Consumer Protection Litigation Trends Revealed in New Report

While consumer protection cases have been on an overall decline over most of the past decade, there was an increase in general consumer protection cases, class action cases, TCPA cases and data breach cases last year.

Lex Machina, a LexisNexis company, released its 2024 Consumer Protection Litigation Report, which examines consumer protection litigation trends in federal district and appellate courts. Focusing on the three-year period from 2021 to 2023, it surveys emerging trends in case filings, venues, judges, law firms, attorneys, parties, timing metrics, case resolutions, findings and damages.

The report often focuses on different sets of data, e.g., filtering cases in order to provide analytics on general consumer protection cases, class action cases, FCRA cases, FDCPA cases, TCPA cases, data breach cases and consumer protection appellate cases.

“Consumer protection litigation is a complex and multi-faceted area of law that involves a broad spectrum of possible underlying claims,” said Laura Hopkins, Lex Machina’s consumer protection legal data expert and editor of the report. “In our report, we leverage Lex Machina’s diverse and nuanced filters to slice the data and analytics in order to gain crucial data-driven insights into the different subsets of consumer protection cases that matter most to practitioners.”

Findings from the report include:

• In 2023, 14,515 consumer protection cases were filed in federal district courts.

• In the three-year period from 2021 to 2023, the highest number of consumer protection cases was filed in the Central District of California, while Judge Burroughs from the District of Massachusetts was the most active judge for consumer protection cases.

• Individual plaintiffs dominated the lists of the most active plaintiffs, the vast majority filing cases that involved claims under the TCPA.

• Credit reporting companies comprised the bulk of the most active defendants, defending in cases that primarily involved claims under the FCRA.

• In the three-year period from 2021 to 2023, Atlas Consumer Law was the most active law firm representing plaintiffs in consumer protection cases, while Jones Day represented defendants in the highest number of consumer protection cases.

• For consumer protection cases that were appealed to a federal appellate court and terminated from 2021 to 2023 with a decision on the merits of the appeal, 30% were ultimately reversed.

• $13 billion in total damages were awarded as Approved Class Action Settlements from 2021 to 2023.

Lex Machina’s reports and software enable practitioners to devise data-driven litigation strategies. The metrics in this report can help readers decide who to pursue as clients, whether to file a particular motion or when to settle (and for how much). This research supplements traditional legal research and anecdotal data for a competitive edge in court.

Lex Machina provides strategic insights on judges, lawyers, law firms, parties and other critical information across 22 federal practice areas and a rapidly growing number of state courts.