data tracking lawsuits against General Motors have been transferred to the U.S. District for the Northern District of Georgia by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. The litigation consists of seven cases in five separate districts accusing GM and its subsidiary OnStar, and data broker LexisNexis Risk Solutions, of collecting personal driving information without consent.
The cases, filed beginning in March, allege that GM and others worked to gather data from drivers using internet-connected sensors in Buick, GMC, Chevrolet and Cadillac vehicles, then sold it to data brokers like LexisNexis and Verisk Analytics. Those companies then created reports of individuals’ driving history and sold them to insurance companies to charge higher premiums.
Plaintiffs across the multiple actions and potential tagalong actions wished to move the litigation to other districts, including the U.S. District Courts for the Central District of California, Eastern District of Michigan, Middle District of Pennsylvania, District of Minnesota and others. The MDL panel has been notified of 20 potentially-related lawsuits since the motion to centralize was filed.
“Centralization will eliminate duplicative discovery; prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings, including with respect to class certification; and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel, and the judiciary,” federal judge and Chair of the MDL Panel Karen K. Caldwell said in the June 7 transfer order.
On the scope of the litigation, plaintiffs asserted that the MDL should include actions naming auto manufacturers other than GM. The panel, however, could not reach that issue, as none of the cases included in the motion for centralization involve other manufacturers.
Only two class actions are currently pending against manufacturers outside of GM, Vaughn v. KIA Motors in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Winkelvoss v. Hyundai Motors in the Central District of California. The panel noted that proponents of an industry-wide MDL have a “heavy burden” to show their actions have significant overlap with the underlying cases.
“The actions appear to involve unique factual issues concerning each automaker’s design and implementation of technology for gathering driver data, its interactions and relationship with LexisNexis and/or Verisk, and its disclosures to drivers about data gathering and dissemination,” the order said.
Georgia was an ideal location, the panel found, because LexisNexis is headquartered in the northern region of the state, allowing relevant documents and witnesses to be easily found. U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. was also identified as an appropriate judge to preside over the litigation as he already presides over five potentially-related cases and has “a wealth of MDL experience,” according to the panel.
Law firms including Morgan & Morgan, Keller Rohrback, Tycko & Zavareei and Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz have all filed class actions on behalf of GM customers. Counsel for plaintiff Jariya Thongsawang, who moved to centralize the litigation, Tina Wolfson of Ahdoot & Wolfson in Burbank, California, did not return a request for comment.
Counsel for GM, David Balser of King & Spalding in Atlanta, did not respond to a request for comment.