Another Bad Apple
The Settlement Scorecard – Issue #1
Class-action notices flood inboxes; most promise justice but deliver pennies. The Settlement Scorecard breaks down the real terms—no spin, no fee-justifying math—just what everyone in the plaintiffs’ bar knows but won’t say publicly.
Case: Lopez v. Apple (Siri recordings)
Allegation: Siri captured and stored private conversations without consent, violating state and federal wiretap laws.
Statutory exposure: Up to $10,000 per device (≈ 35 million devices × $10 k = ~$350 billion).
Settlement: $95 million cash fund + deletion of stored audio.
Context: How the Market Got Set
A decade ago, large statute-based privacy cases settled for $10–20 M, whatever the facts. The $650 M Facebook Biometric Privacy deal (22 % claims rate, $400 per claimant; disclosure: our firm led the case) proved that bigger, merit‑driven results are possible. Rather than spark a revolution, it merely raised the informal ceiling to roughly $100 M. Today many plaintiffs’ lawyers reverse‑engineer privacy deals to hit that number, then design high‑friction claims processes that keep participation low—preserving the illusion of meaningful relief while most victims collect nothing.
What Should We Grade Next?
Spot a settlement that deserves scrutiny—good, bad, or just plain weird? Send it our way and we’ll take a look.
I like this feature (critiquing settlements). What I would like to see added beyond the grades in each category would be a “best practice” recommendation, so we can incorporate those into our own settlements and raise the bar.
The notice is even worse than that. It is blasted from a new domain name instead of from apple.com, and the settlement administrator did not whitelist the domain name with major email providers. I found it in my Google spam filter. Apple has notified users of at least one previous settlement through direct notice to the iPhones themselves.