Consumer Class Actions May Founder Due to Eleventh Circuit Split

A majority of the Eleventh Circuit voted not to revisit a 2020 opinion prohibiting incentive awards for class representatives, solidifying a new circuit split over whether a pair of 19th century Supreme Court cases have always barred the payments.

“By holding that incentive awards are unlawful per se, the majority opinion broke with decisions from this and every other circuit allowing these awards when properly approved under the strictures of Rule 23,” Judge Jill Pryor said in a dissent from rehearing the case, joined by Judges Charles R. Wilson, Adalberto Jordan, and Robin S. Rosenbaum.

“The stakes are high,” Pryor ...