CHICAGO, January 7, 2025—Duane Morris LLP has released its Class Action Review ‒2025, an analysis of more than 1,441 decisions in the past year, examining all categories of class action litigation. This exclusive, one-of-a-kind publication provides a comprehensive analysis of class action litigation trends and significant rulings and settlements from 2024 that will enable readers to make informed decisions when dealing with complex litigation risks in 2025.

“Duane Morris offers a powerful and multifaceted capability for businesses to successfully plan and navigate in the class action defense environment, and Jerry Maatman, Jen Riley and their talented team can handle any situation,” said Duane Morris Chairman and CEO Matthew A. Taylor. “Without a doubt, the American workplace continues to evolve, creating both substantial risks and plentiful business opportunities. Our publication analyzes class action trends, decisions and settlements in all areas impacting corporate America and provides timely insights as to what companies and corporate counsel can expect in the year ahead.”

“With a robust pro-plaintiff litigation environment, it is clear that class action litigation represents an increased financial risk for companies,” said Duane Morris partner Gerald L. Maatman Jr., co-author of the review and chair of the firm’s class action defense practice team. “Plus, we are seeing the class action landscape as increasingly plaintiff-friendly in key areas, including data privacy and data breaches, and diversity and ESG initiatives.”

“Along with our outlook for a decreased role for government enforcement, the increasingly active and influential pace of Supreme Court decisions will continue to loom over the class action landscape,” added Duane Morris partner Jennifer A. Riley, co-author of the review and vice chair of the firm’s class action defense practice team. “We hope that this valuable resource will once again assist organizations in taking critical steps to manage their risks.”

Since 2003, Maatman has been directing a yearly review of the class action landscape. A Chambers-recognized defense litigator, Maatman has defended some of the largest workplace class actions ever filed in the United States.

Among the 10 overarching trends in the class action area in 2024, the Duane Morris Class Action Review highlights four key takeaways for companies in 2025, including:

1. Settlement Numbers Break $40 Billion for the Third Year in a Row

In 2024, settlement numbers broke the $40 billion mark for the third year in a row. The cumulative value of the highest 10 settlements in each substantive area of class action litigation totaled $42 billion. That number is the third highest value we have tallied in the last two decades, next only to the numbers we saw in 2023 and 2022, where settlements totaled $51.4 billion and $66 billion, respectively. Combined, the past three years reflect use of the class action litigation process to redistribute wealth at an unprecedented level. These numbers explain why we are continuing to see growth in the class action space, where the plaintiffs’ class action bar is clamoring to identify the next “tort of the day” to cash in on this veritable lottery.

2. PFAS and Reverse Discrimination Claims Emerge as a Class Action Threat

• PFAS class actions inspired some of the most attention-grabbing headlines this past year across the legal landscape. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of man-made chemicals that are resistant to oil, water and heat. They are used in many consumer and industrial products and are commonly called “forever chemicals” because of their persistence, meaning they do not break down easily in the environment. PFAS generated the largest class action settlement in 2024, which came in at more than twice the next highest settlement, also involving PFAS, and generated an attorneys’ fee award of nearly $1 billion. These numbers are going to inspire a continued wave of PFAS class actions, as the plaintiffs’ class action bar targets more companies with claims that their products or packaging contained PFAS, and those companies, in turn, search for claims against their material suppliers.
• The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admission stimulated a flood of claims targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs over the past year. Headlines were replete with cases of employees and applicants accusing employers of prioritizing diversity over merit and improperly using protected characteristics to guide decision-making. A rare class action trial in California this past year led a jury to find a technology firm liable for engaging in a pattern or practice of intentional discrimination against Caucasian and non-Indian employees in its termination and deployment decisions. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to resolve a federal circuit split over whether members of a majority group alleging “reverse discrimination” must meet a higher burden of proof, potentially opening the courthouse to more such claims.

3. Data Breach and Privacy Class Actions Continue to Be a Focus

• Data breach litigation remained expansive in 2024 as plaintiffs filed more data breach class actions than in any other year, doubling the number filed in 2022. Despite the significant increase in filings, courts issued few (only five) class certification decisions in 2024, suggesting that many motions are in the pipeline or that, observing the difficulty that plaintiffs have faced in certifying such cases over the past two years, plaintiffs are electing to monetize their data breach claims prior to reaching that crucial juncture. So long as defendants continue to play ball on the settlement front, we are likely to see settlement payouts continue to lure plaintiffs to this space and fuel those filing numbers.
• As technology continues to infiltrate our everyday lives, it continues to provide the grist for potential class-wide claims. On August 2, 2024, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a long-awaited amendment to the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The amendment eliminated per-scan damages, effectively doing away with the potentially crushing penalties allowed under a pre-amendment version of the law that inspired thousands of class action lawsuits over the past seven years. While potential per-person damages remain significant, the growth in such claims has remained essentially flat as plaintiffs shifted their privacy claims over the past year away from biometrics and toward theories inspired by internet use. Although website activity tracking tools are nothing new, and appear on most popular websites, this past year they continued to fuel a wave of lawsuits alleging that use of such tools caused companies in various industries to share users’ private information. While some of these cases and claims met an early dismissal, others inspired sizable settlements, signaling continued investment in this area by the plaintiffs’ bar.

4. California Remains Ground Zero

PAGA inspired more representative lawsuits than any other statute this past year. According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, plaintiffs filed more than 9,464 PAGA notices in 2024, a nearly 22% increase over 2023, and a whopping 85,936% increase over the 11 PAGA notices filed in 2006. The so-called PAGA reform legislation passed in 2024 seemingly did little to nothing to curb interest in these cases, which continue to present one of the most viable workarounds to workplace arbitration agreements. Although the U.S. Supreme Court held merely two years ago in Viking River v. Moriana that PAGA claims have both individual and representative components, the former of which is subject to arbitration, some California courts already have started disregarding that decision and finding no front-end hurdle to plaintiffs’ ability to jump to an immediate representative proceeding in court.

At more than 650 pages, the Duane Morris Class Action Review ‒ 2025 is available in hard copy book format and as a fully searchable e-book.

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