Class Action Suit Against RIAA Can Proceed

fourohfour writes "Ars Technica is running a story on Tanya Andersen, who was awarded attorney fees in September of last year after the RIAA dropped their case against her. The RIAA subsequently appealed that award, but a US District Court judge yesterday not only upheld the award, but also upheld the dismissal of her counterclaims without prejudice. They may now be heard as part of a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the RIAA. Andersen is seeking class action status for her lawsuit, so that anyone else who has not engaged in illegal file sharing but has been threatened with legal action by the RIAA may join in. This is the case that alleges that the RIAA attempted to contact Andersen's then eight-year-old daughter under false pretenses without her permission."

Another Misleading Title

[Nukenbar]

The title of the story seems to indicate that a class action suit is underway against the RIAA. That is not the case. The judge's dismissal of the case without prejudice simply means that she can now file a lawsuit and attempt to have her class certified. Class certification is a very complicated process and probably won't happen.

Re:oohhh yeeesss... but...

[lucky130]

Something to remember is that RIAA isn't a company, as such, but a collection of companies.

Class elements

[debrain]

That appears to be a good thing, but I do not think it will necessarily be an easy class to certify. While each jurisdiction with class action legislation has its own version of the following, often with rather concise tests for each element, the general idea is as follows:

A court will certify a class proceeding where there is:
1. An identifiable group
2. With a cause of action that has a triable issue
3. With an appropriate class representative
4. Whom all have common issues
5. and Whose conflict is best resolved by a class action.

In this case, on 1:
Is the identifiable group people who have been sued by the RIAA? The more it is a subset of individuals who have not just been sued by the RIAA, but a subset of that group that has suffered other behaviour and that other behaviour is key to the group, the less identifiable the group is (so to speak).

On 2:
Is there a cause of action for just being sued by the RIAA? If everything that the plaintiff pleads is true, and this would not give rise to a legal judgment, then the action may be dismissed at certification. This is often just a screener to certification of frivolous claims, and some jurisdictions do not have it.

On 3:
Is this lady the best class representative? Can she fund the litigation (in part, though not to the end)? Does she have any interests averse to that of the class?

On 4:
If the case requires more details of how the RIAA treated each individual, then there's an argument that the individual issues predominate over the common ones.

The stronger the case that the RIAA bringing a suit against any individual gives rise to legal remedy,the more the RIAA had a documented pattern of behaviour, the better.

On 5:
If a class proceeding is not the "best" way to resolve a conflict, sometimes it will not be certified. Alternatives including bringing a test case, individual cases, and alternative dispute resolution.

Again, the tests vary significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but that's the general framework of the hurdle that the plaintiff will have to get over in order to certify her action as a class action.

Re:What did they say to her daughter?

[thomas.galvin]

From TFA: "Her complaint contains some very disturbing allegations, including one that labels attempted to contact her then eight-year-old daughter under false pretenses without Andersen's permission."

If memory serves, mommy explicitly denied them access to her daughter, and the RIAA then called the school, pretending to be her grandmother or something, hoping to get her to confess over the phone.

Re:I wonder

[Tsuki_no_Hikari]

They do damages at $750/song because that is the bare minimum of damages per item that can be enforced in court when dealing with copyright infrigement. They could have gone much higher.

They're still evil baby eaters, but just saying that the damages are the absolute least they can take in court.

Re:/. readers are excluded then

[Oddster]

The phrase "innocent until proven guilty" is not a statement of what is the truth. It is a statement of legal status.