Buckley’s FACTA Class Action Denied Certification, Reaches Settlement

A FACTA class action lawsuit filed against Buckley’s Great Steaks Inc. has been denied Class certification by a federal court, partially because a FACTA settlement has been reached between the parties.

What is FACTA?

The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (or FACTA) is set of laws Congress established in 2003 to cut down on the ever-growing trend of identity theft and credit card fraud.

FACTA specifically requires merchants and retailers to follow certain criteria in order to protect consumers’ personal information. FACTA applies to all forms of electronically printed customer receipts that are printed during a sales transaction by a cash register, self-service kiosk, or by other means. One of the main ways a retailer violate FACTA is by printing a debit or credit card’s expiration date on a sales receipt.

FACTA Class Action Lawsuit

Plaintiff Margaret F. filed this FACTA class action lawsuit, alleging Buckley’s “ issued approximately 32,000 electronically printed point-of-sale credit-card receipts that included the card’s expiration date.”

The plaintiff had asked the court to certify a Class that would include: “All persons to whom, on or after February 6, 2012 (the ‘Class Period’), Defendants provided a receipt that has the person’s full name, [the] last four digits of [the] credit card or debit card’s numbers and the full credit card or debit card’s expiration date.”

However, after Margaret filed for Class certification, both parties submitted a settlement agreement for this FACTA class action lawsuit. In early January of this year, the parties came before the court for a pretrial conference, at which time the preliminary approval for the proposed FACTA settlement was discussed, as well as some issues that would bar the certification of a Buckley’s FACTA Class.

One of the issues raised by Buckley in this FACTA class action lawsuit was the plaintiff’s adequacy as a class representative. According to the complaint, the defendant brought up Margaret’s “lack of knowledge concerning the case and her passivity as a plaintiff,” and “a lack of credibility that manifested itself at her deposition,” traits which Buckley’s argues do not make her an appropriate Class representative in the proposed FACTA class action lawsuit against them. However, the court disagreed, saying it did not make Margaret an inadequate representative for the proposed Class.

However, the court did agree with the defendant’s other argument that “[Margaret] has failed to demonstrate ‘that a class action is superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating [this] controversy,’” because the proposed Class would be hard to determine and manage, according to the FACTA class action lawsuit.

Additionally, the court finds that a successful individual complaint by Margaret would provide her payment for court costs and attorney’s fees, and that “her proposed class action appears to be substantially more attorney-driven than client driven.”

The proposed FACTA settlement will provide an attorney’s fees award between $55,000 and $77,000, a monetary award to the plaintiff of $3,000, and finally a $14 Buckley’s gift card to purchase an appetizer for Class Members (though this presumes Class Members will have learned about the complaint and successfully “negotiate the proposed application process”).

The Buckley’s FACTA Class Action Lawsuit is Case No. 14-cv-063-LM, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire.

Free FACTA Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you made one or more purchases and the retailer provided you with a receipt that contained more than the last five digits of your credit or debit card number or the expiration date, you may be eligible for a free class action lawsuit investigation and to pursue compensation for these FACTA violations.

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