Consumer Protection & Class Actions

Benesch’s Consumer Protection & Class Actions team delivers strategic defense for global brands, national companies and emerging businesses facing high-stakes class-action litigation. We don’t merely defend class actions; we take control of cases, employing innovative approaches that avoid costly litigation and deliver favorable outcomes.

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Overview

Exceptional Track Record

Our team has resolved hundreds of high-stakes consumer attacks across the nation that have threatened to cripple industry-leading companies and has defended clients in over 300 high-stakes class action matters.

Benesch has the knowledge and experience to defeat the most common and most dangerous consumer protection claims. Our deep experience spans consumer fraud, false advertising, privacy violations, antitrust claims and emerging issues under state and federal consumer protection laws.

The numbers speak for themselves:

100+

consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices cases won

100+

California Unfair Competition Law claims defeated

100+

federal statutory claims under TCPA, FCRA, FACTA and more resolved

50+

retail consumer class actions neutralized

Our dominance is recognized in BTI Litigation Outlook, where we have been named a “Litigation Standout in Class Action Litigation,” a distinction reserved for the top 17% of all firms nationwide.

Focused Experience to Defeat the Most Litigated Claims

With decades of experience, we are the firm that has seen it all before and knows how to win. We are particularly experienced in:

Our team has handled more than 60 class actions under the Federal Wiretapping Act, Video Privacy Protection Act, California Invasion of Privacy Act and emerging privacy laws. While others scramble to understand these complex technologies, our attorneys have mastered both the technical landscape and the evolving legal frameworks to defeat consumer claims.

With 100+ TCPA cases across 30+ states, we have established a strong track record securing summary judgment, winning dismissals and defeating class certification. Global corporations choose us as national telemarketing counsel because we don’t just win cases, we create legal strategies that prevent future attacks.

As BIPA litigation exploded, Benesch was at the forefront of BIPA defense. Our team has pioneered novel constitutional defenses, HIPAA-based arguments and critical arbitration defenses that have neutralized more than 20 biometric class actions, establishing precedents that protect our clients’ operational integrity. Clients also trust Benesch to draft air-tight biometric policies that prevent future litigation.

Our decades-long specialization in retail class action defense has produced a string of precedent-setting victories. Benesch stands alone with a dedicated practice that has defended and won hundreds of high-stakes retail class action cases.

Innovative Litigation Strategies

Our class action team develops and implements customized litigation strategies and has successfully defeated class action lawsuits with innovative tactics, such as:

  • Early-stage strikes that seize control before discovery costs mount
  • Bifurcation strategies that impede our opponents’ momentum
  • Groundbreaking use of metadata and video evidence that exposes manufactured claims
  • Novel legal arguments that have rewritten the class action landscape in our clients’ favor

Preemptive Protection

Our team works directly with our clients to proactively engineer customized solutions that minimize exposure to consumer protection claims. Benesch provides:

  • Compliance program leadership that addresses vulnerabilities before class action firms can exploit them
  • Global and national guidance for corporations requiring multijurisdiction protection
  • Compliance review to ensure company policies, marketing materials and more are immune from consumer attacks
  • Policy, agreement and marketing material design that complies with federal, state and local consumer protection laws

When aggressive class action attorneys target your business with bet-the-company class actions, Benesch is the team to protect your business and brand.

Related Practices

Litigation

Our work in action

Representative Examples

Kohl’s

Won an affirmative motion to strike class claims, precluding any class from seeking monetary relief, in a case alleging deceptive pricing practices. Our motion advanced novel arguments based on the class waiver provision in our client’s terms of use that had not been raised in other, nearly identical litigation.

Stein Mart

Won on summary judgment in a pricing case alleging that our client listed deceptive “compare at” reference prices on its price tags. We persuaded the court as a matter of law that our client’s practices were not deceptive. This was the only pricing class action to date where a judge held as a matter of law that the retailer’s pricing practices were not deceptive.

L.L. Bean

Secured dismissal of a heavily publicized series of putative class actions across the country alleging that our client’s changes to its satisfaction guarantee denied customers the benefit of the guarantee in place when they made their purchases. Each court found that plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue their claims because they had not suffered a concrete injury and their purported future inability to make returns was too speculative.

Red Wing

Obtained a complete dismissal in state court of a class action brought under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, creating incredibly helpful case law in Florida in the process. The Fourth District Court of Appeals affirmed the decision after oral argument  and the Florida Supreme Court denied review.

Albertsons

Won a rare affirmative motion to deny class certification for Albertsons, cutting short a putative class action under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act at the pleading stage.

Blistex

Obtained dismissal with prejudice of a consumer fraud class action brought against Blistex alleging that the packaging of one of its products did not allow the consumer to obtain the entirety of the contents.