No Shortcuts to Class Notice: Third Circuit Orders Sprint to Spend More Time and Money Identifying More Potential Class Members

2 July 2012
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Key takeaways:

  • According to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, when class action defendants can identify and notify class members of a proposed settlement through means costing $0.43 per person, they must do so, even when the class numbers in the millions.
  • Sprint Nextel could not avoid a five-month burden to search archived records in order to identify two to four million potential class members who paid early termination fees, given Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(c)(2)(B)'s command that individual notice must be provided to all class members who can be identified through "reasonable effort."